This is the second of three skill-based two-credit courses where students continue the applied study of ballet technique based on skill level, supplemented by instruction in ballet history, current choreographers and companies, terminology and classical dance principles. The course provides students with the opportunity to explore multiple aspects of this traditional and foundational dance art. Learning activities include physical practice, observation, discussion, reading and writing to cultivate kinesthetic, aesthetic, and intellectual understanding of ballet.
Classroom physical practice will focus on anatomically correct body alignment, placement, and turn-out, musicality, strength, stamina, and flexibility. Care of the body and conditioning for dance is also emphasized.
Goals, Topics, and Objectives
- Develop more complex skills and combinations of ballet movement beyond the beginning level and to condition their body in preparation for more advanced level work.
- Provide students with a knowledge-based immersion in Ballet history, vocabulary, events, and performance.
- Prepare students for audition and entrance into four year dance programs.
- Provide transferable technique course credit.
- Anatomical Alignment
Explain musculoskeletal structure and its relationship to movement and energy in the body. Execute movement with connectivity and coordination of the parts to the whole.
- Dancer Conditioning
Show personal progression and demonstrate increased individual capacity for physical strength, endurance, balance, and flexibility.
- Ballet Technique
Show personal progression of the integration of alignment, conditioning, musicality, and use of energy to execute intermediate Ballet movement combinations and phrases at the barre and centre.
- Musicality / Rhythmic Sensitivity
Sustain accurate rhythm, dynamics, accents, and musicality with movement vocabulary, combinations, and phrases. Adjust to a variety of music.
- Ballet Vocabulary
Identify and apply Ballet terminology and English translation.
- Ballet History / Current Events / Performance
Analyze historical and current events and performance in Ballet through interpretative reading, writing, observation, and discussion.
Assessment and Requirements
Assessment of academic achievement may include but not be limited to written, oral, or movement exams to identify ballet and skeletal and muscular terminology. Movement exams include the demonstration of intermediate skill levels in technique, performance, and musicality. Interpretative reading and writing assignments and interactive discussion will be used to assess academic achievement.
To be determined by instructor each semester.
Outcomes
Credit for Prior College-Level Learning
Determined by department.