Movement Practice: Orbiting the self and community
DAN2260.01
Course Description
Summary
The course is for students with an intermediate level of experience with dance. Parijat Desai will share vocabularies she is developing for her project How Do I Become WE, a participatory performance ritual. She will offer movement practices to connect with land, individual somatic awareness, and community. Parijat pulls from modes she has inherited, trained in, or aspired toward including: garba (Gujarati circle dance)*, qi gong, yoga, postmodern / contemporary dance, martial arts, and bharata natyam. She is exploring ways to blend these vocabularies to create a process for preparing the body for improvisation, dance making and performance. Class will begin with acknowledgement and sensing of our land/environment, followed by awakening the joints, muscles, and energies. Parijat will offer exercises and phrases that blend movement vocabularies and that explore principles like power versus softness, and fluidity versus clarity of posture. Finally, Parijat will teach garba and contemporary garba phrase material. These repeating phrases will travel along circular pathways and revolve the body on its axis. *Garba is a regional dance form from Gujarat in western India, practiced by Gujaratis across India and the diaspora.Corequisites
Dance or Drama lab assignment if students sign up for 4 or more credits in dance.