ECA DANCE DEPARTMENT 2015-2016 Course Title: Modern Dance Technique I Instructors: Nazorine Ulysse Modern Dance Technique: the study of contemporary dance based on 20th- century and 21 st century, including Graham and Dunham technique and exploring my own technical variations. The primary focus in Modern Technique one is to develop appropriate alignment (placement of the spine and pelvis), good movement habits, and core strength. Students will develop basic modern technique skills including as use of the torso in curves and arches, rapid changes of direction, parallel position in the feet and body, off-center balances, floor work, and various ways to jump and turn. Students will also hone their ability to retain extended and continuous movement phrases and examine aesthetic principles as technical demands increase. Students will develop their ability to accurately retain movement phrases. Students will increase their practice in the principles of time, space and energy, improvisational exploration and expressive movement performance. The technique class will address the development of proficiency in the following areas: Body alignment, centering, kinesthetic, awareness, use of breath, focus and dynamics, perception and attention to detail. Course Title: Modern Dance Technique 2 Instructor: Laura Manzella Modern 2 draws from classical and post-modern dance techniques. With a focus on breath and proper alignment we will explore momentum, using the floor as a tool and moving dynamically through space with clarity and intention. The class moves through a center warm-up, technical exercises, across the floor combinations and culminates to longer choreographic phrases. Emphasis is placed on increasing physical awareness, core strength, flexibility and balance as well as coordination and phrasing. A strong focus is placed on the individual artistic and physical expression of each student. Course Title: Modern Dance Technique 3, 4 The material presented in Modern Technique 3 and 4 introduces the student to universal movement principles, such as weight transfer, level change, dynamic alignment, initiation and sequencing, rotation, connectivity patterns and core support. Simultaneously, students integrate specific stylistic vocabulary associated with traditional modern, release-based, classical and athletic techniques. The class evolves from a center warm-up that includes floor work, through more complex combinations and sequences that travel. Students are encouraged to increase physical and expressive range as a performer, identify and integrate personal preferences into dance artistry, take risks in problem solving, and accumulate knowledge of dance as an artistic practice. Course Title: Ballet In Ballet I, students explore beginning/intermediate techniques of classical ballet. These techniques include basic barre and center exercises designed to develop strength and articulation of the whole body. Barre exercises are designed to progressively warm up muscles. They include plié (small and large leg bends); tendu, degagé and frappé (leg gestures of various speed, accent and leg height); rond de jambe, développé and adagio (fluid, sweeping leg gestures designed to increase strength, flexibility and fluidity of movement).
During center exercises students connect dance steps into various phrases. Types of phrases include allegro (quick and intricate stationary or traveling jumps like glissade, jeté and assemblé); balancé and pirouette practice (waltz steps and turns); and grand allegro (sweeping steps, jumps, and turns which travel across the floor). In Ballet I, students are expected to work independently at their own level, continually trying to develop their overall ballet technique and master appropriate ballet vocabulary. Course Title: Ballet Instructor: Suzanne Stack In Ballet for second years, students explore intermediate/advanced techniques of classical ballet. These techniques include basic barre and center exercises designed to develop strength and articulation of the whole body. In Ballet II, exercises are quicker and more intricate than in Ballet I. Movement combinations include plié (small and large leg bends); tendu, degagé, frappé, and pas de cheval (leg gestures of various speed, accent and leg height); and rond de jambe en l air, développé, fondu, fouetté and adagio (fluid, sweeping leg gestures designed to increase strength, flexibility and fluidity of movement). During center exercises students connect dance steps into various phrases. Types of phrases include allegro (quick and intricate, stationary or traveling jumps like glissade, jeté, sissone, temps de cuisse and assemblé); balancé and balancé en tournant (waltz steps); piqué and châinés practice (quick traveling turns); pirouette practice (turns in varying leg positions like passé, attitude and arabesque); and grand allegro (sweeping steps, jumps, and turns which travel across the floor). In Ballet II, students are expected to work independently at their own level, continually trying to develop their overall ballet technique and master appropriate ballet vocabulary. Course Title: Advanced Ballet Instructor: Leonides Arpon Advanced Ballet further develops the technical skills achieved by students in their previous two years at ECA. Following the form of traditional Ballet classes, students begin at the barre, with a sequence of exercises designed to shape the body into an articulate instrument for the expression of movement, with increased emphasis on deepening muscular awareness to achieve correct alignment, turnout, strong and supple feet and legs, simple but expressive arms, and overall clarity of movement. The barre is followed by center floor work including: adagio (slow movement requiring increasing degrees of control), pirouettes, petite and grand allegro, (small quick jumps and large traveling jumps, respectively). Throughout the class students will work on musicality, phrasing, movement dynamic and performance. Students will also be required to learn Ballet terminology. Course Title: Choreography 1 In Choreography 1: Movement invention and first solos, students will explore ways to improvise movement, invent movement phrases, and create solo studies. Students will work with partners and in large and small groups, examining ways to borrow the