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Hollins University
Graduate Programs
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CONTACT
(General Information)
Hollins University
Graduate Center
P.O. Box 9603
Roanoke, VA 24020-1603
(540) 362-6575
Fax (540) 362-6288
hugrad@hollins.edu

 

Artistic Director
Donna Faye Burchfield
(540) 362-6230
dburchfield@hollins.edu

 

www.hollinsdance.org

Dance: Hollins / ADF M.F.A.
Courses

 

DANC 525: Mentored Studio Practice (2/4)
Location: HU, ADF
This course offers students the opportunity to work in a multitude of ways with regard to movement and studio practice, and to develop an individual approach to their endeavors. Through self-directed study students will be encouraged to focus their discipline and hone their skills as dance artists. In addition to the equivalent of 8 studio hours per week, students will be required to meet with pre-approved mentors to share goals and progress. May be repeated for credit.
Possible mentors listed with faculty


DANC 539: History, Theory and Criticism
(4)
Location: ADF
This two-part core course explores contemporary dance theory and methods of dance historiography.  Close examination of relationships between  cultural studies, performance studies, ethnic studies, gender and sexuality studies and contemporary dance practices. Readings, performance viewings, and discussion sections create context for consideration of the corporeal. May be repeated for credit.
Faculty: Thomas DeFrantz


DANC 570: Graduate Seminar
(2)
Location: HU, ADF
This open forum/workshop will meet weekly for four hours and include discussions and viewings. The in-depth talks with visiting artists from around the world offer perspectives on the relationships between dance making, history of the form, and culture.  Students will be required to participate in discussion groups outside of class meeting times. May be repeated for credit.

Faculty:
ADF summer: Donna Faye Burchfield and Charles Reinhart with visiting artists/scholars

HU summer: Anna Kisselgoff; fall & spring - Jeffery Bullock, Donna Faye Burchfield, and Douglas Becker, with visiting artists/scholars


DANC 590:  Graduate Critique
(2)
Location: HU, ADF
Critique gives students the opportunity to meet as a group and share their choreographic work.  Issues related to imaginative and creative processes are discussed as questions are raised around each work.  Using a variety of approaches, the group will share in the development of one another’s creative projects and research from the perspective that there is no "one way" to make or experience a dance.


DANC 531: Contemporary Body Practices (CBP)
(2)
Location: ADF
This core course combines somatic theory with practical application to dance choreography and training. In this applied (studio) course, students will attend a weekly evening seminar during the ADF six-week festival for discussion and experiential work in somatics. In this seminar, students will focus on ways somatic practices can deepen perceptual processes and influence movement aesthetics. CBP options include: Alexander Technique, Feldenkrais Method®, Body-Mind Centering, Body Ecology, Ideokinesis, and Technobody.
Faculty:
ADF summer: Glenna Batson with visiting scholars


DANC 551: Visiting Artist Series
(2)
Location: HU, ADF
Through studio work, critiques, performances and discussions this course will introduce dance artists from varying backgrounds — connecting students very directly to working artists. It also functions as a forum for discussions of career related topics. May be repeated for credit.
Faculty: tba


DANC 540,541: Contemporary Art Practices I and II (CAP):
(2 or 4)
Location: HU, ADF
In this intensive seminar students will work with faculty and guest artists to explore a thematic area of contemporary visual culture through workshops, museum and gallery visits, lectures, and discussions. The seminar topic will change by semester according to the expertise of the faculty and guest artists.
Faculty:
HU summer - Kim Rhodes
HU fall & spring – Ben Pranger
Past/Present: Contemporary Art and the Historical Imagination
Many contemporary artists utilize historical subject matter, working between worlds to produce art that bridges the gap between past and present and transforms our view of both. Kara Walker, for example, uses nineteenth-century cut paper silhouette techniques to create alternative ante-bellum slave narratives that, in turn, expose the pervasiveness of racist stereotypes. Ann Hamilton's installations often subtly reveal the richly layered histories of the spaces they inhabit and comment on gender, class and collective memory. Amy Yoes pores over eighteenth and nineteenth-century decorative pattern books for source material for her abstract paintings and drawings. The work of these artists, and others, will help us explore this important and often politicized tendency in contemporary visual culture and conceptualize the significance of the historical imagination to contemporary visual art practice. Guest artists will visit the class to discuss their work and lead workshops, we will take field trips to galleries and museums and we will read and discuss selections from a variety of disciplines including art history and criticism and philosophy of history.


