Course Description: An exploration and confrontation with the meaning and nature of dance as a scholarly pursuit and aspect of culture.
Course Objectives:
1. to understand approaches to dance studies research;
2. to explore elements that underpin dance research and writing - the experiential, the interpretive, the dialogical, and the polyphonic - and gain facility in selected approaches to those elements;
3. to explore issues important to current dance research;
4. to use that understanding and those explorations to communicate effectively about dance, especially through writing.
Required Reading: The Routledge Dance Studies Reader. Ed. Alexandra Carter, New York: Routledge, 1998 and Ann Cooper Albright, Choreographing Difference, Wesleyan University Press, 1997.
Course Calendar: August 21-December 11
Monday, August 21: Course introduction
Wednesday, August 23: Discuss introductions to both texts
THE EXPERIENTIAL
Monday, August 28
Read: The Routledge Dance Studies Reader. Part I: Making Dance: "Introduction" (19-22); #2 "Choreographers: Dancing for de Valois and Ashton" (23-28); #3 "Torse: There Are No Fixed Points in Space" (29-34); #4 "’No’ to Spectacle…" (35); #5 "Pina Bausch: Dance and Emancipation" (36-45); #6 "Imaginary Homelands: Creating a New Dance Language" (46-52)
Wednesday, August 30
Read: The Routledge Dance Studies Reader. Part II: Performing Dance: "Introduction" (53-56); #7 "Dancers Talking About Performance" (57-65); #8 "I Am a Dancer" (66-71); #9 "A Dancing Consciousness" (72-80); #10 "Spacemaking: Experiences of a Virtual Body" (81-88)
Wednesday, September 6
Read: The Routledge Dance Studies Reader. Part III: Reviewing Dance; "Introduction" (89-90); #11 "Bridging the Critical Distance" (91-97); #12 "Between Description and Deconstruction" (98-107); #13 "Oh, That Pineapple Rag!" (108-112); #14 "Spring: Ashton’s Symphonic Variations in America" (113-118)
Monday, September 11: Assessment day. Discuss movement analysis tools: Dance Ethnology Coding Guide, Joanne Kealiinohomoku Dance Data Guide, Marcia Siegel's suggestions in "Bridging the Critical Distance," discuss research assignments
Wednesday, September 13: library day
THE INTERPRETIVE
Monday, September 18
Read: The Routledge Dance Studies Reader: Part IV: Studying Dance: Conceptual Concerns: "Introduction" (119-123); #15 "What is Art" (125-134); #16 "A Vulnerable Glance: Seeing Dance Through Phenomenology" (135-143); #17 "Dance History Source Materials" (144-153); #18 "Embodying Difference: Issues in Dance and Cultural Studies" (154-162); #19 "An Introduction to Dance Analysis" (163-170); #20 "Dance, Gender and Culture" (171-179); #21 "Choreographing History" (180-191)
Wednesday, September 27 and Monday, October 2: research presentations/ discussions
THE DIALOGICAL AND POLYPHONIC
Wednesday, October 4 and Wednesday, October 11:
Read: The Routledge Dance Studies Reader: Read: Part V: Locating Dance in History and Society: "Introduction" (193-195); #22 "Myths of Origin" (197-202); #23 "In Pursuit of the Sylph: Ballet in the Romantic Period" (203-213); #24 "Diaghilev’s Cultivated Audience" (214-222); #25 "Women Writing the Body: Let’s Watch a Little How She Dances" (223-229); #26 "Keep to the Rhythm and You’ll Keep to Life’: Meaning and Style in African, American Vernacular Dance" (230-235)
Monday, October 9: FALL BREAK
Monday, October 16 and Wednesday, October 18:
Read: The Routledge Dance Studies Reader: Part VI: Analysing Dance
"Introduction" (237-239); #27 "Dance and Gender: Formalism and Semiotics Reconsidered"; #28 "Nijinsky: Modernism and Heterodox Representations of Masculinity" (250-258); #29 "Dances of Death: Germany Before Hitler" (259-268); #30 "Mark Morris: The Body and What it Means" (269-277); #31 "Dance and Music Video: Some Preliminary Observations" (278-287); #32 "Two Analyses of ‘Dancing in the Dark’ (The Band Wagon, 1953)" (288-293)
Monday, October 23: Assessment day, Discuss/ clarify issues, methods. Discuss reading/ response projects.
Wednesday, October 25: Begin Choreographing Difference. Read: "Mining the Dancefield: Feminist Theory and Contemporary Dance"
Monday, October 30, Wednesday, November 1, and Monday, November 6
Read: Choreographing Difference: "Techno Bodies: Muscling with Gender in Contemporary Dance"
Wednesday, November 8, Monday, November 13, and Wednesday, November 15
Read: Choreographing Difference: "Moving Across Difference: Dance and Disability"
Monday, November 20
Read: Choreographing Difference: "Incalculable Choreographies"
Wednesday, November 22: NO CLASS, THANKSGIVING
Monday, November 27 and Wednesday, November 29:
Read: Choreographing Difference: "Dancing Bodies and the Stories They Tell"
Monday, December 4 and Wednesday, December 6:
Read: Choreographing Difference: "Embodying History"
Monday, December 11: work on final papers
EXAM: Monday, December 18: 3:30: share final papers as final
GRADING AND EXPECTATIONS
Participation: 35% (graded by group)
Research paper/presentation: 25%
Response papers: 40%