Theater and Dance 126H - Dance Technique: Afro-Cuban Dance, Music, and Culture

This course expores Cuban dance traditions---including Orisha dances, rumba, and Bantu-derived forms---rooted in African ethnic groups such as the Yoruba, Bantu and Fon, and examines their central role in shaping the island's cultural idenity within the African diaspora. Students analyze movement in close relationship with musical structures such as polyrhythm, call-and-response, percussion, and song, as well as the spritual and social contexts from which these practices emerge. The course considers Afro-diasporic dance and music as transnational forms that continue to influence contemporary popular culture worldwide. Emphasizing dance as a form of embodied knowlede, the course highlights how rhythm, singing, and physical expression operate as interconnected systems of cultural memory. Students of music, African and Black Studies, and Latin American and Caribbean Studies, will find this course relevant to their interests. Coursework includes readings and discusssions, video screenings, presentations, a final ethnographic research project, and a group performance. Classes feature live drummers. No prior dance experience is required. Limited to 18 students. Fall semester. Five College Dance Lecturer Torres.

How to handle overenrollment: Instructor will choose students based on a balance of interests, major and class years.

Students who enroll in this course will likely encounter and be expected to engage in the following intellectual skills, modes of learning, and assessment: This course requires regular attendance and class participation, class discussion, reading, viewing, and writing assignments, indpendent research and class presentation, as well as physical dance practice.