DANCE
Dance as part of a University Education
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AnnaGoddu
Uploaded on 01/07/2008
Universities nationwide--especially the Ivy Leagues--often categorize dance as an extracurricular activity only, and not as an intellectually founded method of knowing and doing. Why is studio art often an accepted curricular pursuit, but not dance? Why music? And acting? Dance history and theory are often popular academic replacements for technical or composition classes in dance. But having these courses only--and not supporting classes that put into practice important ideas about experiencing the world physically--is equivalent to taking chemistry without a chemistry lab. How can we legitimize dance theory and practice as an integral part of an intellectual education? For more information, see this recent New York Times article: "Mind and Body at Yale," by Claudia LaRocco. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/arts/dance/23laro.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
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Re: Dance as part of a University Education
I could not agree more with your ideas. I think a lot of the problems with dance in the American academy, at least, dovetails with problems facing the humanities in general and physical education (when it does not concern big sports teams). In the early 20th century dance entered the academy either as a humanities discipline or as a part of physical education. And it was always the lowest on the totem pole. Part of the problem also comes from within dance. For example, dance teachers, writers, and administrators continually say that dance is ephemeral when clearly it is no more ephemeral than any other performing art and it has a well-established notation system and just as much documentary resources as any field. But, never fear: OSU now has a PhD in Dance; Temple University's Boyer School of Music has a PhD in Dance...and these programs are not Performance Studies.
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