Introduction to Critical Dance Studies

Introduction to Critical Dance Studies:
Corporeality, Race, Gender, Class introduces
students to the interdisciplinary field of
critical dance studies and its historical,
ethnographic, and theoretical approaches. Dance
studies attunes students to ways of analyzing
bodies in socio-cultural contexts while also
developing an understanding of historical
trajectories of dance on and off stage. Students
will acquire knowledge of "traditional" western
dance history then complicate it with the study
of revisionist dance history that accounts for
issues of transnationalism, the "global,"
indigeneity, race, gender, sexuality, and class.
The types of dance examined in this course
include concert dance (ballet, modern,
contemporary), social dance (from salsa to
hip-hop), and dance on screen in contexts as
diverse as the proscenium stage, the museum, the
space of ritual, the club, television, and other
public and domestic spaces. Students will acquire
vocabulary to analyze formal aspects of
choreography. This course will address the ways
in which bodies, dancing and otherwise, reflect
concepts and realities of nation, gender
performance, racial dynamics, power, taste, and
labor. In addition to gaining a background in the
history of dance discourse itself, students will
gain facility with critical concepts such as
choreography, corporeality, embodiment, and
performance. Students will engage in close
readings of texts and dance, developing
discursive tools of analysis (formal/aesthetic
and cultural) in written and presentation form.
Students will also develop an understanding of
how dance interacts with other arts. This course
will be conducted in seminar format; as such, it
is participatory. Requirements include weekly
readings, writing assignments in response to
readings as well as live and recorded dance,
several short essays, a group presentation, and
attending up to two live performances in Los
Angeles as a class. While this course is designed
as the first semester BFA dance studies course in
a series of four, it is open to students outside
of dance with an interest in the material.

Students should expect to spend approx. $100 for
books and performances.