Of Sound and Movement: Music and Dance Across Cultures

Course Description

Summary

This course introduces students to a selection of global dance and music practices via scholarship and video that, while not exhaustive, will serve to expand students’ understanding of the meaningful roles these art forms can play in different cultural contexts. We will frame this exploration through a critical analysis of the Western categories of “world dance and music” and the complex ways in which framing and classification intervene in our experience of cultural practices outside of our own. We will challenge the assumption that art is a “universal language” and focus instead on how it speaks to specific localities, performance practices, populations, political realities and cultural understandings. We will also critically examine the separation between “traditional” and “contemporary” and how these concepts operate within and beyond dominant Western understandings.

We will begin with an overview of terminologies and methodologies addressing various approaches to the observation and analyses of music and dance, particularly those that may be unfamiliar to the observer. Throughout the course, we will consider artistic work as well as existing scholarship in dance studies, ethnomusicology, history, cultural anthropology and ethnography to explore the cultural and aesthetic significance of a variety of global dance and music practices and how they intersect and inform each other. We will also occasionally engage with guest artists to explore the embodiment of non-Western dance practices.

Students are expected to do a significant amount of reading and viewing outside of class, engage in workshops with guest artists, and create in-class presentations, written analysis papers, and a final research project in the form of their choice.