This advanced studio/seminar topics course explores the artistic, social, and cultural implications of hip-hop dance through an intensive focus on the concept of style. Using master classes, academic study, and embodied practice in the studio to develop a physical understanding and detailed social analysis of four specific hip-hop dance genres, we will explore the distinctive cultural influences that shaped each of these diverse forms, as well the deeper movement principles that they share. These principles will then be placed in the larger historical, political and performative context of the Afro-Diasporic experience in the Americas.
Sample reading list:
Marshall Berman, All That Is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity
Benjy Melendez and Amir Said, Ghetto Brother
T.J. Desh Obi, Fighting For Honor: The History of African Martial Art
Susan A. Phillips, Crip Walk, Villan Dance, Pueblo Stroll
Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic
Reading/Writing assignments:
Reading/Writing assignments for this course include approximately 100 pages of reading per week, four short seminar papers of approximately 4-5 pages each, and notes to be taken in conjunction with the movement portion of the class.
Application required. Apply online …
