THEA 270 - Introduction to Dance Studies

Students are introduced to various approaches to studying dance. Students surveys diverse dance practices according to the function dance serves across temporal and geographic locations. By studying dance in wide-ranging contexts, students engage in conversations about race, gender, sexuality, class, and nationality. Students gain an understanding of the sociohistorical and cultural contexts in which dance practices are embedded, thereby becoming better equipped to recognize and unravel assumptions and hierarchies that have come to frame dancing bodies in predominant discourses.

From consolidating and showcasing national identities for newly independent nations to providing a safe space for queer people outside the reach of hostile environments, dance has served a variety of critical functions in the lives of individuals and communities across time and space. Dance studies illuminates broad cultural, social, and political phenomena through the lens of dance and movement. As a growing field in the humanities, dance studies destabilizes the primacy of text in its insistence on body-based knowledge production.

Credits: 1.00
Prerequisites: None
Major/Minor Restrictions: None
Class Restriction: None
Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
Liberal Arts CORE: None

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