DANC 364 Critical Approaches to Dance
This class critically examines the relationships between the ontology of dance, epistemological concerns, and political impacts of choreography. In other words, we investigate what dance is, how we study it, and what dance can do in society. We track these connections across the aesthetic and the political by structuring our investigation into two correlated fields of interrogation – critical approaches in the field of dance studies and key issues raised by dance. Such analysis enables us to situate specific dance examples and the creation and interpretation of dance in relation to culture in a global context. As a result, we not only understand dance as a social structure, but how dance and culture develop out of shared aesthetics as well as political principals. This allows us to analyze agency in dance and choreography and address their role towards the creation of a socially just, environmentally conscious, and decolonized society. The class is taught in the studio and values and approaches the moved and choreographed the same as the written and spoken.
Offered
F, S