Dance Courses

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We will explore the foundations of black performance theory, drawing from the fields of performance studies, theater, dance, and black studies. Using methods of ethnography, archival studies, and black theatrical and dance paradigms, we will learn how scholars and artists imagine, complicate, and manifest various forms of blackness across time and space. In particular, we will focus on blackness as both lived experience and as a mode of theoretical inquiry.

Movement permeates every aspect of life, whether within our bodies, minds, or the world around us. In this studio course open to everyone, we use tools from Laban Movement Analysis to develop ways to dance, improvise, make performance, and fully inhabit our lives. We dive into the roles of dancer, choreographer, audience member, and critic in relation to aesthetic questions, politics, identity, religion, and complex views of the human body. Students can apply our work together to dance in any style as well as to daily experiences like moving into an interview confidently and finding embodied practices for transforming stress.

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.

This course offers a broad, embodied introduction to the breadth of contemporary dance. We will be moving, reading, watching, and writing about dance. Contemporary issues, such as Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ rights, immigration, and American exceptionalism will be viewed through the lens of contemporary dance. We will try on the styles of essential creators in the field in an effort to understand their POV. We will create work ourselves (no experience necessary) to learn about the expressive and communicative potential of dance. We will be moving and meditating to release tension, increase personal awareness, and boost authenticity.

This introductory course gives equal weight to scholarly study and embodied practice, using both approaches to explore the flow, power and cultural contexts of Breaking. This course will focus on developing a clear foundational Breaking technique in order to build a strong basis for exploring other Hip-Hop forms. By critically exploring this form physically and historically, individuals will adapt and apply their own philosophies to dance in order to eventually develop a personalized style.

This seminar is designed for junior students pursuing the minor who are planning to choreograph a senior independent project. Part study and discussion of the processes, aesthetics and politics involved in dance making and viewing - part independent creative practice and critique - this course invites students to a deeper understanding of their own art-making perspectives and to those of their classmates. A practical lighting workshop and other workshops of particular interest to the class prepare students for some of the directional, collaborative and interpersonal challenges involved in leading a significant choreographic enterprise.

How did concert dancers and choreographers respond to the aesthetic, social, and political economic shifts we call 'modernism'? How does dance enter the archive? We pursue these questions by examining the ways gender, nationalisms, race, and sexuality shaped ideas of the modern. Key figures include Isadora Duncan, Vaslav Nijinsky, Katherine Dunham, Sada Yakko, Martha Graham, Zora Neale Hurston, and others. We begin with dance modernisms in China, Japan, Mexico, and Europe before turning to US cases, with an emphasis on how dance artists negotiated their authority as state actors and public intellectuals.

This intensive workshop explores performance as a site for an evolving, transdisciplinarity that is in mindful relationship with artistic movements, cultural continua, contemporary resonances, and individual agency. Rather than fetishize the urgent development of a legible, "authentic", or (impossibly) unique artistic identity, we will instead strive toward a practice of radical honesty, fluid curiosity, fierce courage, intentional consumption, and rigorous reflection. To that end, students will regularly create, perform, and document original solo & group work that syncretizes multiple disciplines.

Students from across fields who are interested in slowing down the art-making process to explore the nature of devising, developing, revising, and performing are invited to join this studio course. We'll make an expansive artist residency together and delve into the often-intermingled roles of creator, performer, designer, and audience member. We'll use embodied tools to generate material and hone collaborative processes. We'll question why and how and in what contexts we create. We'll look at forms like the lecture-performance, the happening, concert dance, and one-person shows. Culminates in student-created performances at the end of term.

This advanced studio course explores the interplay between foundational modern dance techniques such as Dunham, Graham, Humphrey/Limon, Horton, and Cunningham, alongside contemporary practices including Contact Improvisation, Gaga, Flying Low, and Umfundalai. Through intensive physical training with rotating faculty, students engage in a comparative, embodied approach to develop personal movement research. The course blends historical and contemporary perspectives, encouraging critical reflection on how dance engages with evolving ideas about the body, identity, and performance, offering a comprehensive view of contemporary dance.

This advanced studio course explores the Hip-Hop dance aesthetic from multiple perspectives, in order to help students develop their own personal relationship to the culture and its influences. Structured around a series of guest workshops by dancers from a range of Hip-Hop dance traditions, the course will engage with these forms on their own terms, but also with an eye towards exploring the more abstract artistic options that Hip-Hop dance offers.

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.

Rooted in Professor of Creative Writing Patricia Smith's monumental book of poetry, Blood Dazzler, three award-winning artists (Patricia Smith, Davalois Fearon, and Paloma McGregor) will lead students in a collaborative creative process for building performance through poetry, dance, music, and visual art. Blood Dazzler centered on Hurricane Katrina, a deadly category 5 storm. Twenty years later, students will research the storm and its ongoing aftermath, including watching documentaries, conducting interviews, attending events, reading, and writing. Students will be given assignments based on the day's activity and discussion and develop performance works for presentation to the Princeton community on April 24, 2025.

Led by Choreographer Kyle Marshall and Creative Director Edo Tastic, of dance company Kyle Marshall Choreography. This course will embrace an interdisciplinary approach to art making. Through movement, poetry and visual art, students will explore their individual and collective experiences of people living in the United States of America. Students will build their own choreographic structures, poetic works, and visual stories informed by American historical documents, iconic speeches and expansive poetry. The course will culminate in a final public multidisciplinary presentation with dance and speaking. All experience levels are welcome.