Semester-long course taught at Princeton University

Designed for people with little or no previous training in dance, this class is a mixture of movement techniques, improvisation, choreography, observing, writing and discussing. Using tools from Laban Movement Analysis, students investigate their own movement patterns and delve into many facets of dance and the cultural questions surrounding it. We explore the role of dancer, choreographer, audience member, and critic in relation to such topics as aesthetic questions, politics, identity, religion, and complex views of the human body. We also look at movement and embodiment in our daily lives.

Reading list includes:
Susan Sontag, Against Interpretation
Claudia La Rocco, Funny, You Don’t Look Dancerish
Brenda Dixon Gottschild, The Black Dancing Body
John McPhee, Structure: Beyond the Picnic Table Crisis
John Simon, The Boo Taboo
Kathryn Schulz, Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error