Results for DANCE

This introductory contemporary dance class focuses on the fundamental techniques of dance to develop form, posture, flexibility, rhythm and ultimately, ease and flow. Drawing from various movement practices, including ballet, modern, lyrical, Tai chi and yoga, students will gain freedom dancing with others and obtain the essential tools to continue in any dance style. Presence and expressiveness is emphasized throughout the class. Designed for beginners, we welcome athletes, dancers from diverse dance styles, advanced dancers who want to have more grace, and the student mover who desires more beauty and fluidity in their everyday life. Live accompaniment in every class.nFor further information, contact the instructor at ahayes1@stanford.edu.

Interested in social dance? Like jazz, rock ¿n roll, or retro music? Come learn to swing dance! We are in the midst of an exciting lindy hop revival, with communities popping up all over the world, including right here on campus! Over the course of 10 weeks, we will introduce you to social swing dancing, emphasizing the various forms in lindy hop. No dance partner required. Just sign up and join the fun!

In this class we will create a performance installation utilizing our expressive talents, but also accessing the ways that we are dancing and singing through life. Drawing from the everyday and extra daily movements, we will create a `sneaker ballet¿ to integrate our everyday experiences into our wild imaginings. Students will participate in a Chocolate Heads collaborative making process which will include observing peripatetic crowds, , sharing our individual and collective expressive expertise in movement, music and art while also integrating and learning art forms and ways of thinking from other members of the class. Working in art spaces and galleries, students will gain awareness of spatial relationships and site navigation from the vantage point of architecture, theater, and dance. Though field trips, guest artists and lecturers, and collaborative sharing, teaching and learning, students will create a performance event for an art gallery space that will foster community, unique expressivity, cultural understanding and fun. Designed for all levels. Admission by application. See dschool.stanford.edu/classes for more information.

Creation, rehearsal, performance of faculty choreography. Casting by audition/invitation. Repeatable for credit. For detailed project descriptions and full rehearsal/performance schedules, contact instructors directly. 2016-17 projects: AUTUMN: New Work by Diane Frank. International collaborators: composer Jarek Kapuscinski, sculptor Will Clift, Japanese master musician Ko Ishikawa. Large-scale sculptures provide a shifting landscape for sound and movement investigation of "ma," a Japanese aesthetic concept. Early February performances, Bing Concert Hall Atrium. Contact: dfrank1@stanford.edu. WINTER/SPRING: TAPS Main Stage production of "No Hero," a nationally-recognized multimedia work by choreographer Alex Ketley exploring what dance means to people throughout rural communities in the West. Rehearsals both Winter & Spring quarters, Tues/Thurs,6:30-8:30 pm. Main Stage performances end of Spring Quarter. Participation by invitation or audition. Please contact Alex Ketley at aketley@stanford.edu for more details and questions.

In this course students will be introduced to a series of contemporary dance warm ups and dance combinations that are drawn from a broad range of modern dance techniques, somatic practices and dance traditions of the African diaspora with a particular focus on Afro Brazilian, Afro Cuban and Haitian dance forms. No prior dance experience is required. Each class will be comprised of a series of warm up exercises and fun dance combinations that express the connection between western contemporary technique with dance traditions of the African diaspora. Dance combinations will consist of dynamic movement patterns that condition the body for strength, flexibility, endurance, musicality and coordination. Through these exercises students learn how to become expressive and dynamic movers and gain a deeper appreciation of the multiple expressions of what is known as contemporary or modern dance.

Students from diverse dance styles (ballet to hip-hop to contemporary) participate in the dance-making/remix process and collaborate with musicians, visual artists, designers and spoken word artists, to co-create a multidisciplinary finished production and installation. Students of all dance or athletic backgrounds are welcome to audition on Wednesday, September 28th and Monday, October 4th during class time. Visual artists, musicians and dancers may also contact the instructor for further information at ahayes1@stanford.edu.

An introductory class in exploring the different ways of approaching choreography. Bobbi will create an original work on the students through out the term that will focus on the cognitive and emotional experience of movement.nnnGuest instructor Bobbi Jene Smith is a former dancer with the internationally acclaimed Batsheva Dance Company, and a principal collaborator in the works of choreographer Ohad Naharin, as well as one of the world's most recognized teachers of GaGa and Naharin repertory.

