Building on foundational principles of dance composition, students in this course will be invited to apply those principles to collaborative group choreographic processes. The studio will be our laboratory as we individually and collectively examine kinesthetic and aesthetic impulse, and the ways group process reconciles, expands, and challenges those. Employing design and chance methods, we will attend to the negotiations engendered by relations between makers, performers, audiences, communities, identities, and place as well as the inherent societal implications of making art of, for, and by the expressive body in space and time. 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. Choreographic works that emerge from this semester-long process will be shared informally at the end of the semester, and may be included in Hampshire's Winter Dance Concert (S20).
As an outgrowth of semester-long individual journaling processes, students will work together to generate and co-curate content for a culminating Dance Makers Archive where choreographic ideas, notes, images, reflections, and responses to assigned texts and performances can be gathered in support of this and future choreographic processes. Additionally, students will be expected to witness and reflect on 6 complete dance works (no less than 3 live), observing the work of established choreographers as a point of reference for the student’s own choreographic process (approx. cost: $40-$50). A Performance Reflection Paper must be submitted for one live performance by semester’s end.

In addition to an informal showing at the conclusion of the fall semester, students’ culminating choreographic work(s) will also be considered for inclusion in Hampshire Dance Program’s Winter Dance Concert, January 30-February 1, 2020. As a result, it is important to note that, while this course officially ends in December, choreographers’ participation in the Winter Dance Concert necessarily extends the commitment to February when the performance process is complete.

Prerequisite: Making Dances 1 or at least one other college-level dance composition course. It is also expected that students in this course will be engaged in concurrent study of dance technique and have had previous dance performance experience.