movement ideas of others to as a springboard in the creation of their own movement, both improvised and choreographed. Students will explore ways to successfully to work as an ensemble and offer positive constructive criticism. Students will discuss and examine the choreographic and improvisatory ideas of Joyce Morgenroth, Lynn Anne Blom and Anne Bogart. Course Title: Choreography 2 Instructor: Laura Manzella Choreography 2 will focus on strategies to create and analyze the process of making a dance. In this class, we will be developing collaborative group work. Exploring initially in small groupings, duets and trios, students will begin by generating movement phrases through classical and improvisational techniques. Movement studies will be built upon class by class throughout the quarter. These studies will introduce and reinforce elements of effort, shape, theme and variation, repetition, and reordering. As we expand from small to larger groupings, the students will explore the use of space. In addition to spatial relationship
studies will investigate ideas of direction, dimension with plane, floor pattern and stage space. We will also experiment with different ways of drawing focus and the effect of time and tempo on our developing investigations. The primary goal of this class is for each student to develop collaborative skills while actively refining their individual creative process. Course Title: Choreography 3 Instructor: Nazorine Ulysse In Choreography 3 third-year students will deepen their artistic voice as they experiment and refine their understanding of choreographic elements and skills by studying master choreographers of the 20 th and 21 st century. Students will individually choreograph a group dance, drawing on the ideas and style of a master choreographer from the 20 th and 21 st century. Students will study their master choreographer through text sources as well as DVD or live performance. The students are required to submit a research paper about the master choreographer as well as a choreographer s statement of intent, clearly relating their choreographic ideas to the historical figure chosen. The choreographer s statement is submitted before the students create their dance. The research paper is handed in after the last performance. Papers must be four to five pages, clearly written, typed and with a bibliography and footnotes. In the third quarter, students will adapt the choreography developed in this class in Student Repertory working with the first-year dancers, to help the first-year students become familiar with the master choreographers which they have been studying. Course Title: Choreography 4 Choreography 4 is an intensive laboratory in which students rigorously practice a cycle of various operations involved in making dance works: inventing, manipulating and organizing choreographic material. Class review and synthesis of the student s previous choreographic studies serve as a springboard for the Senior Dance Project (later in the year). Choreographic prompts or problems stimulate action and require a large measure of initiative and independent decision making. Students work cooperatively as both choreographer and dancer to experiment with diverse compositional practices from contemporary dance. Video viewing, discussion, reading and writing assignments complement daily creation activities. A movement journal is also an essential learning tool for recording the ongoing artistic discovery process. Each class consists of experimentation, individual and group studio research, presentation and discussion. Course Title: Dance History I (20 th Century) In this class we study important figures in 20th century modern dance such as Isadora Duncan, Loie Fuller, Ruth St. Denis, Ted Shawn, Edna Guy, Katherine Dunham, Pearl Primus, and Rod Rodgers. We use a text, The Vision Of Modern Dance, edited by Jean Morrison Brown. This text is a collection of writings from these dance personalities with historical introductions. All of these dance personalities have specific choreographic and artistic ideas that we explore through their writings, videotapes of their dances, and by creating dance studies that are based on their ideas. We relate our work in Choreography I directly to our Dance History I studies so that the students complete written work as well as create a dance study in the studio about each historical personality. Course Title: Dance History II (20 th and 21 st Century) Instructor: Suzanne Stack What are the fundamental principles of movement? What is dance for? What is it about? The new 20 th century art form known as Modern Dance was born out of the continued investigation of these questions. In this course we will explore the answers that the pioneers of Modern Dance, Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey Charles Weidman, Hanya Holm, Lester Horton, have left us. We will study their choreographic themes, practice some of the movement techniques they developed, and think about their uses of stage, space, and costumes. We will understand what made each of these dancer's answers so radical for their times. Of course, Modern Dance didn't end with the founders; each influenced a new generation of dance
creators. Who did they influence and what answers did the new generation develop to our initial questions? We will look at the work of Merce Cunningham, Alvin Ailey, Anna Sokolow, Katherine Dunham, Alvin Nikolais, and many others. Finally, what is the connection between our dance practices at ECA and earlier generations? Throughout our course we will be constructing a Modern Dance Family Tree. In dance, we can choose our own ancestors. By the course's end, I hope you will come closer to finding your own dance parents. What vision of dance would you take from him/her what would you reject? Faculty Repertory Instructors: Pamela Newell, Tara Burns, Nazorine Ulysse, Mariane Banar Fountain and Leonides Arpon In this course the faculty creates new dances for the student dancers. Each year, after an audition, every student is placed in a faculty repertory cast. The faculty choreographs a new dance for the students using a variety of rehearsal techniques and methods to generate material and to structure the dances. Each year the faculty decides on a different broad, generalized