Dance Courses

Dance Courses

Introduction to Art Making

LCA 101 · Fall 2024

C01 · Mondays and Wednesdays, 11:00 AM - 12:20 PM

Instructors: Morgan Jerkins · Ruth Ochs · Shariffa Ali · Stacy Wolf · Olivier Tarpaga · Tess James · Tim Szetela

How do artists make art? How do we evaluate it? In this course, students of all levels get to experience firsthand the particular challenges and rewards of art making through practical engagement with five fields — creative writing, visual art, theater, dance, and music — under the guidance of professionals.

Choreopoem

MTD 202 / THR 202 / AAS 205 / DAN 205 · Fall 2024

U01 · Tuesdays, 1:30-3:20 PM Thursdays, 1:30-4:20 PM

Instructors: Chesney Snow

An intensive immersive exploration of experimental, documentary-style music theater that investigates the history, form, and performance of the choreopoem.

Body and Language

DAN 208 / THR 208 / GHP 338 · Fall 2024

C01 · Thursdays, 1:30-4:20 PM

Instructors: Aynsley Vandenbroucke

In this studio course open to all, we will dive into experiences in which body and language meet. We'll think about these from aesthetic, cultural, political, medical, personal, and philosophical perspectives. We'll explore language from, in, around, and about (our) bodies.

The American Experience and Dance Practices of the African Diaspora

DAN 211 / AAS 211 · Fall 2024

U01 · Mondays and Wednesdays, 2:30-4:20 PM

Instructors: Dyane Harvey-Salaam

A studio course introducing students to American dance aesthetics and practices, with a focus on how its evolution has been influenced by African American choreographers and dancers. An ongoing study of movement practices from traditional African dances and those of the African diaspora, touching on American jazz dance, modern dance, and American ballet.

Introduction to Dance Across Cultures

DAN 215 / GSS 215 / AMS 215 / ANT 355 · Fall 2024

S01 · Wednesdays, 1:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: Judith Hamera

Bharatanatyam, butoh, hip hop, and salsa are some of the dances that will have us travel from temples and courtyards to clubs, streets, and stages around the world.

Experiential Anatomy

DAN 224 · Fall 2024

U01 · Tuesdays + Thursdays, 12:30-2:20 PM

Instructors: Sasha Welsh

This course introduces students to human anatomy using movement, drawing, and dance practices. We will study the structure and function of the body from an interdisciplinary perspective, with a focus on relationships between cognition, the nervous system and movement.

Body and Object: Making Art that is both Sculpture and Dance

VIS 300 / DAN 301 · Fall 2024

U01 · Tuesdays, 1:30-4:20 PM

Instructors: Martha Friedman · Susan Marshall

Students in VIS 300 / DAN 301 will create sculptures that relate directly to the body and compel performance, interaction, and movement. Students will also create dances that are informed by garments, objects, props and structures. Works will be created for unconventional spaces and designed to challenge viewer/performer/object relationships, augment and constrain the body, and trace the body's actions and form. The class will consider how context informs perceptions of the borders between performance, bodies and objects.

Dancing New York in the Twentieth Century

AAS 310 / DAN 313 / AMS 295 · Fall 2024

S01 · Tuesdays & Thursdays 8:30-9:50 AM

Instructors: Staff

This seminar will interweave the history of New York City with the history of dance across the twentieth century. It will use the work of dancers, choreographers, and critics to illuminate social, political, and cultural trends in New York's urban life.

Princeton Dance Festival: Choreography and Performance

DAN 328 · Fall 2024

Multiple sections offered

Instructors: Davalois Fearon · Raja Feather Kelly · Rebecca Lazier

Princeton Dance Festival is a studio course that culminates in two performances: the Princeton Dance Festival at the Berlind Theatre and a choreographic showing in the Hearst Theater. Students learn and perform dances either through collaboration with faculty or by learning significant dances from contemporary choreographers. In the choreography precepts, students engage in creative practices to gain fluency with a range of choreographic approaches. Readings and viewings support students' growth as performers, choreographers, viewers, readers and writers of dance.

Performance as Art

VIS 354 / DAN 354 / THR 354 · Fall 2024

U01 · Wednesdays, 1:30-4:20 PM

Instructors: Colleen Asper

This studio class will explore a broad range of approaches to art-based performance: from instruction pieces and happenings, to the body as language and gesture, to performance as a form of archiving.

Ballet as an Evolving Form: Technique and Repertory

DAN 432 · Fall 2024

C01 · Monday & Wednesday, 4:30-6:20 PM Fridays, 1:30-3:20 PM

Instructors: Tina Fehlandt

A studio course in Contemporary Ballet technique for advanced dancers, with explorations into neoclassical and contemporary choreography through readings, viewings, and the learning of and creation of repertory. Through visits with prominent guest artists, students will examine the shifts that "Ballet" is making to stay relevant and meaningful as a "21st" century art form.