Dance

Composition

The emphasis of the major is on creating original work and scholarship, be it choreographed or written. Students can choose from a number of courses focusing on solo, group, site specific and theme specific composition and culminate in a produced concert. Our upper level hybrid studio/seminar courses have students creating and performing work, bringing theories and ideas into physical practice.

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Performance

The Dance Department produces 10 concerts annually. This includes 2 Faculty Concerts, 4 student choreographed concerts, site specific performance events, West African Drum and Dance Concert, and our Worlds of Dance Concerts.

Upcoming Dance Events!

Engagement

Dance is a collaborative art. Our students have opportunities to work closely with faculty and staff, and engage with off-campus communities locally and internationally. We also offer service learning courses through which students can develop and teach dance in the community.

Forklift Dance Internship

Internships through the College of the Environment

The Center for the Arts offers many interesting opportunities, jobs, and internships working with visiting artists and events on campus.

Teach in the Community!

Global Perspectives

The Dance Department is a contemporary program with a global perspective. The program embraces classical forms from Bharata Natyam, Ghanaian, Ballet, Javanese, and vernacular forms from jazz, hip hop, Eastern European social dances, to experimental practices that fuse tradition and experimentation into new, contemporary forms.

Hari Krishnan A Contemporary Approach to Teaching Bharatanatyam Dance

Artist in Residence and choreographer Iddi Saaka and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Music and master drummer John Dankwa share some history and a performance of West African Drumming and Dance at Wesleyan University.

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Social Activism

Dance is the power to envision, move and change. Dance is action.

Hari Krishnan, Liquid Shakti: As a part of the Spring Faculty Dance Concert, Indian dance artist-in-residence, Hari Krishnan, premiered a solo work inspired by the myth of the river goddess Ganga which responds to the depletion of natural resources by aggressive industrialization, told from the point of view of some of the most vulnerable populations.

Pedro Alejandro, Windswept.

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Interdisciplinary

The major is designed to provide broad and deep exposure to the discipline of dance as a critical, embodied, reflexive and socially engaged research method. The department conceives of dance performance broadly, embracing traditionally staged performances, site-based works as well as mediated and interdisciplinary performative modes. In addition to courses in choreography, improvisation, education, research methods, dance ethnography, history, and dance techniques, Wesleyan offers unique interdisciplinary courses that integrate varied modes of learning. The curriculum focuses on providing students with the skills to develop new knowledge and produce original research expressed through performance, writing and their vital intertwining into new hybrid forms

Katja Kolcio and Manju Hingorani, Body Languages: Choreographing Biology

Eiko Otake and Bill Johnston, The Atomic Bomb: A Study in Movement and History

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