How can dance serve as a central metaphor for the holistic organization and transformation of personal life experience into aesthetic objects expressing the dynamic connectivity of self, world, and others? Using an expressive arts therapy model, movement study will be integrated with work in writing, drawing, and music in this multidimensional modern dance program exploring an integrative approach to choreography. It will involve disciplined physical and intellectual study, including weekly dance composition homework assignments.

Studio activities will include progressive study in Nikolais/Louis dance technique, theory/improvisation, composition, and performance.  Readings, self-inventories, and seminars in the philosophy and psychology of the creative process, designed to broaden and enhance the student’s palette of creative choice, will explore factors such as self-image, linguistics, cultural and educational conditioning, and multiple learning styles. In solo and group collaboration, students will workshop formal craft elements of composition, such as shape, space, time, and motion. Workshops will use various media to draw and integrate content from students’ life experiences and/or past interdisciplinary study in order to create original multimedia work. Compositions will be shared in weekly performance forums that include faculty and student-centered critique and analysis.

Texts will be used to explore the development of dance and movement therapy, draw distinctions between art and psychology, and explore the creative and therapeutic effects of the expressive arts. Seminar discussions will emphasize critical analysis in order to situate texts, art, film, and student work in historical and sociocultural contexts. Writing assignments will balance creative, analytical, and research styles, with a comparative overview of linguistic and communications theory. The program culminates with a Week 10 studio recital of selected student work.