This class will explore art/artists on the fringe of of the visual arts, projecting their work through performance. Class will consist of visiting artists, short readings, field trips, and a culminating performance to take place in the Anderson Collection. Through the exploration of these cross-disciplinary projects, students will gain a better understanding of the history of performance art, specifically in visual arts spaces; meet practicing artists; visit galleries, museums, and alternative art spaces in the Bay Area; and explore the artistic strategies used in performance or body based disciplines in order to create new, innovative or transformative ways of being and doing. Embodied thinking and improvisation is the primary methodology through which creative strategies, processes and practices are applied in both art and non-art contexts.

Introduction to non-competitive social ballroom dance. The partner dances found in today's popular culture include 3 kinds of swing, 3 forms of waltz, tango, salsa, cha-cha and nightclub two-step. The course also includes tips for great partnering, enhancing creativity, developing personal style, stress reduction, musicality, and the ability to adapt to changing situations. The emphasis on comfort, partnering and flexibility enables students to dance with partners whose experience comes from any dance tradition.

Fundametals of ballet technique including posture, placement, the foundation steps, and ballet terms; emphasis on the development of coordination, balance, flexibility, sense of lines, and sensitivity to rhythm and music. May be repeated for credit.

Each day Ketley will develop a new phrase of choreography with the students and use this as the platform for investigation. Consistent lines of inquiry include; sculpting with the body as an emotional, instinctual, and graphic landscape, how the fracturing and the complication of strands of information can feel generative of new ways of moving, discussions around how our use of time is directly correlated to our sense of presence, and the multitude of physical colors available to each of us as artists as we expand our curiosity about movement. Classes will be very physical, trusting that much of our knowledge is contained in the body. For questions please e-mail aketley@stanford.edu.

Choreographer Hope Mohr/Denae Hannah will set contemporary work from her company repertory as part of an alumni commission initiative . Rehearsal Autumn Quarter. Culminate in performance on Winter Quarter concert. Participation by audition and/or invitation (Rehearsal Director: Diane Frank)

Steps and styling in one of America's 21st-century vernacular dance forms. May be repeated for credit.

Steps and styling in one of America's 21st-century vernacular dance forms. May be repeated for credit.

The repertory of Hip Hop history through steps and choreography. May be repeated for credit.

This Choreography course is designed to expose students to fundamental techniques and approaches used in the creation of dance. All of the basic elements of dance composition will be creatively touched upon including: style, form, theme and variation, narrative versus abstract methods of expression, elements of time, quality and use of space, motif and repetition. These different tools will be illustrated and the options and restrictions of each will be explored. Practical assignments will culminate in a performance of work generated and arranged by the instructor and students. The course is recommended for all students interested in the artistic process in a creative situation.

This movement-based introductory course to site-specific dance/performance art investigates one of humanity's basic drives: to build and express relationship to the external environment. Using their bodies as sensory information-gathering tools , student will examine the qualitative aspects of various sites, indoor and outdoor. Using skills/knowledge acquired through studio work supplemented by readings/ concerts/videos & films of site specific works, students will create short culminating projects/works in physical conversation with campus sites, building upon both the concrete and imaginative dimensions of place.

In everyday life we are constantly moving from the subjects of the public, to its objects--from seeing to being seen. This performance- creation, interactive seminar explores everyday/pedestrian movement as articulated through the language of dance. Looking through the interpretive lenses of fashion, dance and visual representation, we critically consider how we observe others and ourselves in the world, and how we respond performatively or unconsciously. In addition to seminars and rehearsals, we will host guest lectures by curators, artists and professors: incorporate fieldwork research in museums as sites of display, and discuss scholarly texts and films. A performance installation with dance, fashion and visual display will ensue in the galleries at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford, in conjunction with the Fall 2013 exhibition, Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography and Video.

This course provides instruction in the fundamentals of the goal-oriented body in the artistic practice. Emphasis will be placed on suing sports movement as a base for training in dance.

This in-studio course provides a general introduction to some of the sacred and popular dances of the Caribbean, such as Afro-Trinidadian dances, Yanvalou, Jamaican Dancehall, Cuban rumba, and Puerto Rican salsa. From the folkloric dance forms to popular and secular dance practices, this course journeys through various islands of the Caribbean to learn about the various histories and cultures associated with each particular dance form.

This course will investigate how Caribbean Dance techniques can be used to create contemporary concert dance. Students will learn the varied and alternative movement practices that inform current Caribbean concert dance aesthetics-- such as techniques used in sacred Afro-Caribbean dances-- in conjunction with US contemporary techniques-- such as release technique and movement improvisation. The emphasis of this course is to explore the ways Caribbean bodies use movement and dance to create contemporary narratives for the concert stage. DANCE 74 complements and can be taken in conjunction with DANCE 73.

