DANC 048A. Embodying Improvisation: a global cross-disciplinary discourse

This studio course will examine improvisation as a tool to create and expand performance potentials. We will explore the practice of improvisation from multiple global perspectives. The course is performance-centered, though we will interrogate practices that occur in a variety of settings, from the proscenium stage to the after-hours niteclub, from the "in front of your mirror when no one is looking" persona to the pop star stadium highly-staged persona, from the quotidian to the ecstatic. As a result, we will begin to ponder the presence of performance in all spaces. We will be informed by a number of dance and movement techniques (for example, contemporary improvisation through shifts of energetic mode, social partner dances-salsa, bachata, swing, contact improvisation, viral sensations-such as twerking), though students do not need to have a background in dance to participate in the class. We have all been accumulating movement information throughout our lives, and your personal accumulation of this information will be our raw material for investigation in class. This course is ideal for any students with interest in exploring performance (dance, theater, music, performance art), transformation, and the immediate moment. If taken for academic credit, concert attendance and one or two short papers are required.
Graded CR/NC.
0.5 credit or P.E.
Catalog chapter: Music and Dance: Dance  
Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/dance-program


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