Listed in: Theater and Dance, as THDA-111
Formerly listed as: THDA-11
Wendy Woodson (Section 01)
An introduction to movement as a language and to dance and performance composition. Students will explore and expand their individual movement vocabularies by working improvisationally with weight, posture, gesture, patterns, rhythm, space, and relationship of body parts. We will ask what these vocabularies might communicate about emotion, thought, physical structures, cultural/social traditions, and aesthetic preferences. In addition, we will use observations of movement in our everyday situations and environments, as well as from staged and filmed events, as inspiration for individual and group compositions. Selected readings and viewing of video and films will be included to give students a broad overview of dance and movement practices and tools with which to observe and analyze movement.
Attention will be drawn to issues of race, class, gender and culture in looking at diverse languages of movement. In addition to two two-hour class meetings per week, students participate in the equivalent of a two-hour per week laboratory experience coordinated with the department’s production season.
Limited to 20 students. Six seats reserved for first-year students. Spring semester. Professor Woodson.