Combining actual dancing with medical research, this Cardinal Course investigates the dynamic complementary relationship between two practices, medicine and dance, through the lens of Parkinson's disease (PD), a progressive neurological disease that manifests a range of movement disorders. "Dance for PD" is an innovative approach to dancing --and to teaching dance --for those challenged by PD. Course format consists of: 1. Weekly Lecture/Seminar Presentation: Partial list of instructors include Ms. Frank, Dr. Bronte-Stewart and other Stanford medical experts & research scientists, David Leventhal (Director, "Dance for PD") and Bay Area "Dance for PD" certified master teachers, film-maker Dave Iverson, Damara Ganley, and acclaimed choreographers Joe Goode, Alex Ketley, Judith Smith (AXIS Dance). 2. Weekly Dance Class: Stanford students will fully participate as dancers, and creative partners, in the Stanford Neuroscience Health Center's ongoing "Dance for Parkinson's" community dance class for people with PD. This Community Engaged Learning component provides opportunity to engage meaningfully with people in the PD community. Dancing together weekly, students will experience firsthand the embodied signature values of "Dance for PD" classes: full inclusion, embodied presence, aesthetic and expressive opportunity for creative engagement, and community-building in action. A weekly debriefing session within Friday's class time will allow students to integrate seminar material with their movement experiences.nnNO PRE-REQUISITES: No prior dance experience required. Beginners are welcome.

This course will explore the imaginative ways black Americans have expressed their desire for freedom through dance, movement, visual art, and musical performance. Each week, historian Clayborne Carson will discuss the theme of assertive performance during various periods of African American history, and dance Lecturer Aleta Hayes will guide students as they perform their own interpretations through distinctive historical periods and styles. Course will culminate in informal performance by participating students.

Fundamental techniques and approaches used in the creation of dance. Basic elements of composition including: style, form, theme and variation, and phrasing, development of movement vocabulary, symmetry and asymmetry, explicit versus abstract methods of expression, elements of time, quality and use of space, motif, and repetition. May be repeated for credit.

Students practice, compose and combine the languages of dance, gestural movement, music and text, to render complete expression in performance. Suitable for dancers, actors, spoken word artists and triple threat performers to devise original performance, dance and theater, culminating in an end of quarter showing.

Rehearsal experiences and techniques embedded in the reconstruction of repertory by three artists whose collective works represent differing approaches to the choreographic process. May be repeated for credit.

Collaboratively directed by Ketley and Frank, students will create dance material prompted by weekly interactions with residents of Lytton Gardens Assisted Living Residence. Students will meet twice weekly: once in studio on-campus, and once on-site with Lytton residents. Drawing from interviews and interactions with Lytton residents, students will engage in an evolving rehearsal process including movement score creation,, aesthetic discussion, revision with active involvement of the residents, and performance. The course culminates in performance(s) of the dance work for Lytton residents, staff, and families on-site at the end of the quarter.

In this course we will examine dance and performing art practices that are rooted in the African American experience for social justice. Utilizing movement, writing and theater based practices we will explore the current issues that black Americans face in the struggles for joy, and racial, gender, and economic justice in the U.S.A. We will look at the work of black dance and performance artists from the period of the black power and black arts movements of the 1960s up to the present Black Lives Matters movement and examine how their performance work has served to catalyze and/or reinforce movements for justice.

Collaboratively taught by choreographers and Stanford dance faculty Alex Ketley and Diane Frank, this is a body-based investigation and studio class. As a class we will take a conspiratorial approach toward choreographic processes that insure breakthrough moments of innovation as students investigate, create, and eventually perform their own dance works. Both instructors have a wide range of choreographic experience which they will use to guide students through a myriad of approaches they can deploy when devising new dance and physical performance. Pre-requisite: A curiosity about making your own work and diversifying your understanding of movement generation and the infinite possible forms dances can take. Dancers of all genres, training backgrounds, and levels of experience are strongly encouraged to enroll. The quarter of studio exploration work will culminate in a public performance of the created works during the last week of class.

What happens when Hip Hop meets "Fosse", "Aida", "Dream Girls" and "In the Heights"?nThe most amazing collaboration of Hip Hop styles adapted to some of the most memorable Broadway Productions.nThis class will explore the realm between Hip Hop Dance and the Broadway Stage. Infusing Acting thru dance movement and exploring the Art of Lip Sync thru Hip Hop Dance styles.

