Studio Practice + Process: Love’s Alchemy: Transformative Practices That Merge Notions of Ritual, Care, and Study (DAN4829B.01)

Mikhail Calliste

The practice sessions are inspired and influenced by artist and choreographer Camille Brown. The movement practices investigate various styles of the African diaspora including but not limited to step dancing, body percussion, fusing and contrasting footwork, hip hop, and street dance. Students will be encouraged to explore in and through movement the “possibilities of the imagination.”

During the process sessions, students will read, journal and discuss together the varied ways that intersubjectivity and notions of “the personal” meet up. This course emphasizes themes of freedom and liberation, challenging dancers to question societal constraints as they relate to class and race.

Participants will take part in improvisational exercises that work towards building community with each other. The practice regularly culminates in instances of collaborative performance. These moments aim to produce critical reflections on love, conditions of relationality and expressivity. Throughout the course, we will interrogate and celebrate how each of us is shaped by distinct experiences as well as shared conditions of survival.

Artists and scholars that will help instruct us as we engage in this practice include: Alua Arthur, James Baldwin, Thomas F DeFrantz, bell hooks, Toni Morrison, Nina Simone, Sarah Vaughn

*For BFA students this course satisfies Critical Studies credit.

Mondays 1:40PM-5:30PM
Tuesdays 2:10PM-4:00PM and 4:10PM-6:00PM
Wednesdays 7:00PM-8:50PM
Thursdays 1:40PM-3:30PM
Fridays 4:10PM-6:00PM

Module dates: February 19 – March 4


Learning Outcomes:
Students will be able to:
- Foster critical thinking about the dancing body and ways of moving
- Combine and organize a body practice that reflects on and supports the physical demands of the expanding fields of dance research and - performance
- Integrate movement through the frames of time, space and poetics
- Demonstrate readiness to assume the working life of a professional dancer, whether in academia, world stages or within one’s community


Delivery Method: Fully in-person
Prerequisites:
Previous Dance Experience Required
Course Level: 4000-level
Credits: 2
TBA (1st module block)
Maximum Enrollment: 18
Course Frequency: Once a year

Categories: 1st Module Block , 4000 , All courses , Dance (BFA) , Fully In-Person
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