Announcements and Upcoming Events
Check out what's new in the world of Five College Dance!
Five College Dance/UMass Amherst Fine Arts Center workshop with RUBBERBANDance, 2019, at Hampshire College. Photo by Nikki Lee.
Announcements
Convergence: Welcome to a Blended World of Dance Performance and Scientific Research
Convergence: An Experimental Evening of Dance
February 2-4, doors open at 7:00pm, Totman Performance Lab, UMass Amherst
Convergence, this year's Five College Dance Concert, is conceived as a performance gallery with interactive components and a "come and go" as you like approach. Watch the team of collaborators, led by UMass professor of dance Aston McCullough, as they make a film version of the experience to be premiered at a later date. With an interactive live sound score composed by Salvatore Macchia and enacted by percussionist Ayano Kataoka and audio engineered by Jazer Giles.
See Events below for ticket information.
Upcoming Events
February 2-4, 7:00pm Gallery, 7:30pm Performance, at Totman Lab, UMass Amherst
Convergence: An Experimental Evening of Dance
This unique evening of dance is the culminating performance of UMass Amherst professor of dance Aston McCullough's National Endowment for the Arts research grant. Consisting of interactive components and live performance, McCullough invites the audience to the making of the dance film version with livestreamed real time data input from the dancers. In collaboration with Five College dance faculty and students in both the arts and sciences.
Buy one ticket and come and go for the three performance dates. Doors open at 7pm for the interactive gallery and the filming starts at 7:30pm.
February 9-11, 7:30pm, Theatre 14, Mendenhall Center for the Performing ArtsSmith College
MFA Thesis Concert
Every February, Smith College dance MFA candidates offer their thesis work. This year, Chloe London’s work is a wilderness of physicalized imagination, colors, ephemeral paint, physical maximalism, and visual endurance set on an all-white stage. Davis' comedic solo (with twenty-five back up dancers) features the collaborative contributions of musicians, composers, visual artists, filmmakers, community health advocates, circus performers, bartenders, and a licensed EMT from the state of Pennsylvania. The performance illuminates the innate theatricality of everyday life, drawing from pop culture, memes, reality television, improvisational techniques, community building, and lists.
Featured Spring 23 Dance Courses:
Mt Holyoke College with Balinda Craig Quijada:
Studies in Dance History: Beginning Modern Dance in History and Practice
Monday and Wednesdays 10-11:15 at MHC
DANCE 171MT is an introduction to the practice of contemporary modern dance at the beginning level, from both the theoretical and embodied perspectives. The course introduces the basic principles of dance movement: body alignment, coordination, locomotion, artistry, and is studied alongside the study of the histories and contexts of modern dance development. Class time will alternate between in-studio dance practice, and lecture-based classes with readings, class discussions, video viewings and short written and creative assignments.
Smith College Music Colloquium with Maeve Sturbins:
Music and the Moving Body
Monday and Wednesdays 1:40/1:20 - 2:55/2:35 at SC
This course considers connections between human movement and music from the perspective of performance analysis, history, and cognition. Topics covered include music and gesture, music performance, the role of the body in listening, and the co-constitutive relationship between music and dance.
Amherst College THDA courses with Wendy Woodson:
Solo Performance
Tuesdays and Thursdays 2:30-4PM at Amherst College
In this studio course, we will explore different skills and approaches towards creating solo performance. We will examine examples of historical and contemporary solo performances in theater, dance, video, music, radio plays, street, stand up and in political/social arenas to inform and ask what makes these effective (or not). We will use what we learn from these examples to inspire our own solo material.
More information available at this link.
Experiments Across Media
Tuesdays and Thursdays 1-2:20PM at Amherst College
This studio course is designed as an interactive laboratory for students interested in imaginative experimentation to discover and access multiple ways to generate material in different media (dance, theater, visual /digital art, text and/or sound).
More information available at this link.
Travel Packages for Spring 23
Amherst College Travel Packages
TUESDAY AND THURSDAY
1:00-2:20 | Experiments Across Media | Woodson | THDA 254
2:30-4:00 | Solo Performance: Sound, Image, Movement, Text | Woodson | THDA 355
4:30-5:40 | Dance Technique: Int/Adv Contemporary | Konner | THDA 218H
2:30-4:20 | The Language of Movement | Kim | THDA 111
4:30-5:40 | Dance Technique: Int/Adv Contemporary | Konner | THDA 218H
Hampshire College Travel Packages
TUESDAY AND THURSDAY
10:30-11:50 | Queer Dance Theory & Practice | Lailye Weidman | # TBD
1:00-2:20 | Beg/Int Contemporary Dance Tech: Somatic Entrances | Lailye Weidman | # TBD
Mount Holyoke Travel Packages
MONDAY AND WEDNESDAY
10:00-11:15 | Issues in Contemporary Dance & Performance | Craig-Quijada | DANCE 171
11:30-12:45 | Int Hip Hop: Breakin | Ramirez | DANCE 232
TUESDAY AND THURSDAY
9:00-10:15 | Int Ballet | Kouwe | DANCE 222
10:30-11:15 | Intro to Hip Hop | Barron | DANCE 132
9:00-10:15 | Adv Modern Improvisation | Davis | DANCE 319
10:30-11:15 | Int Modern | Kouwe | DANCE 216
1:45-3:00 | Funk Styles | Barron | DANCE TBD
3:15-4:30 | Int Dance Composition | Kouwe | DANCE 252
Smith College Travel Packages
MONDAY AND WEDNESDAY
1:40-2:55 | Int Hip Hop | Jean Philippe | DAN 246
3:05-4:20| Beg Contact Improvisation | Revlock | DAN 119
5:00-6:30 | Adv Ballet Technique | Blum & McCool | DAN 325
7:00-9:30 (Mondays only) | Salsa in Theory & Practice | Tomé | DAN 377
TUESDAY AND THURSDAY
1:10-2:35 | Int Contemporary Dance Technique | Konner | DAN 216
2:45-4:45 | Elementary Composition | Lass | DAN 151
2:45-4:45 | Elementary Composition | Lass | DAN 151
5:00-6:30 | Adv Contemporary Dance Technique | Lass | DAN 318
UMass Amherst Travel Packages
MONDAY AND WEDNESDAY
12:20-1:10 | Ballet IV | Vacanti | DANCE 223
1:25-2:20 | Pilates | Christie | DANCE 297
1:25-2:15 | Ballet VI | Vacanti | DANCE 325
2:30-3:45 | Bodies, Movement, and Queer Meaning | Kouwe | DANCE / WGS 395V
TUESDAY AND THURSDAY
1:00-2:15 | Modern II | Christie | Christie | DANCE 114
2:30-3:45 | Rhythmic Analysis | Olsen Bay | DANCE 287
2:30-3:45 | Hip Hop | Holland | DANCE 197P
4:00-6:45 | Scientific Foundations of Dance | McCullough | DANCE 241
(See Course Search for Lab Sections)