Dance Courses and Schedule

ARTD B136 Modern: Beginning Technique

Not offered 2023-24

Beginning level dance technique courses focus on introducing movement vocabulary, developing skills, and gaining an understanding of the form. Students must meet the attendance requirement, and complete three short writing assignments. Offered on a pass/fail basis only.

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ARTD B137 Ballet: Beginning Technique

Fall 2023, Spring 2024

Beginning level dance technique courses focus on introducing movement vocabulary, developing skills, and gaining an understanding of the form. Students must meet the attendance requirement, and complete three short writing assignments. Offered on a pass/fail basis only.

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ARTD B138 Hip Hop Lineages

Not offered 2023-24

Hip Hop Lineages is a team-taught practice-based course, exploring the embodied foundations of Hip Hop and its expression as a global phenomenon. Offered on a pass/fail basis only.

Course does not meet an Approach

Counts Toward Africana Studies

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ARTD B139 Movement as Freedom: Improv/Freestyle

Not offered 2023-24

This course will be a team-taught experience in the physical practice of movement invention. One half of the course will investigate structured improvisation and the other will involve freestyle as an African diasporic tradition. Offered on a pass/fail basis only.

Writing Intensive

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ARTD B140 Approaches to Dance: Themes and Perspectives

Spring 2024

This course introduces students to dance as a multi-layered, significant and enduring human behavior that ranges from art to play, from ritual to politics, and beyond. It engages students in the creative, critical, and conceptual processes that emerge in response to the study of dance. It also explores the research potential that arises when other areas of academic inquiry, including criticism, ethnology, history and philosophy, interact with dance and dance scholarship. Lectures, discussion, film, video, and guest speakers are included.

Writing Attentive

Critical Interpretation (CI)

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ARTD B141 African Diaspora: Beginning Technique

Fall 2023

The African Diaspora course cultivates a community that centers global blackness, dance, live music, and movement culture. Embody living traditions from a selection of peoples and countries including Guinea, Ghana, Mali, Brazil, and Cuba. Offered on a pass/fail basis only.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Counts Toward Africana Studies

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ARTD B142 Dance Composition: Process and Presence

Not offered 2023-24

This dance and movement composition course is open to movers of any kind, from any background, who want to explore embodied creation as a part of their educational and/or life practice. It engages students in developing and structuring movement ideas to build community with one another and the natural environment. This course will offer tools for developing creative problem-solving skills; exploring embodied approaches to observation, analysis, and communication; and investigating possibilities for collaboration. Students will be introduced to freestyle, cultural narratives, memoir, and other relevant resources as tools for researching and sketching choreographic ideas. Movement exercises, viewing of live and filmed work, and discussions will help to sharpen visual analysis and kinesthetic responses. The course includes journaling and required readings and viewings but focuses primarily on weekly movement assignments. Concurrent participation in any Dance Program technique course, either for academic or PE credit, is recommended.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

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ARTD B143 Jazz: Beginning Technique

Not offered 2023-24

Beginning level dance technique courses focus on introducing movement vocabulary, developing skills, and gaining an understanding of the form. Students must meet the attendance requirement, and complete three short writing assignments. Offered on a pass/fail basis only.

Course does not meet an Approach

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ARTD B146 Asian Diaspora: Beginning Technique

Not offered 2023-24

Beginning level dance technique courses focus on introducing movement vocabulary, developing skills, and gaining an understanding of the form. Students must meet the attendance requirement, and complete three short writing assignments. Offered on a pass/fail basis only. This course is focused specifically in the dance form Bharatanatyam.

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ARTD B210 Sacred Activism: Dancing Altars, Radical Moves

Section 001 (Fall 2022): Paradigms of Revival

Not offered 2023-24

How do practices of embodiment, choreography, artistry, performance, testifying, and witnessing guide us to transformative and liberation action in our lives? This course excavates the adornment of beings/bodies and the making of sacred spaces for embodied performance, introspection, and ceremonial dance. We will take up the notion of the being/body as an altar and the importance of costume and garb in setting the scene for activism, ritual, and staged offerings. The cognitive has gotten us here, what might continuums of believing in the being/body unveil? Expect to dance, move, write, discuss, create projects, and engage in a variety of textual and media resources. We will work individually and collectively for communal learning. The content for this course will be steeped in the lives, cultures, and practices of black and brown folks. This is a writing and dance attentive course. No dance experience necessary, just courage to move.

