19 courses with the subject DAN, each shown exactly as we captured it from the college's catalog, with every element we hold. Where the wording looks broken, that is our reading of the catalog, not the college's text.
Instructor Bory Dance Production offers students an opportunity to participate in the creation and/or repertory restaging of a dance composition, choreographed by a member of the faculty or invited guest artist, to be performed in the department-sponsored show. Auditions will be held early in the semester.
Instructor J Davis, Nambiar This course serves as an introduction to major concepts and issues in the study of dance, with a focus on exploring dance as a meaning making practice. Examining the cultural, historical, and artistic conditions of various forms, we will develop our ability to “read” a dance and articulate what it reveals about the social contexts in which it is performed. During the semester, through readings, lecture, discussion, videos, physical practice, and embodied reseatch, we will attend to the ways in which social identities are formed and transformed, reinforced and challenged through dance practices. We will specifically pay careful attention to how the issues of race, class, ethnicity, gender and sexuality affect the making, performing and understanding of dance. Satisfies a requirement in the Communication Studies interdisciplinary major and minor. Satisfies the Visual and Performing Arts requirement.
Instructor Davis In this introductory course, we will explore how we move, what makes us move, and what we can do with our movement. Foregrounding what we can learn from sensation, we will investigate the physical expression of our anatomical systems. Working with principles from various somatic practices (including, but not limited to, Bartenieff Fundamentals, Body-Mind Centering, and Pilates), we will uncover our movement habits, patterns, and ways to work toward greater ease in all we do. Developing upon our own capabilities and movement interests, we will explore how the body can serve as a site for creativity and artistic discovery. Reading, discussion, and personal reflection will be threaded through the course. Only curiosity is necessary; no previous dance experience required. Satisfies Dance Studies minor requirement. Satisfies Public Health major and minor requirement. Satisfies Visual and Performing Arts requirement.
Instructor Chapman How do Caribbean dance practices mobilize identity, history, politics and community values? In what ways does dance shape understandings of Caribbean peoples and nations? What forms of embodied practice produce, sustain and promote Caribbean ways of knowing? How can we engage dance as a site to study creative forms of resistance and migration? This course introduces students to the study of Caribbean dance forms through regular dance practice as well as reading, writing, viewing, discussions, research, and guest artist visits. Throughout the semester, we will explore a diversity of Caribbean dance practices, primarily focusing on Cuba, Haiti, Trinidad, and Puerto Rico, paying particular attention to race, gender and sexuality. No dance experience necessary, just willingness to approach course engagement from an embodied perspective. Satisfies a major requirement in Africana Studies Satisfies a minor requirement in Dance Satisfies the Visual and Performing Arts requirement Satisfies the Cultural Diversity requirement
Instructor Nambiar This is a movement course in which students will gain strength and balance by learning a limited and specific set of Asian dance techniques, while also experimenting with transforming short phrases of text (stories, poetries, lyrical images) into movement. There will be contextual readings on the history, aesthetic philosophy and politics of the forms that have inspired this course - Seraikela Chhau (from the eastern Indian state of Odisha) and Kalari (from the Southern Indian state of Kerala), Butoh (from Japan), Wayang Wong (from Indonesia) and Odissi (from the eastern Indian state of Odisha). The movement philosophies of all these forms emphasize strength, balance, minimalism and mindfulness, rather than speed - hence the title. The course is about finding beauty and expression by mindful engagement with the body, applied this towards creating short, beautiful experiments of movement art. Besides movement work in the studio, this course also requires students to do readings, video viewing, discussion, and written analysis. Satisfies Dance minor requirement. Satisfies South Asian Studies minor requirement. Satisfies the Visual and Performing Arts requirement Satisfies the Cultural Diversity requirement
Instructor J Davis Emerging at the turn of the twentieth century, modern dance encourages the development of physical capacities for creative expression. Focusing on proper alignment, body mechanics, and anatomical efficiency, this course introduces the basic principles and technical components involved in performing techniques of Modern Dance. Though the primary work is in the studio, course work will also include readings, video viewing, discussion, and written analysis. No previous dance experience is necessary. Satisfies the Visual and Performing Arts requirement.
