Humanities Arts Cultural Stu 0181 - 20th Century Dance History

As dance concentrators or enthusiasts, how many full-length ballets/dance works have you seen, become familiar with, been influenced by? Five? Ten? This course, which focuses on "dance visual literacy," challenges us to view 100 full-length dance works, for the express purpose of deepening awareness to the legacy of major twentieth-century choreographies. Balancing quantity with quality, these viewings will develop and sharpen the skills needed for looking at and writing about dance, as we experiment with different modes of descriptive, analytical, and critical writing; tooling the skills needed to synthesize the reality of the performance with its poetic or cultural resonance. Many works chosen have been created or influenced by Five College dance faculty, thus enabling us to glean the choreographic genealogy that is being passed on to you as a Five College dancer.

Culture, Humanities, and Languages Independent Work Writing and Research In this course, students are expected to spend 8-10 hours weekly on work, preparation, and viewing films outside of class time.