Writing Attentive

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Counts Toward Africana Studies

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ARTD B220 Screendance: Movement and the Camera

Spring 2024

This course is a practical introduction to Screendance for students interested in extending their experience or interest in dance and movement into a new realm. Also known as dancefilm, cinedance, videodance and/or dance for the camera, Screendance connects film (and filmmaking) with dance (and dancemaking) in an evolving hybrid performative practice. For both the maker and audience, the inquiry is the adventure of discovering what the coming together of dance and screen can be. Screendance can be described as diverse, global, emergent, alive, active, trans-media, continually evolving. Through class screenings, exercises, readings and discussion, students will learn approaches to combining dance and the moving image. Students will work alone and in small collaborative groups to create their own works integrating dance and video. Through creative projects, students will develop their own cinematic style and an increased proficiency with both filming and editing movement.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Counts Toward Film Studies

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ARTD B225 Dancing Histories/Writing Dance

Fall 2023

Black and African American dance is often best analyzed, critiqued, and understood in its sociopolitical context. In this course, there are two questions that will be primary modes of engagement: What are the major American and African American political and social agendas and events in the late twentieth century? What are the major choreographic works in the late twentieth century African American concert milieu? The socio-political and the field of dance merge seamlessly as the centerpieces of this course. As researchers, there are three overlapping aims: to learn about concert dance histories through historical sources, scholarship, and embodiment; to understand the processes of historiography; and to prepare students to undertake their own historical research and scholarship. The course is designed to illustrate how our understanding of the past is dynamic and evolving rather than fixed and static. Through critical engagement with the art of concert dance, Dancing Histories/Writing Dance emphasizes how history is written, questioned, and rewritten through vernacular and sacred dance performance. Assigned readings and viewings of work will enable recognition of how dance scholars have written, and revised, dance histories. Students will develop a strong methodological framework that will allow them to grasp the effects of cultural competence and critical bias, and the ways in which the writing of history is a creative, political, and ideological process. This is a writing attentive course and was originally created by Elizabeth J Bergman.

Writing Attentive

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

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ARTD B230 Modern: Intermediate Technique

Fall 2023

Course Objectives: to experience a progression of movement phrases designed to develop an understanding of modern dance principles; to gain confidence in increasingly complex movement sequences, and explore movement creatively; to improve body placement, strength, stamina, and flexibility while embodying modern dance technique; to investigate elements of choreography with an emphasis on modern dance characteristics; to incorporate elements of improvisation and to communicate movement ideas, both individually and collaboratively.

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ARTD B231 Ballet: Intermediate Technique

Fall 2023, Spring 2024

Intermediate level dance technique courses focus on expanding the movement vocabulary, on introducing movement phrases that are increasingly complex and rigorous, and on directing attention to dynamics and spatial ideas. Students will be evaluated on their openness and commitment to the learning process, increased understanding of the technique, and demonstration in class of their technical and stylistic progress and accomplishment. Preparation: three semesters of beginning level ballet, or its equivalent, or permission of the instructor. First-semester first year students must take a placement class during customs week.

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ARTD B232 Jazz: Intermediate Technique

Spring 2024

Course Objectives: to experience a progression of movement phrases designed to develop an understanding of modern dance principles; to gain confidence in increasingly complex movement sequences, and explore movement creatively; to improve body placement, strength, stamina, and flexibility while embodying modern dance technique.

Course does not meet an Approach

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ARTD B233 Hip Hop: Intermediate Technique

Not offered 2023-24

Course Objectives: to experience a progression of movement phrases designed to develop an understanding of Hip Hop dance principles; to gain confidence in increasingly complex movement sequences, and explore movement creatively; to improve body placement, strength, stamina, and flexibility while embodying Hip Hop dance technique; to investigate elements of choreography with an emphasis on modern dance characteristics; to incorporate elements of improvisation and to communicate movement ideas, both individually and collaboratively.

Course does not meet an Approach

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ARTD B242 Dance Composition: Elements and Craft

Not offered 2023-24

This dance composition course develops knowledge and skill in the theory and craft of choreography. Basic elements of dancemaking such as space, timing, shaping, and relationship are explored and refined through structured and open movement experiences. Attention is given to developing movement invention skills and compositional strategies; considering form and structure; investigating music, language, images, and objects as sources; experimenting with group design; and broadening critical understanding of their own work and the work of others. Students will work on weekly solo and group projects. Related viewing and reading will be assigned. Concurrent participation in any Dance Program technique course, either for credit or as an auditor, is recommended. Additional costs: In lieu of books, students may incur $10-30 in performance ticket fees but may take advantage of free Tri-co performances. Course was previously taught at ARTD B144.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

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ARTD B243 Dance Comp: Making in the Moment

