Courses
DNCE BC 2501
Biomechanics for the Dancer: Theory and Practice
The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the fundamentals of biomechanics as it relates to various dance forms. As biomechanics is a branch of physics, the course will include basic mathematical concepts, and some knowledge of geometry and trigonometry is recommended. The course will explore applicable functional human anatomy and will cover the application of biomechanical principles to both qualitative and quantitative description of human movement. Additionally, it will provide an understanding of how biomechanics can be applied in terms of physical ability and wellness, giving students the opportunity to apply the knowledge to themselves.
Prerequisite: Basic knowledge of dance technique in ballet or modern.
3 points
DNCE BC 2555 (Modern Dance), 2556
Ensemble Dance Repertory
The study and performance of choreography using three approaches: learning excerpts from the repertoire of selected choreographers, analyzing through reconstruction of classic repertory works, and understanding the choreographic process by working in a creation from initial concept to finished dance.
Prerequisite: Intermediate level technique and permission of Instructor.
3 points
DNCE BC 2558
Tap Ensemble
A tap composition, improvisation, and performance class, for experienced tap dancers to develop skills in music, choreography, and creative rhythm-making.
Advanced or Intermediate level tap training and permission of the instructor.
3 points
DNCE BC 2562
Movement Analysis
An introduction to the theories and methods of movement analysis, focusing on its application to dance performance and research. Through lectures, readings, integrative movement exercises, and observation labs, students will learn to analyze and describe the qualitative aspects of human movement; to notate movement in motif writing; and to refine their ability to move efficiently and expressively.
Prerequisite: An intermediate or advanced dance technique course or permission of the instructor.
3 points
DNCE BC 2563
Dance Composition: Form
The study of choreography as a creative art. The development and organization of movement materials according to formal principles of composition in solo and duet forms. Applicable to all styles of dance.
Prerequisite: Permission of Instructor.
3 points
DNCE BC 2564
Dance Composition: Content
Continued study of choreography as a communicative performing art. This semester of dancemaking focuses on the exploration of ideas and meaning. Emphasis is placed on the development of personal style as an expressive medium, and on unity of style in each work. Group as well as solo compositions will be assigned.
3 points
DNCE BC 2565
World Dance History
A survey of the major dance traditions of Africa, Asia, Europe, India, the Middle East, and the Americas. Lectures and discussions address primary written and visual sources, ethnographic and documentary films, workshops, and performances.
3 points
DNCE BC 2567
Music for Dance
A study of musicianship and musical literacy in relation to dance. Using computer software, drumming studies, score and audio-visual analyses students will learn to identify the compositional elements of dance music with a multi-cultural emphasis. Presentation of individual and collective research in written and performance format.
3 points
DNCE BC 2570
Dance in New York City
A study of the cultural roots and historical contexts of specific communities using New York City’s dance scene as a laboratory. Students will observe the social environments in which various modes of dance works are created while researching the history of dance in New York City.
3 points
ANAT BC 2573
Applied Anatomy for Human Movement
Focuses on physical sciences that relate to human movement and emphasizes functional anatomy. Topics include skeletal structure, physics of dance, muscular balance, and improving movement potential.
3 points
BIOL BC 2574
LABORATORY IN HUMAN ANATOMY
A hands-on introduction to the human musculoskeletal system including the observation of movement in oneself and others, as well as the collection and analysis of anatomical data. The lecture course, Applied Anatomy of Human Movement is a co-requisite.
Co-requisite: Applied Anatomy of Human Movement ANAT BC 2573.
3 points
DNCE BC 2575
Choreography for the American Musical
Examination of a uniquely American art form, this course explores the history and evolution of American Musical Theater dance with special focus on the period known as "The Golden Era." Analysis of the genre's most influential choreographers (including Balanchine, de Mille, Robbins), their systems, methodolgies and fusion of high and low art on the commercial stage.
3 points
DNCE BC 2580
Tap as An American Art Form
Studio/lecture format focuses on tap technique, repertory, improvisation; and the development of tap explored through American history, jazz music, films, videos, and biographies.
Prerequisite: DNCE BC 1446 or equivalent experience.
3 points
DNCE BC 3000
From Page to Stage: Interactions of Literature and Choreography
A survey of how dance and embodied performance adapt textual sources and even generate text. How do moving bodies enhance or subvert words in order to tell a story, and whose story do they tell? Includes the study of plays, poems, and political speech; and of ballet, experimental dance, dance-theater, silent film, physical theater, and puppetry.
3 points
DNCE BC 3001
Western Theatrical Dance from the Renaissance to the 1960's
Focuses on the history of theatre dance forms originating in Europe and America from the Renaissance to the present. Includes reading, writing, viewing, and discussion of sources such as film, text, original documentation, demonstration, and performance.
3 points
DNCE BC 3200
Dance in Film
A survey of Theatrical dance in the 20th century specific to film production. Five Kinds of dance films will be examined: musicals, non-musicals, documentaries, film essays and pure dance recording.
Prerequisite: DNCE BC2570, DNCE BC3001, FILM W3001, FILM BC 3201, and permission of instructor. Survey of theatrical dance in the 20th century specific to film production. Five kinds of dance films will be examined: musicals, non–musicals, documentaries, film essays archival recordings and choreography made solely for the camera.
3 points
DNCE BC 3340
DANCE/MUSIC IMPROVISATION: CRITICAL PRACTICES IN NEGOTIATION, EMBODIMENT, AND FREEDOM
Although improvisation has always been central to music and dance, it is increasingly engaged by other disciplines as a vital means of critical inquiry, experiment, and risk-taking invention. This course, blending studio practice and theoretical investigation, introduces students to the discourse and practice of improvisation within a global, multidisciplinary context.
