Yale Bulletin and Calendar

April 20, 2007|Volume 35, Number 26

For their 'final exam,' Yale students
will stage dances in New York City

Yale students who have been studying dance theater this semester will showcase their own work in New York City as part of an interactive "final exam" for the course.

The students will perform their works in progress on Monday, April 30, at 8 p.m. at the Baryshnikov Arts Center, 450 West 37th St. (between 9th and 10th avenues). Admission is free; reservations are recommended. To make a reservation, contact wpp.info@yale.edu.

The performers are all students in the course "What Is Dance Theater?" Taught by Emily Coates, artistic director of the World Performance Project (WPP) at Yale and lecturer in theater studies, the course began with an examination of choreography by George Balanchine, Merce Cunningham, Twyla Tharp, Yvonne Rainier, Pina Bausch, Trish Brown and Bill T. Jones, among others. The students then studied various processes choreographers use to create work and considered such topics as the interrelationship between language and dance, how to read movement and how to articulate and express meaning by launching bodies into motion.

The performance at the Baryshnikov Arts Center is in collaboration with lighting designers from the Yale School of Music and is produced by the WPP at Yale.

The WPP promotes programs in performance studies across departments at Yale, including those focused on the arts, humanities, linguistics, drama, anthropology and sociology, among others. The program presents performances, workshops, master classes, lectures and residencies by artists and scholars working in dance, theater, music, performance art and cultural performance. The WPP also assists and collaborates with departments and programs throughout the University seeking to enhance their curriculum through live performance.

This is the first year that "What Is Dance Theater?" has been offered as a course in the theater studies curriculum. The course will also be offered next year, along with three other new classes: "Bodies in Cultural Landscapes," "Contemporary Dance of African Expression" and "Project O." In the latter, students will study historic retellings of the ancient myth of Orpheus and revive American popular music and dance forms from the 1950s and 1960s to create and perform a multi-media rock 'n' roll version of the story about the doomed love of Orpheus for Eurydice. The modernized version is tentatively titled "Classical Grease: Rebel Without a Clue." This course will be taught by Coates, Joseph Roach and Bronwen MacArthur.

"Bodies in Cultural Landscapes" is a course designed both for dancers and non-dancers. It is essentially a composition workshop which will focus on the cultural narratives that shape New York City as an urban space and explore how they inform the creative process and subsequent artistic product through dance. A seminar component will explore cultural theory texts and how the construction of the body as a cultural signifier shifts depending upon cultural context. This course will be taught by Patricia Hoffbauer.

"Contemporary Dance of African Expression" is a study of the traditional dances of Africa, focusing on those of Burkina Faso, and their contemporary manifestations. Students in this course will examine the dynamic culture of West African dance as it occupies and reflects everyday life in Burkina, as well as investigate the various instruments used in African dance and the fusion of European dance and traditional African dance. Lacina Coulibaly will teach this course.

The WPP is helping to fund the new classes.

According to Coates, the introduction of these classes in the theater studies curriculum -- and the appointment of two new faculty members to teach two of them -- marks an important development in the study of dance at Yale. Previously, she notes, there was no formalized dance curriculum on campus. The addition of the new courses, she says, creates a curriculum that is "the most unique in the country."

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