Instructor Nambiar This Odissi technique course is a contemporary take on the ancient, eastern Indian dance form, Odissi. The training creates this extraordinary, venerable body through spinal torsion, quad and gluteal strength and expressiveness. The class will cover the basic technique of Odissi dance-strong, stamping footwork, the sinuous torso, expressive gaze and story-telling hand gestures. Historically, the training and embodiment of Odissi invited the participation of male and female identifying bodies in India to create what Dance scholar Anurima Bannerji calls extraordinary gender: “a category of gender which was traditionally minoritarian…[though] not marginalized but venerated [and] existed as a legitimate space of difference and honor within dominant cultural logics” (Dancing Odissi, p119). The politics of this form is embedded in its fluidity of the feminine and the masculine, the ancient and the modern, and the active and the passive. This is primarily a movement-based dance class. Students will learn to move in “extraordinary” ways while remaining dynamic, powerful and activated. Students will engage deeply in some readings about the form’s history, alongside documentary and performance video and audio material. Satisfies Dance minor requirement. Satisfies Gender and Sexuality Studies major and minor requirement. Satisfies South Asian Studies minor requirement. Satisfies Cultural Diversity requirement. Satisfies the Visual and Performing Arts requirement.
Instructor Bory In this course, students will experience and develop choreography as an unfolding practice, an act of creative research, and a collaborative endeavor. Working closely with the instructor and with others in the class, students will work though the choreographic process to develop an original composition from a predetermined site of instigation, selected by the instructor. Throughout the semester, students will work together to research choreographic themes, craft and revise performance material, refine performance strategies and approaches, and publicly present their work. The making and performance process will address issues related to composition and collaboration, including: questioning aesthetic values and assumptions about the dancemaking process; prioritizing experiences; cultivating presence in rehearsal and performance; and challenging traditional ideas about authorship and meaning-making. Throughout the semester, physical practice will be supported by dramaturgical research and reflective writings. Fulfills an elective requirement or serves an alternative to the composition requirement (DAN 260) in the Dance Studies minor. Satisfies a Visual & Performing Arts requirement. Prerequisites & Notes DAN 240, or permission of the instructor
Instructor Davis An introduction to the fundamental skills of dancemaking, this course explores the development and crafting of movement for performance. Examining a range of compositional methods and performance approaches, students will develop the basic tools for dance choreography. Coursework will include studio practice, readings, performance viewings, and written assignments. Students entering 2012 and after: satisfies Visual and Performing Arts requirement. Students entering before 2012: satisfies Fine Arts requirement. Prerequisites & Notes DAN 240 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor D. Chapman Through a transhistorical study of a various styles and forms, this lecture/discussion class examines a variety of issues around gender and sexuality illuminated in the staging, performance, and practice of dance. Understanding dance as a focused site for conceptualizing how bodies make meaning, this course explores the social and historical configuration of dancing bodies and dance’s capacity to form and transform social identities. Course work includes readings, performance viewings, presentations, and written assignments. Satisfies the Justice, Equality, and Community requirement. Satisfies the Visual and Performing Arts requirement
Instructor Chapman In this course, we will consider the ways in which dance and performance scholarship examines the politics of performance. Looking at particular dance forms and choreographic compositions as case studies, we will scrutinize how dance has been exercised to wield state power and forward narratives of nationhood. In so doing, we will consider how institutional powers have regulated dance to control citizenry and to dominate marginalized peoples. To being to question what is threatening about dance’s organizing of bodies, we will examine dances that have been censored, legislated, and outlawed, as well as looking at how acts of protests and demonstration manifest choreographic strategies and ideas. Throughout our study, we will continually return to questions around the performance of identity, attending to the ways in which the intersections of gender, sexuality, race, class, and ethnicity factor into these danced practices of authority and protest. Considering the body and its organization in performance as potent sites for analysis, this course will take an interdisciplinary approach to our study, intermingling critical readings in Dance Studies, Performance Studies, Gender & Sexuality Studies, and political theory, alongside performance viewings and physical exploration. Synchronous meetings (online) are very highly recommended for success in this course. Fulfills a theory requirement in the Dance minor. Satisfies the Justice, Equality, and Community requirement.