theme within which to work. Examples of repertory projects have included: - Use of spoken text as part of the score - Development of a commissioned musical score in conjunction with the choreography - Collaboration with ECA music ensembles requiring choreography with set musical scores - Use of poetry, sculpture, or painting of major artists as source ideas - Use of political and social theory or current news events as source ideas. Course Title: Special Project: Breaking the Rules: Experiments in Post-Modern Dance since the 1960s Everything we see in dance today is the result of a group of people working in the 1960s who refused to see dance as it had been seen, refused to dance as everyone had danced, refused to follow rules carefully conceived and passed down through generations. In fact, many of the ideas, goals and beliefs were outlined in the No Manifesto, a document drafted at the time by seminal dance artist Yvonne Rainer. That group of people formed the Judson Dance Theatre, a collection of avant-garde artists working in New York in the early 1960s. Their work dramatically changed our perception of dance and their influence continues to resonate with artists to this day. They shifted the emphasis away from the choreographer s body as the primary source for artistic content and onto compositional methods. Musicians, visual artists, and choreographers experimented together to share methods, question norms and expand possibilities. In dance at ECA, we focus on traditional compositional methods in the spirit of you need to know the rules to break the rules. In this course, we will examine these artists unorthodox methods and appreciate their continued relevance as a source for radical experimentation. The course will provide an opportunity for students to take risks and develop a deeper sense of underlying artistic assumptions that can keep them from connecting to their individual voices. Breaking the rules could be seen as a complement to Choreography 4 in which they focus on learning and refining the rules. Course Title: Senior Seminar Senior Seminar a laboratory in which students rigorously practice the various operations involved in making dance works: inventing, manipulating and organizing choreographic material. Class review and synthesis of the student s previous choreographic studies serve as a springboard for the Senior Dance Project. In Senior Seminar, students work cooperatively as both choreographer and dancer to experiment with diverse compositional practices. They will practice various ways to teach improvisations and ways to manipulate and expand movement phrases in preparation for senior project rehearsals. Students will examine ways to organize and manage rehearsals. They will explore various teaching strategies in preparation for teaching their choreography to peers. They will complete a Senior Project Survey detailing
their choreographic ideas for their senior project, share their ideas and brainstorm ways to expand their movement ideas into viable choreographic material. Students will keep a movement journal an essential learning tool for recording the ongoing artistic discovery process. Each class consists of experimentation, individual and group studio research, presentation and discussion. In Senior Seminar, students will participate in master classes in choreography including lighting and costume design, audio music production, and Garage Band. NOTE: At the beginning of this course, seniors will have the opportunity for college preparation lab time to complete essays and the Common App, special seminars, and studio time to develop college audition solos. Course Title: West African Dance Technique Instructors: Tatchol Camara West African Dance Technique explores the traditional rhythms and dances of Guinea, West Africa, and how the two interact and reinforce each other. Students explore techniques, terminology, and history common to traditional West African Dances. Developmental exercises will condition the body and refine the ear for the rhythmic requirements of this dance form. Technical exercises will emphasize grounded stance and appropriate use of alignment. This is an oral tradition, and the students are required to learn the material without written or digital aids. It is a collaboration and involves learning to listen so to hear how it all fits together. Dance in Guinea occurs collectively in a community setting. It expresses the life of the community more than the mood of an individual or a couple. In villages throughout the country, the sound and the rhythm of the drum express the mood of the people. The drum is the sign of life; its beat is the heartbeat of the community. Such is the power of the drum to evoke emotions, to touch the souls of those who hear its rhythms. In a Guinean community, coming together in response to the beating of the drum is an opportunity to give one another a sense of belonging and of solidarity. It is a time to connect with each other, to be part of that collective rhythm of the life in which young and old, rich and poor, men and women are all invited to contribute to the society. Course Title: Horton Technique Instructors: Leonides Arpon : This beginning/intermediate Horton (Alvin Ailey) technique class will begin with abasic warm-up focusing on the correcting alignment. Center and across the floor exercises will emphasize expanding range of movement and developing flexibility and musicality. The exercises are fun and challenging. Each student will examine ways that movement can improve health and inspire creativity. Throughout this class, teamwork and trust will be emphasized. Course Title: World Dance/Guest Artist Instructors Instructors: Various This class is designed to introduce students to the techniques, cultures, and historical significance of dance around the world. Emphasis is placed on physical knowledge of different world forms. In recent years students have studied dance forms and culture from Guinea and Burkina Faso, West Africa; Brazilian Capoeira; Haitian Technique, and Spanish Flamenco. Additionally, the class will have periodic guest artists in various dance styles including Body Percussion, Tap, Hawkins Technique, Humphrey Technique, and Repertory from renowned choreographers including Twyla Tharp, Anna Sokolow, and Yvonne Rainer.