Fall 2023

What movement emerges from your body/being in the absence of memorized choreography? How do you make an improvised dance in collaboration with others? This course is primarily a movement experience course sourced from western practices of dance improvisation. It will include guided movement practices, some readings, viewings, and journaling, as well as partner and group work-- all in service of exploring your improvisation movement practice. We will consider dance as a playful act that belongs to everyone, develop an eye for how composition emerges out of improvisation, and delve into collaboration as a rich creative resource, all of which become platforms to address discourses on body politics, the multicultural foundations of western dance improvisation, and the interdisciplinarity of the form. This course works to build a space in which the vulnerability of your curiosity leads to the discovery of dance compositions and movement that can only transpire through making dance in the moment. Some previous dance experience is good but not necessary; the courage to move is critical and will most support this work.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

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ARTD B260 Dance Education: Practice and Performance

Not offered 2023-24

Dance education is a world where teaching and performance coalesce to center being-with-our-bodies as a platform for learning. This course involves collaboratively creating an educational program for young audiences, communities, and participants in various educational sites. The seminar portion of the course engages students in reading, writing, and discussion on various perspectives of dance pedagogy, theory, and teaching strategies. The embodied component of the course brings students into a fluid relationship between theory and practice through teaching, peer-observation, and reflection on arts in education. There will be field visits during the course that include teaching and performance opportunities. This course is intended for students with experience in any dance form or theatrical performance at any level and we welcome students who are courageously beginning their journey with dance. It is embodied and writing attentive.

Writing Attentive

Critical Interpretation (CI)

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ARTD B270 Diasporic Bodies, Citizenship, and Dance

Not offered 2023-24

Take a journey through citizenship, belonging and revolutions, guided by the lived experiences of prominent teachers, choreographers, and performers of traditional and contemporary dances of Black and African descent. Our theory and practice frameworks are grounded in the works of women and LGBTQ+ scholars and dance artists navigating diasporic blackness, citizenship, and nationhood. We will centralize the notion that Black Life is Tied to All Life, investigating the significance of developing philosophies and practices of integrity, as well as boundary-breaking transformations when traversing dance/movement as a nomadic practice in a globalized world. No dance experience is necessary, but a willingness to move is essential.

Writing Intensive

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ARTD B280 Practical Anatomy: Muscles, Bones, Movement

Fall 2023

KNOW THYSELF! This course is designed as a human anatomy class for students interested in the application of anatomy to physical activities including dance, sport, and movement in general. Students will learn musculoskeletal anatomy, basic kinesiology, strengthening and stretching practices, and injury identification and management. Students will support theoretical knowledge with experiential movement analysis in class. The goal of the course is to present a scientific basis that will aid in a greater understanding of how individual's bodies are shaped and move, and how to achieve greater efficiency of movement and desired performance outcomes.

Course does not meet an Approach

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ARTD B330 Modern: Advanced Technique

Fall 2023, Spring 2024

dvanced level technique courses continue to expand movement vocabulary and to introduce increasingly challenging movement phrases and repertory. The advanced modern course focuses on both intellectual and kinesthetic understanding of movement and command of technical challenges and performance. Students will be evaluated on their openness and commitment to the learning process, increased understanding of the technique, and demonstration in class of their technical and stylistic progress and accomplishment. Preparation: three semesters of Modern: Intermediate Technique, or its equivalent, or permission of the instructor. First-year students should contact Mady Cantor, Director of Dance, to discuss placement at mcantor@brynmaw.r.edu.

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ARTD B331 Ballet: Advanced Technique

Fall 2023, Spring 2024

Advanced level technique courses continue to expand movement vocabulary and to introduce increasingly challenging movement phrases and repertory. The advanced ballet course focuses on both intellectual and kinesthetic understanding and command of technical challenges and performance. The last half hour of the class is used for optional pointe or variations with the permission of the instructor. Students will be evaluated on their openness and commitment to the learning process, increased understanding of the technique, and demonstration in class of progress and accomplishment. Preparation: minimum of 3 semesters of intermediate ballet, or its equivalent, or permission of the instructor. First year students should contact Lela Aisha Jones at ljones2@brynmawr.edu regarding placement procedures.

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ARTD B342 Advanced Choreography

Fall 2023, Spring 2024

Independent study in choreography under the guidance of the instructor. Students are expected to produce one major choreographic work and are responsible for all production considerations. Concurrent attendance in any level technique course is recommended. Pre-requisite: ARTD B142: Dance Composition: Process and Presence and ARTD B242: Dance Composition: Elements and Craft.

