This is the third of three skill-based two-credit courses where students continue the applied study of modern dance technique based on skill level, supplemented by instruction in modern dance history, current choreographers and companies, terminology and the principles of time, space, and energy. The course provides students with the opportunity to explore multiple aspects of modern dance. Learning activities include physical practice, observation, discussion, reading and writing to cultivate kinesthetic, aesthetic, and intellectual understanding of modern dance.
Classroom physical practice will focus on anatomically correct body alignment, awareness of the body in space, 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 Modern Dance 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 of physical strength, endurance, balance, and flexibility.
- Modern Dance Technique
Show personal progression of the integration of alignment, conditioning, musicality, and use of energy to execute intermediate Modern movement combinations and phrases.
- Musicality / Rhythmic Sensitivity
Sustain accurate rhythm, dynamics, accents, and musicality with movement vocabulary, combinations, and phrases. Adjust to a variety of music.
- Modern Dance Vocabulary
Identify and apply Modern Dance terminology.
- Improvisation and Choreography
Show the relationship of improvised movement to composition of movement phrases and choreography. Compose movement phrases through improvisation and movement manipulation as a soloist, with a partner or in a small group.
- Modern Dance History / Current Events / Performance
Analyze historical and current events and performance in Modern Dance 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 modern dance 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.