Building on students’ prior study of dance composition, Making Dances 2 is a project-based course centered around the process of developing group choreographic works. The studio will be our laboratory as we identify and employ the tools of choreographic process, individual kinesthetic and aesthetic impulse, the role(s) of the choreographer, the relational nature of the art form and the negotiations these relationships engender (between choreographer and dancer/choreographer and audience), as well as the inherent societal implications of making art of/for/by the expressive body in space and time. We will begin by experimenting with formal structures and play, design and chance. The process will soon give way to dances each student will develop in semester-long rehearsals outside of class with an assembled group of dancers. Culminating choreographic works will be shared at the end of the semester in an informal showing. Individual works may then be included in Hampshire's Winter Dance Concert (S19). Together members of the class will work to support one another in developing a nurturing space for curious investigation, boundary expanding rigor, generous feedback and playful discovery. Along the way, creative process will be framed by our engagement with texts and discussion topics that foreground the role of power and privilege in the ways dances are made, read/perceived, valued, and presented.
- Teacher: Deborah Goffe