DANC 111 - Introduction to Contemporary Dance: Mind in Motion

If you’ve never taken a dance class, this course is for you! This course draws from modern and contemporary dance practices in developing understandings and embodiments of alignment, body mechanics, and locomotion that are foundational for the study of a variety of dance forms. Along with dance technique, our work in the studio will include experiments in improvisation and choreography. We will also consider perspectives from which to view modern and contemporary dance, which developed alongside other twentieth and twenty-first century movements in art and culture that engage philosophical issues about the primacy of the individual in society, the communication of ideas and emotions, and the invention of materials and structures that reflect contemporary understandings of the world. Students enrolled in the course for one unit will undertake additional reading, viewing, and writing assignments. All students will be invited to class excursions to see professional dance performances.

Unit(s): Variable: 0.5 - 1
Group Distribution Requirement(s): Distribution Group I
Instructional Method: Studio
Grading Mode: Letter grading (A-F)
Notes: This course may be applied toward the dance studio requirements.
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).