Post-Modern Dance: Contemporary Experimental Choreography

Semester and Year	SP 2013
Course Number	ARTS-UG1207
Section	001
Instructor	Leslie Satin
Days	Wed
Time	11:00 AM - 1:45 PM
Units	4.0
Level	U
Foundation Requirement

Description

In this workshop, we depart from traditional dance composition courses by focusing on the concepts, strategies, and actions that occupy contemporary experimental—“downtown,” if you will—choreographers. We’ll spend most of our time in the studio, moving through physical warm-ups structured to prepare ourselves for developing dance material informed by live performances, videos, guest appearances, and readings by and about dance-makers, from the first post-modernists of the 1960s through those continuing their lineage and those exploring completely different paths. We’ll consider dance as a factor in interarts performance, work grounded in the intersection of dance and technology, site-specific choreography, and improvisation as an autonomous movement practice and as a way to generate movement for choreography. We’ll borrow, of course, from what students bring to the workshop: their individual dance histories as well as their interests and desires. Readings may include essays by Steve Paxton, Yvonne Rainer, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Simone Forti, Ramsey Burt, Allan Kaprow, Susan Leigh Foster, and Nancy Stark Smith.

Course Type

Arts Workshops (ARTS-UG)