Developing Creativity In Dance Robert Moses Course description: This introductory course explores the creative process in dance. There are many effective ways to approach creative expression, and this course will utilize multiple approaches, both in series and in parallel. Parallel processing and multitasking will become the dominant mode as rational, intuitive and physical skills merge. Processes will include changing perception, design by analogy, quick adaptation to changing situations, musicality, overcoming creative blocks, and stress reduction to relax into a more creative state of mind. Class sessions will be primarially practice, with two-thirds of the class time spent in the dance studio, creating ways of moving, to embody the concepts that will be detailed in the discussion sessions. Previous dance experience will not be required to take this course. Rationale: Dance in the University plays a vital role in the experience of self-definition. The opportunity to create dance offers students the means to experience the body in new ways through diverse forms of movement. Students come to understand dance as a conduit for impression and expression in society. It becomes a means of giving physical voice to the most private and powerful aspects of an individual's understanding of himself in relation to the world.

In this course we will deepen our focus on many African and African diaspora movement traditions and their influences on Western contemporary dance with an emphasis on dance traditions of Cuba, Brazil, and Haiti. Our study of these dance disciplines will inform the movement vocabulary, technical training, class discussions, and choreography we experience in this course. Students will learn more about the dances and rhythms for the Orishas of Brazil and Cuba, and the Loa of Haiti with an additional focus on other African diaspora dance forms such as, house dance, salsa, Cuban Haitian, Palo, Samba and Samba-Reggae. Through our warm ups and class choreography, we will deepen our analysis of how African diaspora movement traditions are inherently embedded in many expressions of the broadly termed form known as contemporary dance.

Structured studio practice reviewing the basics of ballet technique including posture, placement, the foundation steps and ballet terms, and progressing to more complex positions and combination of steps. Emphasis is placed on improving forms, developing coordination and connectivity, securing balance, increasing strength, flexibility, sense of lines, and sensitivity to rhythm and music.

Two hundred years of waltzing: Regency era waltz (1816), Vienna in the 1830s, redowa and mazurka waltz variations, waltz in 5/4 time, the Russian Mazurka Quadrille, pivots, 20th-century hesitation waltz, tango waltz, Parisian valse musette, 1930s Boston, 1950s Bandstand-style waltz, swing waltz. Each form is explored for possible adaptation to today's non-competitive social dancing. May be repeated for credit two times.

This intermediate studio dance practice class is primarily grounded in training practices of Merce Cunningham, with additional technical work drawn from other major modern dance training techniques. Participation in this class will increase strength, speed, line, amplitude and rhythmic acuity/musicality. Dance technique will be supplemented by other studio experiences that will increase awareness of dance as an art form. Studio work will be supplemented by readings, video viewings, concert attendance, and lively participation in classes with guest artists. Students must be ready to work at an intermediate level.

This advanced dance technique class is grounded in the technical training, aesthetics, and choreographic processes of Merce Cunningham, American dancer and master choreographer. Practice will increase strength, speed, articulation, amplitude and clarity of dancing. Class will provide a solid technical base applicable to other forms of dancing. Dancers must be ready to work at a high intermediate/advanced level to enroll. Short readings and concert attendance will supplement studio work. Cunningham-based technique is particularly well-suited to dancers with prior training in ballet; dancers with prior training in any form are welcome. nMay be repeated for credit.

This intermediate/advanced dance technique class is grounded in the technical training, aesthetic sensibilities, and choreographic processes of Merce Cunningham, American dancer/master choreographer. This studio work at an intermediate/advanced level will build technical strength, speed, line, and rhythmic acuity/musicality and amplitude in dancing. The class will provides solid technical training useful and applicable to other forms of dancing. Dancers must be ready to work at an intermediate/advanced level to enroll. Studio practice will be supplemented by readings, video viewing, concert attendance, and participation in special workshops with guest artists. Though Cunningham-based dance technique is particularly well-suited to dancers with prior training in ballet, dancers with prior training in all forms of dance are welcome and strongly encouraged to enroll. May be repeated for credit.

Practical skills of intermediate technique will focus on elements ofncontemporary jazz dance. Los Angeles, Broadway, and video dance stylesnwill be covered. Studio work will focus on phrasing, endurance, technical proficiency, and musicality. Course includes viewing of a professional live performance. May be repeated for credit.

