This course invites students to create duets using a number of compositional tools and improvisational and performance strategies. Dancers working together will inspire each other based on their relationship. As material reveals itself, moment to moment, consider that the dancers will be “teaching” each other as they work. This premise will allow us to learn from one another.
We will also learn how to recognize and detach from what we already know in order to make room for what we don’t know. Learning how to compose while moving is key, making space for each dancer to trust the duet. They must accept what they do not know, in order to wake up to what is there in any given moment. Inhabiting the space we are dancing in, being in relationship to one another, and seeing all there is around us expands our experience. Feedback will be part of our work. How we see and how we can include our audience as part of our dancing is key to how the duets develop. Structures may be developed in multiple ways, using written, spatial, physical, and vocal scores.
Learning Outcomes:
To be able to notice, allow, and recognize the duet material as it unfolds
To be able to detach from what you think you know in order to notice more
To practice multitasking while dancing
To say no to anticipating
To trust the body and other dancers
To understand how frameworks or scores can free us up in order to delve deeper and experience more of the unknown in our improvisations
Delivery Method: Fully in-person
Prerequisites:
Please contact Dana Reitz (dreitz@bennington.edu) via email describing your interest in the course and your previous experience.
Corequisites: Dance or Drama Lab Assignment if students are registered for 4 or more credits in designated dance courses.
Course Level: 4000-level
Credits: 2
W 10:00AM - 11:50AM (Full-term)
Maximum Enrollment: 16
Course Frequency: One time only
Categories: 4000 , All courses , Dance , Fully In-Person , Two Credit
Tags: anatomy , body , dance , health , Mind and Body , movement , performance , somatics