DANC 550: Special Topics:
(2/4)
Location: HU, ADF
This topic will change by semester according to the expertise of the faculty and guest artists. May be repeated for credit.


Digital Imagination:
(4)
This studio course expands the context of performance to include visual and sound media. Using the Dance Media Lab, the class will create multimedia environments for performance — including video, sound, web-based, installation and interactive media — and investigate the emerging role of digital media in the creative process.
Faculty: Ben Pranger


The Expanded Field
(4) 
This art studio-based class investigates the expanded field of dance. Students will make new hybrid projects and work between disciplines. These experimental projects will explore diverse media, including objects, installation, video, sound, web projects, animation or interactive technology as they relate to performance/dance work.
Faculty: Ben Pranger


Improvised Media/Performing Objects
(2)
This studio-based, multimedia class combines various types of media (movement, objects, images, text and sound) in an improvised performance setting. This class encourages a playful multitasking, invention and a fluid relationship with media.
Faculty: Ben Pranger


Poetry as Performance
(2)
The emphasis on poetry as an art-making practice that is informed by both body and mind is the keystone of this class. Examining the aesthetics of textual performance as it has been applied to performative (written and oral) aspects of poetry. This class focuses on ways to intensify the experience of poetry, of the poetic, through consideration of how the different styles, structures, and forms of contemporary poetry can affect the way we see and understand the world.  Poets to be discussed include but are not limited to Jayne Cortez, Jason MacLow, David Antin, and Victor Harryette Mullen.
Faculty: T.J. Anderson


Our Ecological Bodies
(2)
As dancers, we are constantly aware of our mutual interaction and interdependence with every other living being and substance on the planet.  In this course, we will "look" inside our bodies as if they were translucent in order to "see" some of our bones, joints and muscles that move them. We will consider the variety of ways in which our bodies move in different relationships and interactions with the world. We will expand our concepts of anatomical potential and our ability to envision new choreographic creations as well as teach the embodiment of those dances.
Faculty: Irene Dowd


Trisha Brown Project
(2)
A series of readings, workshops, lectures and video showings that offer an all-embracing perspective of the contributions of choreographer Trisha Brown to the field of dance.  Sessions taught by former Trisha Brown Company members.
Faculty: Abby Yager


Pedagogy: Ok, Now; Shifting Grounds of Discourse
(2)
This seminar will focus on contemporary as well as historical topics, positions and attitudes relating to the training of dancers in academia. Guest speakers will meet with the group to discuss related issues and to share experiences. Different readings will be assigned to provide a framework for the course.


Relational Aesthetics and Dance Making
(2)
Bourriaud used the term relational aesthetics to describe work that moved away from private, independent space to art that could be encountered and meaning could be experienced collectively. Terms such as inter-subjectivity, inter-textual, temporary, democracy, environment and audience are discussed alongside  dance and performance practices.


DANC 600: Thesis Forms I, II
(2, 6)
Location: HU, ADF
A collection of original work in choreography and/or performance, which culminates in a public viewing (6) along with a portfolio, which includes a written examination of the creative work. (2)
Faculty: Donna Faye Burchfield and Pauline Kaldas with selected thesis mentors and creative advisors




DANC 601: Portfolio
(12)
Location: HU
Extensive body of professional work evaluated by a panel of faculty and artists from the field of dance. Body of work to include: 1. dance works presented to date, 2. grants and fellowships acquired, 3. educational, teaching and residency experiences, 4. curriculum vitae and 5. professional references.


DANC 599: Internship
(4)
Location: HU
May be proposed either fall or spring term. Application must be made with faculty prior to registration.


DANC 590: Independent Study
(2 or 4)
Location: HU
Independent Study conducted at the graduate level. Application must be made with faculty prior to registration.

(faculty and courses subject to change)

 

04/07/08