Intermediate non-competitive social ballroom dance. The partner dances found in today's popular culture include Lindy hop, Viennese waltz, hustle, traveling foxtrot, plus intermediate/advanced levels of cross-step waltz and nightclub two-step. The course continues further tips for great partnering, enhancing creativity, developing personal style, stress reduction, musicality, and the ability to adapt to changing situations. Prerequisite: Dance 46.

Swing dancing: the early Lindy of the 1920s; 6- and 8-count Lindy hop, Shag, Big Apple, 1950s Rock 'n' Roll swing, disco Hustle and West Coast Swing. Partnering and improvisation. Swing's crosscultural influences and personal creativity. May be repeated for credit.

Advanced Ballet at Stanford is offered for students who are interested in rigorous, complex, and artistically compelling ballet training. The class focuses on technique, but in the broad sense of how ballet as a movement system can be used for a wide range of dance disciplines. The class honors the historical training legacy that defines classical ballet, but is in no way shackled to that history in an antiquated fashion. The students are encouraged to explore the form as artists, to question its foundations, and find their own sense of agency within classical dance. Students with a strong background in ballet are encouraged to come, but also students with less ballet training are welcome as long as they have an email dialog with the lecturer beforehand. Any questions can be directed to Lecturer Alex Ketley at aketley@stanford.edu

A quarter-long exploration of improvisation in relationship to identity and race in the 21st century in which students investigate new dynamics of doing and thinking identities through the arts. Panel discussions, performances, and talks that engage critically with the theme, concept, and practice of improvising identity across a variety of contexts and genres such as jazz music, modern dance, contemporary art, race comedy, food, and hip-hop poetry/freestyle. Strategies that artists/scholars have used to overturn essentializing notions of identity in theory and practice.

This seminar investigates social dancing as a political practice, and the dance floor as a place where race, ethnicity, class status, and sexuality are formed and contested. While many students may be familiar with salsa, and can imagine how it produces particular kinds of Latin/a feminities, this course asks students to expand the notion of social dancing beyond partner-dancing spheres. Course materials will focus on dance practices from the late-nineteenth century to present-day, ranging from rural Louisiana dancehalls to NYC nightclubs to Iranian backyards. We will examine how dances become racially coded (e.g., what makes a dance black or Latin@?), and understand how categories such as gender, class, and regionality intersect with such racializations. Students will engage in a range of activities, including reading, viewing films, and participating in occasional movement workshops (no previous dance experience required). Each student¿s final project will require independent, sustained, ethnographic research in a social dance setting of choice (e.g., student dance club, yoga studio, aerobics class, or YouTube).

Intermediate non-competitive social ballroom dance: intermediate/advanced waltz, redowa, Bohemian National Polka, intermediate/advanced tango, cha-cha, and salsa. The course continues further tips for great partnering, enhancing creativity, developing personal style, stress reduction, musicality, and the ability to adapt to changing situations.Prerequisite: Dance 46. Dance 156 may immediately follow Dance 46.

What is physical intelligence? How could we cultivate it? What technologies can extend sensory awareness, and which can suppress it? How can better understanding of human movement impact a creative/design process? The term 'hybrid action¿ introduces the notion of movement, expressed in both the physical and virtual worlds. Through interactive technologies, such as the Kinect and camera tracking, and literature from multiple fields, this class takes human movement as a practice-based, creative, theoretical, historical, and philosophical realm of study. The course introduces basic principles and practices of body awareness as a way to extend one¿s 'physical intelligence¿ and asks how studying movement can inform creative practices from computer programming to engineering to choreography, as well as applications in health and rehabilitation, cognitive and neuroscience, philosophy and literature. The class emphasizes hands-on, individual and collaborative projects through research and prototyping.

The ballerina occupies a unique place in popular imagination as an object of over-determined femininity as well as an emblem of extreme physical accomplishment for the female dancer. This seminar is designed as an investigation into histories of the ballerina as an iconographic symbol and cultural reference point for challenges to political and gender ideals. Through readings, videos, discussions and viewings of live performances this class investigates pivotal works, artists and eras in the global histories of ballet from its origins as a symbol of patronage and power in the 15th century through to its radical experiments as a site of cultural obedience and disobedience in the 20th and 21st centuries.

