The Dance and Movement Studies Program

Dance and Movement Studies provides an experiential program that explores the relationship of movement to self, culture, and environment. The program is multidimensional and offers students the opportunity to enhance technical skill and personal presence, promote wellness and self-discovery, investigate performance values, and to build community. It enriches applications to education through expanding how students think about the learning process, acknowledging that an individual’s kinesthetic experience can be a text for learning, providing possibilities for internship practicums, and informing the knowledge base of prospective educators regarding how humans learn through movement. Practices are designed to develop ease of movement, flexibility, power, and expressiveness. In addition students are guided in expanding their awareness of and their experience with the diverse and dynamic language of movement. Dance and movement can be used as metaphors for finding personal meaning and appreciating individual, social, and environmental differences.

In the studio, the critical analysis practice involves asking questions, making observations, reflecting on possibilities, and articulating choices. The program draws on resources that include somatic experience, community interaction, scholarly writings, film and video, and contemporary critical reviews. By considering the implications of dance and movement as cultural signifiers, the program fosters activity that integrates the individual with society and the world. Students pursuing a minor in Dance and Movement Studies fulfill requirements in the Humanities Division. Flexibility in course study is permitted to meet a student’s individual interests and needs.

Dance and Movement Studies courses are available to all students. Some choose to include the dance experience in their academic program by becoming dance and movement studies minors. Some dance as they fulfill distribution requirements. Others dance to enhance prior study in the field, and still others come to the studio to explore dance and movement for the first time. All are welcome.