Finding Form: Dance (DAN4319.01)

Dana Reitz

Looking at forms found in nature, architecture, music, drama, literature, etc., we search for examples to help formulate ideas and structures for movement-based creation. When making new artwork, we are constantly balancing and integrating the need for exploratory freedom and the desire for structural integrity. How do we use spontaneous impulse to help find form, and how do we use form to help find yet more unexpected solutions? How might we find an essential core that supports an investigation? How might we challenge and rigorously expand our ideas regarding form, and find ways to re-form?

Students are expected to make new movement material, develop work outside of class, teach some of the work to others, and, in return, learn material from others. They will show their compositional studies regularly, respond to the work of others, write about many aspects involved in their working processes, and draw (while observing others and while working in their own studio practices). Projects may be presented in studio showings or dance workshops. Students of intermediate/advanced level in the performing and/or visual arts are welcome. This course is designed to support students in finding their own ways of forming thought and art.


Learning Outcomes:
Discover more about one’s personal nature and manner of forming thought and art.
Notice the interrelationship of form and freedom in all things observed. Learn to articulate, verbally and visually, what one notices. Make new work in response to examples found in nature and art.


Delivery Method: Fully in-person
Prerequisites: Intermediate/advanced level in performing arts and/or visual arts and permission of instructor. Please e-mail (dreitz@bennington.edu) with a short description of your interest and experience.
Corequisites: Dance or Drama Lab Assignment
Course Level: 4000-level
Credits: 4
T/F 10:30AM - 12:20PM (Full-term)
Maximum Enrollment: 20
Course Frequency: Once a year

Categories: 4000 , All courses , Dance , Drama , Four Credit , Fully In-Person , Visual Arts (VA)
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