Instructor Bory When is performance performative? What might it do? Using contemporary performance as a site of inquiry and analysis, this course will examine what it means to perform queerness. Considering queer as an identity, an approach, and an aesthetic, the class will explore how performances might question the assumptions and ideologies of social and cultural normativity. Attending to the realities and possibilities of live arts, the course material will tackle issues of some of the issues of intersectionality, representation, (dis)identification, and desire that emerge in the study of embodiment. Bringing scholarship (primarily from Dance Studies, Performance Studies, Cultural Studies, and Theater) into conversation with recent creative/art practices, the class will invite students to analyze, interrogate, imagine, and make their own interventions into contemporary performance cultures. Satisfies Gender and Sexuality major requirement. Satisfies Dance minor requirement. Satisfies Visual and Performing Arts requirement. Satisfies Justice, Equality, and Community requirement.
Instructor Nambiar This course will offer a study of dance as a constitutive part of the history and development of the motion-picture medium. Students of dance and film will learn about the historical presence of dancing bodies on screen, including but not limited to early cinematic experiments featuring dancers, Hollywood and Bollywood musicals, cinematic dance as an autonomous genre outside of narrative cinema, as well as internet-and mobile-phone-native dance genres. Readings and analysis are aimed at familiarizing students with dance, film and screen-dance theory and sharpen their ability to read bodies on screen. Satisfies Dance minor requirement. Satisfies Film, Media and Digital Studies major requirement. Satisfies Film, and Media Studies minor requirement. Satisfies Visual and Performing Arts requirement.
Instructor Staff Independent honors thesis under the direction of a faculty member.
Instructor Bory Designed for students with prior dance training, this movement practice course builds upon student awareness of the principles and techniques of modern dance. Emphasizing further development of the skills of movement execution and expressively, course work will include studio practice, readings, video screenings, and written work. Satisfies the Visual and Performing Arts requirement. Prerequisites & Notes DAN 240 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor Chapman This course is designed as the second step in the Haitian Dance Technique sequence, or for students with prior training in African diasporic dance forms. Building on prior engagement, DAN342 emphasizes further development of skills in movement execution and expression, as well as deeper study of Haitian culture, history, and politics. We focus on a different set of rhythms/dances in the dance practice, and trace themes of artistry and cultural creativity in reading, writing, viewing, and discussion. This course culminates in a final dance performance, as well as accompanying research projects that integrate an embodied/creative component. Satisfies Dance minor requirement. Satisfies an Africana Studies major requirement. Satisfies Visual and Performing Arts requirement. Satisfies Cultural Diversity requirement. Prerequisites & Notes DAN242 or instructor permission required.
Instructor Davis Building upon the choreographic ideas introduced of Dance Composition I, this course explores compositional practices and processes in more depth. Through the coursework, students will research performance making methods, engage various approaches to performance making, and develop methods for crafting their own performance work. In order to begin to define their own dancemaking aesthetics, each student will be asked to create their own set of research questions, which will drive their movement and compositional explorations throughout the semester. Satisfies Visual and Performing Arts requirement. Satisfies a minor requirement in Dance Studies. Prerequisites & Notes
Instructor Bory When is performance performative? What might it do? Using contemporary performance as a site of inquiry and analysis, this course will examine what it means to perform queerness. Considering queer as an identity, an approach, and an aesthetic, the class will explore how performances might question the assumptions and ideologies of social and cultural normativity. Attending to the realities and possibilities of live arts, the course material will tackle issues of some of the issues of intersectionality, representation, (dis)identification, and desire that emerge in the study of embodiment. Bringing scholarship (primarily from Dance Studies, Performance Studies, Cultural Studies, and Theater) into conversation with recent creative/art practices, the class will invite students to analyze, interrogate, imagine, and make their own interventions into contemporary performance cultures. Satisfies Dance minor requirement. Satisfies Gender and Sexuality Studies major and minor requirement. Satisfies Visual, and Performing Arts requirement. Satisfies Justice, Equality, and Community requirement.
Instructor Bory Independent honors thesis under the direction of a faculty member.
Source: Davidson College's catalog, linked per course · table learning_unit · CourseShelf publish 61
