HR3012 Dancing Cultures: Art, Body, & Performance

In Dancing Cultures we seek to examine how dance practice forms an important expression of our cultural landscape and, in return, how dance maintains, negotiates and challenges the social, political, historical and economic frameworks through which it exists.

We approach this course from the perspective that all forms of dance are worthy of academic enquiry, therefore the case study examples that we call upon cross concert, traditional and popular styles of dance, both in their live practice and through their mediated forms. In this course, you will be introduced to the concept of `culture' and exposed to a broad range of cultural perspectives that can be employed as a lens through which to examine dance.

You will learn how to engage with scholarship on a variety of dance cultures, and practice skills in a range of research methods developed within cultural studies, such as screen media analysis, interviewing techniques, and ethnographic fieldwork. From this, you will design your own research project that asks you to examine a dance practice of your choice, and will culminate in a research essay that builds on some of the earlier written assignments.