2026-2027 Academic Year

Fall 2026

THDA 102 Intro to Global Dance Studies
This is an introductory course that explores dance forms from six different regions: Africa, India, North America, Europe, South America and Asia. Focus will be on how dance functions within various social structures and how these functions operate to re-inscribe, contest or legitimate race, class, and gender identity formations. Issues such as authenticity, hybridity, cultural tourism and globalization will be examined. Through an interactive classroom, guest artists and studio work, we will gain a deeper kinesthetic understanding of how dance can operate as a powerful cultural tool, glue or agent for social change. Offered every two years.

THDA 204 Fundamentals of Choreography
A studio-based course designed to introduce the student to various tools to generate and create original dance compositions. Basic elements such as time, space, energy, dynamics, movement generation, and quality are explored in addition to multiple structuring devices. Using an interdisciplinary lens, this course offers a different approach to art making from related fields such as visual art, literature, and media in order to treat dance composition as a relevant response to the contemporary moment. Prerequisite: 102, or permission of the instructor. One studio course in dance is recommended.

THDA 220 Dance Production & Performance
Permission of Instructor Required.

Spring 2027

THDA 214 Body and Place
Body is our first environment. It is the medium through which we know the earth." Andrea Olsen Drawing from movement ecology, somatic practice, site-specific artistic investigation, and current conversations in the multidisciplinary field of Environmental Humanities, this course is an embodied interrogation of Olsen's statement. How can we explore our body as an environment? What does it mean for this to be the medium through which we know the earth? What is this knowing good for? Through reading, discussion and creative projects (many of which will take place outdoors) we will investigate how our interactions with built and natural environments influences our perception of space and place and our role within it. What shifts in our relationship and approach to the pressing environmental issues of our time when we experience ourselves as a part of nature?

THDA 220 Dance Production & Performance
A laboratory experience in the creation and performance of dance for the concert stage. Under the guidance of faculty or guest professional choreographers, students will explore the interpretive processes by which dances are created. Carries .5 academic credit. Credit/no credit. Prerequisite: Permission of instructor based on an open audition process for performance or application process for production. Two .5 academic credits of this course can be used to satisfy the Arts distribution requirement.

THDA 322 Movement Lab
Movement Lab is an advanced level dance technique course open to students who demonstrate substantial technical skill. Movement Lab is designed to further the student’s knowledge of contemporary practices in dance, to enhance efficient use of weight and momentum, to release held patterns in the body’s mechanics, and to strengthen dynamic range in performance. Movement combinations drawn from a variety of dance techniques and somatic modalities will address coordination, alignment, spatial awareness and musicality. Throughout the semester students develop a personal project aimed at addressing their individual goals for dance training as well as further developing their skills as self-directed artists and scholars. Each course may be repeated for credit with permission of the instructor. Prerequisite: Permission on the instructor. Each carries .5 academic credit. This .5 class counts towards the Arts Requirement when combined with a .5 class of a different dance genre.