Contemporary Movement Lab I

Catalog description

An intermediate level modern dance technique utilizing improvisation to enhance technical and performance issues: alignment, connection, balance, transition, expression, discovery. DANCE 365 Contemporary Movement Lab I (3) DANCE 365 is an intermediate level modern dance course utilizing improvisation as a tool for understanding technique and performance. This class is designed specifically for the Dance Studies Minor student to enhance the efficient and expressive use of the body as a vehicle for expression. The student will not only develop greater flexibility, strength, and alignment, but also will gain self-awareness and begin to develop a personal dance vocabulary.Contemporary Movement Lab I will meet four hours a week, with an additional 1 hour studio lab for personal discovery. CML I is designed to further expose the intermediate level dancer to the style and techniques of modern dance as it uses improvisation for expression and performance. The intermediate level dancer will be developed through more thorough movement requirements, floor work, and strengthening experiences with the support of improvisation as a tool. Full articulation of body, feet and arms will be fostered through regular exercises, which will bring about stronger connections through the body to support complicated and difficult movement. Each class period will allow time to be spent in the traditional aspects of an intermediate modern dance technique class: floor warm up and connection to center of weight, center floor balance and strengthening technique exercises and combinations, traveling sequences across the floor, and final accumulative combination.An equal amount of time will be spent in the exploration of improvisation: personal introspection, group interaction based on conceptual themes, weight sharing and beginning contact improvisational techniques, and development of a group structured performance improvisation. Improvisation will be explored regularly through individual and group work. The students will experience moving without specific directions for the body, but rather with directions for content, sensing, theme, or task oriented physicality. Observation of self and others will aid in the discovery of the freedom of moving improvisationally. Outside reading and follow up discussions will further support their experience in the studio. Discussion, journals, goal setting and writing assignments will allow for opportunities to express and share levels of comfort and personal discoveries with various experiences. This is an important aspect of the process of opening up to the act of improvisation.