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ARTD B345 Dance Ensemble: Modern

Fall 2023, Spring 2024

Dance ensembles are designed to offer students significant opportunities to develop dance technique and performance skills. Students audition for entrance into individual ensembles. Original works choreographed by faculty or guest choreographers or works reconstructed / restaged from classic or contemporary repertories are rehearsed and performed in concert. Students are evaluated on their participation in rehearsals, demonstration of commitment and openness to the choreographic process, and achievement in performance. Preparation: This course is suitable for intermediate and advanced level dancers. Concurrent attendance in at least one technique class per week is recommended. Students must commit to the full semester and be available for rehearsal week and performances in the Spring Dance Concert.

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ARTD B346 Dance Ensemble: Ballet

Not offered 2023-24

Dance ensembles are designed to offer students significant opportunities to develop dance technique and performance skills. Students audition for entrance into individual ensembles. Original works choreographed by faculty or guest choreographers are rehearsed and performed in concert. Students are evaluated on their participation in rehearsals, demonstration of commitment and openness to the choreographic process, and achievement in performance. Preparation: This course is suitable for intermediate and advanced level dancers. Concurrent attendance in at least one technique class per week is recommended. Students must commit to the full semester and be available for rehearsal week and performances in the Spring Dance Concert.

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ARTD B348 Ensemble: African Diaspora Dance

Spring 2024

Dance ensembles are designed to offer students significant opportunities to develop dance technique and performance skills. Students audition for entrance into individual ensembles. Original works choreographed by faculty or guest choreographers are rehearsed and performed in concert. Students are evaluated on their participation in rehearsals, demonstration of commitment and openness to the choreographic process, and achievement in performance. Preparation: This course is suitable for intermediate and advanced level dancers. Concurrent attendance in at least one technique class per week is recommended. Students must commit to the full semester and be available for rehearsal week and performances in the Spring Dance Concert.

Counts Toward Africana Studies

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ARTD B349 Dance Ensemble: School Performance Project

Not offered 2023-24

The School Performance Project is a community-focused project in which students learn a lecture-demonstration and a narrative dance work and tour this combined program to schools in the Philadelphia area, reaching 1500 to 2000 children per year. The course introduces these audiences to dance through a program of original choreography supported by commissioned music and costuming. Interested students are expected to have some experience in a dance form or genre, enthusiasm for performance, and an interest in education in and through the arts. Students are selected after an initial group meeting and movement session. Concurrent participation in at least one technique class per week is recommended.

Writing Intensive

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ARTD B350 Dance Ensemble: Hip Hop

Spring 2024

Dance ensembles are designed to offer students significant opportunities to develop dance technique and performance skills. Students audition for entrance into individual ensembles. Original works are choreographed by faculty or guest choreographers and performed in concert. Students are evaluated on their participation in rehearsals, demonstration of commitment and openness to the choreographic process, and achievement in performance. Preparation: This course is suitable for intermediate and advanced level dancers. Students must commit to the full semester and be available for rehearsal week and performances in the Spring Dance Concert.

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ARTD B351 Dance Ensemble: Tap

Not offered 2023-24

Dance ensembles are designed to offer students significant opportunities to develop dance technique and performance skills. Students audition for entrance into individual ensembles. Original works choreographed by faculty or guest choreographers or works reconstructed / restaged from classic or contemporary repertories are rehearsed and performed in concert. Students are evaluated on their participation in rehearsals, demonstration of commitment and openness to the choreographic process, and achievement in performance. Preparation: This course is suitable for intermediate and advanced level dancers. Concurrent attendance in at least one technique class per week is highly recommended. Students must commit to the full semester and be available for rehearsal week and performances in the Spring Dance Concert.

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ARTD B400 Senior Project/Thesis

Majors develop, in consultation with a faculty advisor, a senior capstone experience that will expand and deepen their work and interests within the field of dance. This can range from a significant research or expository paper to a substantial choreographic work that will be supported in a full studio performance. Students who elect to do choreographic or performance work must also submit a reflection paper. Work begins in the fall semester and should be completed by the middle of the spring semester.

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ARTD B400 Senior Project/Thesis

Majors develop, in consultation with a faculty advisor, a senior capstone experience that will expand and deepen their work and interests within the field of dance. This can range from a significant research or expository paper to a substantial choreographic work that will be supported in a full studio performance. Students who elect to do choreographic or performance work must also submit a reflection paper. Work begins in the fall semester and should be completed by the middle of the spring semester.

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ARTD B403 Supervised Work

Research in a particular topic of dance under the guidance of an instructor, resulting in a final paper or project. Permission of the instructor is required.

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ARTD B403 Supervised Work

Research in a particular topic of dance under the guidance of an instructor, resulting in a final paper or project. Permission of the instructor is required.

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