2019-2020 University Catalog [Archived Catalogue]
School of Dance
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Donna Faye Burchfield, School Dean
dburchfield@uarts.edu
(215) 717-6110
C O N T E N T S
Statement of Purpose
Expanding Dance, Experiencing Change.
The School of Dance’s course of study takes the depth and rigor of a discipline-based dance conservatory while engaging students in open discussions within their own practice, valuing their voices as capable of developing new and critical perspectives in dance. These strategies give way to student driven pathways and expand the ways students can access and think about the practices and techniques of making and performing dance.
Overview
Building on the curricular strengths that have historically anchored the School of Dance, some of the key goals are:
- to provide models for the study of dance that consistently weave and reference both the historical and the emerging forms
- to create an active environment that strengthens the imagination by cultivating creativity
- to strike a balance between studio practice & history/theory within the coursework
- to continually model and promote open collaboration and change
Facilities
The main studios of the School of Dance are located in the Terra Building at 211 South Broad Street. These spacious, bright, and well-lit studios are fully equipped with barres and mirrors, huge windows, pianos, and audio consoles. Their floors are constructed with four-inch, state-of-the-art suspension for the safest and most comfortable dancing surface available. The School of Dance utilizes both on-campus performance spaces such as the YGym Dance Theater located inside Gershman Hall and off-campus venues such as FringeArts. The Albert M. Greenfield Library contains books, journals, DVDs, and videotapes devoted to dance, which are available to students for research and coursework.
Program Blueprint
The dance curriculum is designed to balance a great range of experiences with small learning communities. It is divided into two parts: Foundation Series (freshmen and sophomore) and Research/Portfolio Series (junior and seniors).
Studio Practice
These courses range in disciplines specific to the expertise of both faculty and visiting guest artists.
All Studio Practice courses provide anatomically sound models for technical training in dance that consistently weave and reference both the historical and the emerging techniques, forms and styles through informed somatic practices. These studio courses begin with proper warm-up exercises to prepare the dancer for more complex movement expression. Material develops in space and time as the class progresses. Relationships of movement material to effort, shape, dynamics, time, motivation, articulation and intention are introduced and reinforced through repetition and sequencing. Most classes involve accompaniment of live music and simultaneously focus on the relationships of the moving body to sound, silence and rhythm. Extended Practice Labs introduce students to notions of ensemble dancing, classical and contemporary partnering, as well as contact improvisation.
Within the Foundation Series, five-week module courses in ballet, modern, jazz and urban forms (hip hop) are designed to provide the time for in depth study of techniques and approaches to dance training and to allow for possible new pathways to emerge through the sequencing of training.
Within the Research/Portfolio Series, students begin to make their own choices in the areas of Studio Practice. Paired classes range in styles and techniques combining practice modalities that include ballet, modern, jazz and urban forms (hip hop).
The central questions are: How do dancers today prepare themselves for a field that is constantly changing and expanding? What is the relationship of technical training to a student’s creative work whether choreographing or performing? And, most importantly… How do dancers find a practice that combines physical techniques that can support the demands of varied choreographic approaches?
Thinking, Making, Doing (TMD)
All TMD courses happen in a studio and are structured in a workshop setting where assignments are made and time is spent making, viewing and discussing work. Ideas and concepts that shape forms of expression are referenced and illuminated through classroom viewings, listenings, and readings as well as attendance at live performances.
Within the TMD courses, students will research and discuss how works of art get made, how motivations are discovered, explore intentions and directions, and make work of their own. Students will compose, improvise, discuss, write artist statements, and keep artist journals in an environment that encourages experimentation and risk taking. Material is developed both within and outside the assigned class time.
The central questions of these courses are: How might we approach art-making from multiple perspectives? What is aesthetic intent, and how does aesthetic movement imagery get made? How do we research a creative work? How does the research open up ways of thinking about, discussing, and making visible the creative processes that render choreography?
Body Pathways
Body Pathways is a year-long core course in the Foundation Series designed to introduce students to the following: conditioning & assessment; awareness for alignment, placement and strength; experiential anatomy; and varying somatic practices for sustaining the body in dance. Extended Studio Practice is taken in the second year and further provides ongoing and consistent body assessment tools that will keep students dancing in a healthier, stronger way throughout their careers in dance.
Sophomore Performance and Coaching Project
This capstone course is designed to be the culmination of the Foundation Series. The course gives students the opportunity to learn and perform both historical and new works from varied disciplines with an emphasis on the vast approaches to staging, learning and performing. It includes curatorial conversations, imaginative studies and project rehearsals.
Performance Pedagogies of Dance (PODS)
These classes in the Research/Portfolio Series utilize the workshop studio setting for imagining, discussing, improvising, rehearsing, and eventual public presentation of work. The public presentations happen in formal settings on-campus and also extend out to include off-campus venues and communities in local, national and international locations.
Senior Seminar & Senior Project/Critique
This capstone course is designed to be the culmination of the Research/Portfolio Series. It is designed to assist seniors in the development and presentation of their senior projects. Each student will hone their artist statements, research ideas, propose a project, and create a website. They will also participate in rehearsals, performance, and technical aspects of the project presentations.
