Humanities Arts Cultural Stu 0272 - Dancing Devotion

This class will explore movement, dance, and other bodily forms of devotional practice in religious cultures. While texts, stories, music, architecture, and imagery might be more familiar artistic forms of religious expression, movement practices are always present as well: noticed or not, valued or not, in action or stillness, permission or prohibition, in formalized dances or ritualized movement, the moving body is present. Students will engage in three strands of study: movement analysis, movement research and practice, and study of historical and contemporary examples. They will be introduced to analytical frameworks for perceiving and describing movement practices. They will themselves explore various aspects of movement in the studio - posture, gesture, texture, repetition, rhythm, relationships to gravity, other people, place, sound, etc. They will also study descriptions and recordings of danced and other devotional movement practices of religion from around the world. Weekly readings, in-depth studies of individual traditions, and a final project will be expected, but no previous dance experience will be!

Multiple Cultural Perspectives Fees: $20-$40 for books and attending concerts. In this course, students are expected to spend 6-8 hours weekly on preparation and work outside of class time.