Theater and Dance 249 - Partner Dancing

In this course, we practice moving and being moved by each other.  We explore weight sharing, body-part manipulations, off-balance support, negative space, resistance, and various ways of harnessing forces of momentum.  We generate inventive dances using a toolbox of construction methods.  We discuss how our moving and making movement together illuminate and intertwine personal identities, cultural backgrounds, compositional habits, and aesthetic sensibilities. We study eclectic performance troupes and cross-cultural duet forms that use collaborative partnering – how bodies negotiate in time and space to create moving relationships – to embody questions of intimacy, race, power, and place. There are regular out-of-class reading and writing assignments in the creative process, performance viewings with written reflections, and a final choreography project with a public showing. 

Requisite:  A previous movement course or permission of the instructor. Limited to 20 students.  Spring semester. Professor Matteson.