History, Theory & Criticism
Through coursework in Contemporary Art Practices (CAP) and History, Theory & Criticism I & II students work to explore and engage with dance’s history alongside ideas within the expanding fields of contemporary art. Students work to employ diverse modes of thinking, both verbally and in writing, to communicate ideas.
Electives
A wide range of electives are offered each semester which include Aerial Dance, African Dance in the Diaspora, a variety of levels of tap classes, yoga, and pilates.
ProgramsGraduate ProgramsUndergraduate ProgramsCourses- DANC 102 Open Studio: Beginning Jazz
- DANC 103 Open Studio: Beginning Modern
- DANC 104 African Dance
- DANC 110 Open Studio: Beginning Ballet
- DANC 120 Repertory Research Module
- DANC 134 Ensemble for Student Works
- DANC 141 Ballet
- DANC 142 Ballet
- DANC 143 Modern & Jazz Dance
- DANC 144 Modern & Jazz Dance
- DANC 150 Contemporary Art Practices
- DANC 170 Yoga
- DANC 171 Pilates Mat
- DANC 172 Embodied Anatomy Yoga
- DANC 173 Gyrokinesis(r)
- DANC 174 Body Pathways I
- DANC 175 Body Pathways II
- DANC 180 Introduction to Improvisation Performance Practice
- DANC 181 Student Choreography Workshop I
- DANC 182 Languaging Dance, Thinking Choreographically
- DANC 196 First-Year Performance Workshop
- DANC 197 Freshman Performance Workshop
- DANC 198 Selected Topics
- DANC 201 Open Studio: Intermediate Tap
- DANC 202 Open Studio: Advanced Tap
- DANC 203 Open Studio: Intermediate Jazz
- DANC 231 Embodied Practices Within Mixed Ability Communities
- DANC 235 Costume Design & Construction for Dance
- DANC 241 Ballet
- DANC 242 Ballet
- DANC 243 Modern & Jazz Dance
- DANC 244 Modern & Jazz Dance
- DANC 251 Dance History, Theory and Criticism 1
- DANC 270 Extended Studio Practice Somatic Lab
- DANC 271 Intermediate Pilates Mat
- DANC 272 Introduction to Bartenieff Fundamentals™
- DANC 273 Introduction to the Franklin Method
- DANC 274 Experiential Anatomy
- DANC 275 Body Pathways III
- DANC 281 Student Choreography Workshop II
- DANC 282 Dance Making: Music, Sound, Silence, and Noise
- DANC 284 Improvisation Performance Practice
- DANC 285 Expanded Field in Dance & Performance
- DANC 286 The Performative Voice in Choreography
- DANC 288 Duet Forms
- DANC 289 Choreographic Viewpoints
- DANC 290 Movement Invention & Theatricality
- DANC 296 Sophomore Performance and Coaching Project
- DANC 297 Sophomore Performance and Coaching Project
- DANC 298 Selected Topics
- DANC 300 Performance Pedagogies of Dance
- DANC 303 Pointe
- DANC 305 Ballet
- DANC 306 Ballet
- DANC 312 Open Studio: Aerial Dance
- DANC 313 Open Studio: Hip Hop
- DANC 315 Classical Partnering I
- DANC 316 Classical Partnering II
- DANC 317 Contemporary Partnering
- DANC 318 Classical and Contemporary Variations I
- DANC 319 Classical and Contemporary Variations II
- DANC 330 Field Study in Dance
- DANC 336 Dance Management and Entrepreneurship
- DANC 341 Studio Practice
- DANC 351 Dance History, Theory and Criticism 2
- DANC 353 Body Pathways Lab
- DANC 380 Improvisation Into Choreography
- DANC 381 Collaborative Process and the Choreographic
- DANC 382 Solo Studies
- DANC 383 Activism, Social Justice and Choreography
- DANC 384 Choreography and Alternative Media
- DANC 385 Drawing and Objects: Extending the Choreographic
- DANC 386 Curatorial and Creative Residencies
- DANC 396 Junior Seminar I
- DANC 397 Junior Seminar II
- DANC 398 Selected Topics
- DANC 441 Studio Practice
- DANC 451 Advanced Readings in Dance History, Theory & Criticism
- DANC 480 Choreography as Research
- DANC 481 Choreography As Research in Performance
- DANC 482 Improvisation As Research in Performance
- DANC 490 Independent Study
- DANC 492 Senior Seminar
- DANC 494 Senior Thesis Workshop
- DANC 496 Senior Seminar
- DANC 498 Selected Topics
- DANC 499 Dance Internship
- DANC 611 Mentored Practice
- DANC 621 Individualized Practice
- DANC 622 International Individualized Practice Lab
- DANC 651 Somatic Practice & Movement Lab
- DANC 652 Critical Practices Lab
- DANC 653 Individualized Practice Lab
- DANC 661 History, Theory & Criticism I
- DANC 662 History, Theory & Criticism II
- DANC 663 Research as Action
- DANC 664 Languaging the Contemporary
- DANC 671 Proseminar: Collaborative Practices
- DANC 672 International Graduate Seminar I
- DANC 673 International Graduate Seminar II
- DANC 674 Graduate Seminar in Residence I
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