Prerequisite: Students must have experience with dance or music improvisation.
3 points
DNCE BC 3560 Composition: ScreenDance
The objective of the course is to gain an understanding of choreographing for the camera and the choreography of the camera when recording dance for all screens. Also called “Dance on Camera” or “Dancefilm,” this hybrid form of dance and film is taking root in the global dance community in the last few years. This experiential, hands-on course requires all students to choreograph, dance, and film. Focusing on single-shot filmmaking, the duet of the camera and the dance will create a firm understanding of the interaction between the two, enabling students to create their own final short film. Readings and screenings will introduce the history and theory of the arena of experimental and interdisciplinary practice of this form. We will use this knowledge to inform the process, discussions, and product.
Prerequisite: Dance Composition Course and dance training or permission of the instructor.
3 points
DNCE BC 3565 Composition: Collaboration and the Creative Process
This course is a study in dance composition with a focus on collaboration. Whether creating a solo or larger group piece, students are encouraged to collaborate with other artists. Methods employed by contemporary choreographers will be explored. Peer feedback and creative dialogue will be a component of every class.
Prerequisite: Dance Composition: Form (DNCE BC 2563) or Dance Composition: Content (DNCE BC 2564), or permission of the instructor.
3 points
DNCE BC 3566 Composition: Site Specific and Experimental Methods
Focuses on collaborative creation as conceptual artists, choreographers, improvisers, and performers with an emphasis on site-specific projects and experimental methods.
3 points
DNCE BC 3567
Dance of India
A range of dance genres, from the traditional to the innovative, co-exist as representations of "Indianness" in India, and beyond. Identities onstage and in films, morph as colonial, national, and global contexts change. This course zooms from micro to macro views of twentieth century staged dances as culturally inflected discourse. We review how Indian classical dance aligns with the oldest of performance texts, and with lively discourses (rasa as a performance aesthetic, Orientalism, nationalism, global recirculations) through the ages, not only in India but also in Europe, Britain and America. Throughout the course, we ask:- How is culture embodied? How do historical texts configure dance today? How might they affect our thinking on mind-body, practice-theory, and traditional-contemporary divides? How does bodily patterning influence the ways that we experience our surroundings and vice versa? Can cultural imaginaries instigate action? How is gender is performed? What are dance discourses?
3 points
DNCE BC 3570
Latin American and Caribbean Dance: Identities in Motion
Examines the features of Latin American and Caribbean dance forms to uncover the ways in which dancing shapes national, racial, and gender identity.
3 points
DNCE BC 3574
Inventing the Contemporary: Dance Since the 1960s
Explores modern/contemporary dance in the United States and Europe since the 1960's. Major units are devoted to the Judson Dance Theater and its postmodernist aftermath, Tanztheater and European dance revisionism, and African-American dance and the articulation of an aesthetic of cultural hybridity.
3 points
DNCE BC 3576
Dance Criticism
Intensive practice in writing about dance. Readings drawn from 19th- and 20th-century criticism. Observation includes weekly performances and classroom videotape sessions.
3 points
DNCE BC 3580
History of Social Dancing: Dance Crazes from the Waltz to Flash Mobs
The history of social dancing from the Renaissance to the present: waltz, contradances, ragtime, jazz, disco. Topics include dance "manias"; youth and anti-dance movements; intersections between the ballroom, stage, and film; competitive, exhibition, and "flash mob" dancing. Lectures based on archival sources, film, literature, music, images, and live performances.
3 points
DNCE BC 3591
Senior Seminar in Dance
Research and scholarly writing in chosen topics relating to dance. Methods of investigation will be drawn from prominent archival collections and personal interviews, as well as other resources. Papers will be formally presented to the Dance Department upon completion.
4 points
DNCE BC 3592
Senior Project: Research for Dance
Independent study for research and writing (35-50–page thesis required).
3 points
DNCE BC 3593
Senior Project: Repertory for Dance
Independent study for preparing and performing repertory works in production to be presented in concert.
3 points
DNCE BC 3601, 3602, 3603, 3604
Rehearsal and Performance in Dance
Students take part in the full production of a dance as performers, choreographers, designers, or stage technicians. —Guest Artists
Prerequisite: Audition. Subject to cap on studio credit. Can be taken more than once for credit up to a maximum of 3 credits a semester.
1–3 points
DNCE BC 3980
Performing the Political: Embodying Change in American Performance
Exploration into the politics of performance and the performance of politics through the lens of 20th-century American dance.
4 points
DNCE BC 3981
Inventing American Modern Dance: Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn
The life, writings, and dances of Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn, focusing on their pioneering role in the development of American modern dance and their radical stagings of race, class, gender, and sexuality.
4 points
DNCE BC 3984
Digital Performance
An intensive conceptual and practice-based inquiry into the field of digital performance – the integration of computational, interactive, new media, and mobile technologies into experimental performance practice and research – its history, central concerns, scientific breakthroughs, and transformative impact on the role of the artist and on the notion of “live” art.
Prerequisite: A history and studio course in any discipline of the performing or visual arts (theater, dance, music, visual art, architecture, film) or experience with interactive or digital performance technologies. No prior experience with computer science or technology necessary.
4 points
DNCE BC 3985
DIGITAL FOOTPRINTS: Archival/New Media Research at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
This seminar is designed to introduce students to digital humanities in the performing arts. Class will meet on campus and at the Jerome Robbins Dance Division of the New York Public for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center to experiment with integrating archival and digital research methods and developing innovative multi-media scholarly compositions. In so doing, students will gain a critical overview of digital humanities initiatives within the performance and film studies, as well as acquire skills in digital literacy (videographic analysis and annotation, new media research design, and online publication).
Prerequisite: A history course in any of the performing or media arts (theater, dance, music, film).
4 points