MUS 234 - Listening to Dance Music

This class will explore the field of choreomusicology by engaging with topics including embodiment, movement as language, the work concept, and improvisation in repertoire from seventeenth-century French court ballets to Hamilton. How have bodies moved to music? Which music, and which bodies? How has dance been used as an aesthetic manifestation of social power? In an effort to “keep ourselves off-center in order to stay on target” (in the words of dance historian Brenda Dixon Gottschild), one way we’ll approach music and dance history is through doing. What can we learn about the 17th century through dancing that we couldn’t learn from a book? Is it possible to imagine historical experiences of listening with the right kinesthetic knowledge? Is dance a way of knowing?

Unit(s): 1
Group Distribution Requirement(s): Distribution Group I
Instructional Method: Conference
Grading Mode: Letter grading (A-F)
Not offered: 2023-24
Group Distribution Learning Outcome(s):

Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts.
Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).