Dancemaking 2 & 3
250 & 350
Leslie Seiters, Jess Humphrey
Student Support: Krista Nelson
“Dailiness allows for the endless finding of a reason, for curiosity, ongoingness, tedium,
for humor, perspective, for working with the unclassifiable, for the work of work, for
embracing the excitement of being led by that stranger, the unmade dance.”
-Susan Rethorst
“Improvisation: Improvisation is a negotiation with the patterns your body is thinking.
Choreography: Choreography is a negotiation with the patterns your body is thinking.”
-Jonathan Burroughs
“For us, the performers participation is an engagement (or responsibility) in thinking and
perceiving choreographically.”
-Elizabeth Waterhouse and Jeanine Durning
“You cannot create the results; you can only create the conditions for something to
happen.”
-Anne Bogart
Course Description
Dancemaking includes Improvisation and Choreography as existing on a continuum
rather than separate areas of study. This 3-tiered course is designed to be an ecosystem
of support, encouragement, and learning through shared processes of making dances.
Each week students will make a dance in this course. The first dances are
collaboratively made, and the last part of the semester dances are directed by
Dancemaking 3 students.
Objectives
Dancemaking is a laboratory to practice:
-Dailiness
-Dialogue (being in relation to self, each other, course materials and the
dances/dancing)
-Development from attempts and failures as well as successes
-Learning from peers, the dancemaking process, and self
-Choreography as a continuum (from pre-determined to spontaneously created)
-”rethink thinking” as a process which includes all senses and whole self. “thinking” like
an artist
-Perceiving as a choreographic act (performing not separable from composition)
-Building and participating in community through collaboration and mindful leadership
-Forming, exploring, and “living in” questions
-Being Comfortable with and developing strategies for disorienting and orienting
-Receptiveness and responsiveness
-Generative methods and states
-Classical and contemporary compositional principles
-Experimenting and researching through dancemaking
-Decisiveness
-“Working” in ways that value both diligence and play
-Being influenced by and influential to world outside the dance studio
-Practice…yes, practice practice
-Designing, facilitating, and being in process
-Specificity in intention and articulation (movement, writing, speaking)
-“Observing, Imaging, Abstracting, recognizing patterns, forming patterns, Analogizing,
body thinking, empathizing, dimentional thinking, modeling, playing, transforming,
synthesizing”- 13 tools for creative thinkers, sparks of genius, Root- Bernstein
Requirements
Text
A Director Prepares, Seven Essays on Art and Theater
A Choreographers Handbook
(These are in addition to online readings.)
Dailiness
Class meets 3x week, but dailiness is required.
Class weekly schedule:
Wednesday Eve/Thursday- read and view for the upcoming week
Friday/Sat/Sun- Rehearse outside of class time (at least one 2hr rehearsal)
Monday- In class rehearsal (Use extended class time to rehearse and document)
Monday/Tuesday – Writing/ Video Documentation (post by Tuesday night)
Wednesday-Integration/ Performances in class
Completion of Weekly assignments (each week includes:)
Making A Dance- Each Wednesday you will have the prompt for the
dancemaking project that is due the following Wednesday. Fridays will be a
laboratory that will set you up to begin these projects. All students will need a
youtube account to upload video each week.
Viewing Online- Each week will have an assigned online viewing.
Required Reading- Each week will have an assigned reading.
Documentation (video) of weeks dance- Each week you will video the dance you
made. Unless otherwise noted, this should be a viewable representation of the
dance you made this week. We will not view all dances in class every week.
Writing- You will write each week. Approach this writing as thinking. Think/Write
about connections you discovered in the weeks reading, viewing, and
dancemaking. Your writing should articulate (and perhaps even formulate) the
way the different assignments influence and relate to each other. In order to
integrate these materials and feel their influence on each other, the reading and
viewing should happen during the week you are rehearsing.
Each week’s writing must address the following prompts:
1. Did the online viewing inform your dancemaking this week? If so, How? If not,
describe something that stood out for you in the video. Why was it memorable?
2. Did the reading inform your dancemaking this week? How? And if not, what stands
out from the text? (Did anything catch your attention, interest, or what is something you
would like to remember?)
3. Choose a topic that relates to your week’s work and create a list. Exhaust this list. At
least 10 words, items, phrases, ideas, possibilities… This list should be born of your
week’s work, but it is choreography in itself. Examples of topics:
 10 ways to fail
 20 ways to move quickly
 13 problems with perfection
 15 other dances I would like to make
This list is a playful way to articulate some aspect of your learning this week.
or
What is something you would like to ask yourself about your week’s work? Ask. This
should be something you are truly interested in. Consider and respond. Truly.
(See Chrysa Parkinson self-interview)
4.Anything else you want to articulate about challenges or surprises in the dancemaking
process. This can be a place to voice questions or concerns that came up in the process
of working in a group.
All of the above must be completed and posted by 10:00 Tuesday night each
week.
Process Paper
Review dances and writing generated in this course and write a 2 page paper reflecting
on the processes you have engaged in this semester. Due date and more specific
prompts for this writing will be given at the end of the semester.
Grading
Dances 20%
Writing (Includes Reading and Viewing) 40%
Participation 25%
Process Paper 15%
Participation Evaluation: This portion of the grade will include quality of witnessing each
other, navigation of group processes and collaborations, voicing ideas and questions,
and listening. How we are present in the daily work and how we show up for/with each
other are central to this class and dancemaking. Attendance is not just being physically
present, but how you show up . Each absence effects your grade (because you are not
practicing) but more that 3 absences automatically drops 1/3 letter grade for each miss.
KEYS must be checked out and returned to the Equipment desk in the Music building.
(There are limited hours this desk is open so students must plan in advance)
Blackboard
Syllabus, Assignments and announcements will be posted on blackboard as well as a
list of website resources.
Showing
The last day of classes we will show excerpts from the semester’s work. This will be an
informal showing on Wednesday Dec. 9 .
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Attendance policy
The nature of this class necessitates regular class attendance in order to complete class
assignments and studies. Students are expected to attend all classes. Please
communicate with me if you are unable to be in class for any reason.
Situations such as serious illness, long-term injury, or family emergencies may be dealt with
immediately on an individual basis. In some cases, students will be given an Incomplete to be
made up within the next semester. In other cases, I may recommend withdrawal from the course.
If you stop attending the course without following procedure you will receive a “U” which
calculates as an “F”.
WEEK ONE ASSIGNMENTS
DANCE#1- Duet/Limitation
Three people make duet in limited/defined space
Make in someone’s home/apartment - a familiar but non-studio place
Begin with some version of “the game” from Susan Rethorst
Reading: Dailiness by Susan Rethorst
Viewing: Wes Anderson
Document: Video this dance in the place it was made. Make choices about “framing.”