This course will introduce students to the ways in which the Middle East has been represented and performed by/in the 'West' through dance, performance, and popular culture in both historical and contemporary contexts. A brief look through today's media sources exposes a wide range of racialized and gendered representations of the Middle East that shape the way the world imagines the Middle East to be. As postcolonial theorist Edward Said explains, the framework we call Orientalism establishes the ontological character of the Orient and the Oriental as inherently `Other'. Starting with 19th century colonialism and continuing into the post-9/11 era, this course will trace the Western production, circulation, and consumption of representations of the Middle East as 'Other' in relation to global geopolitics. We will further examine dance forms produced in mid-twentieth century Iran and Egypt, with particular attention to nation-state building and constructions of gender. Finally, we will examine artistic productions and practices from the Middle East and Middle Eastern diasporic communities that respond to colonialism, war, displacement, secularism, and Euro-American Empire. Using dance studies, postcolonial feminist, and critical race theoretical frameworks, we will consider the gender, racial, political, and cultural implications of selected performance works and practices in order to analyze how bodies produce meaning in dance, performance art, theater, film, photography, and new media. Students will engage in multiple modes of learning; the course will include lectures, engaged group discussions, viewing of live and recorded performance, embodied participation in dance practice, student oral presentations, and a variety of writing exercises. Course assignments will culminate in a final research project related to class themes and methods.

Dance on the Move is an introductory-level course that considers dance performance and practice as sites for examining the mobilities/immobilities that shape transnational migration and citizenship. We examine how (im)migrant bodies as subjects constructed through political-economic relations of race, gender, sexuality, class, nationality, and religion negotiate, contest, and affirm experiences of belonging/unbelonging in daily life and artistic practice across diverse geographical sites. Students will conduct a small ethnographic project with a dance community that relates to the theme, such as social dance events or student dance groups. Students will produce either a written- or a hybrid written/performance- ethnography as their final project.

This course explores the cultural and historical unfolding of the genre of contemporary performance known as postmodern dance over the past six decades. It begins with the formative influence of the émigré Bauhaus artists of the 1930s, then the postwar experiments of the Beat artists in the 1950s, to Merce Cunningham, the Judson Dance Theatre, postmodern formalism, neo-expressionism, dance theatre and through to the global, spectacle-rich, cross-genre dance work of the early 21st century as the most recent extended legacy of this history. This course uses dance history to trace with special emphasis the effects of these visual art and movement experimentalists on gender representation and nationalist identity construction in the negotiation of boundaries between dance and life.

A survey of movement and historic dance from the past five centuries, including technique and general deportment, that is distinctive to each era. Historic dances that are traditionally included in dramatic repertoire include the Galliard, Pavan, Branle, Minuet, Waltz, Mazurka, Polonaise, Tango and Charleston.

Explores how indigeneity is expressed and embodied through performance on the global stage.

The course will examine and engage with dance cultures from around the world. Through historical and theoretical readings, film screenings, and viewing performances, this course aims to introduce students to a number of theoretical issues central to the study of dance across various disciplines. As a class we set out to explore how dance is more than a set of organized bodily movements, pleasurable to both do and watch. We will consider what cultural work dance performance accomplishes in the world.

Topics related to the discipline of dance. May be repeated for credit.

Individual supervision of off-campus internship. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.

This class works collaboratively with a local juvenile hall to use civic engagement and performance to explore the aesthetic, cultural and legal issues in the lives of incarcerated youth. In the process students gain an understanding of incarceration on an immediate and personal scale. Taught jointly by a Dance Studies scholar and a lawyer specializing in Juvenile Justice, we will consider what unique understandings are possible if we position the arts as central to an exploration of punishment, rehabilitation and recidivism in America. The course will examine case studies, historical and contemporary narratives about the social, imaginative and behavioral change possible through arts programs in prison.Half of the class meetings will be in Hillcrest Juvenile Hall in San Mateo, where our class will join with a group of 13-18 year old youths currently detained there. Dance will be used to help shape their individual expressive voices, and ours, through collaborative hip hop dance classes. Books to be read are Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson, and Last Chance in Texas by John Hubner.

A quarter-long exploration of improvisation in relationship to identity and race in the 21st century in which students investigate new dynamics of doing and thinking identities through the arts. Panel discussions, performances, and talks that engage critically with the theme, concept, and practice of improvising identity across a variety of contexts and genres such as jazz music, modern dance, contemporary art, race comedy, food, and hip-hop poetry/freestyle. Strategies that artists/scholars have used to overturn essentializing notions of identity in theory and practice.

Individual project on the work of any choreographer, period, genre, or dance-related topic. May be repeated for credit.