DAN 101.01 Syllabus, Fall 2020 PDF

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Download DAN 101.01 Syllabus, Fall 2020 PDF

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Fall Semester 2020 Stony Brook University Department of Theatre Arts College of Arts and Sciences DAN 101 Movement and Somatic Learning Course Satisfies the SBC: ARTS Remote Course, Asynchronous Course Instructor: Associate Professor Amy Yopp Sullivan Section 01, 3 Credits Professor Sullivan’s Zoom Office Hours Office Hours: MW 10am - 11:30am; and 12:30-2:00pm M, W **Or by appointment through Zoom. You may contact me through email at other hours, I will return your email as quickly as possible. We can set up meetings through Zoom through our SBU email. Professor Sullivan SBU email: Email: [email protected] Course Description: “Somatic” means “of the body” or “related to the body”. This course investigates the practice and experience of embodiment through movement, reflection, sensory attunement, intrinsic motivation, visualization of motor imagery, and programming of neuromuscular patterns. Students will focus on the integrity of body mind connections through presence, action and performance. The class will be using Blackboard. Make sure to check Blackboard for notifications. They will also be sent to your Stonybrook email. All students need to check Blackboard on a regular basis for reminders for class assignments, posted video and media documentaries, upcoming showings, readings, and other important materials. You can access Blackboard at: https://blackboard.stonybrook.edu/webapps/login/ Blackboard will be used throughout the class to offer instructions and prompts for your daily class work and practice. Blackboard will have recorded introductions for your daily work and practice. You are required to develop a physical practice two times a week throughout the semester. The theory and practice will be posted on Blackboard by 8am on Mondays and Wednesdays. You are expected to develop the physical practice throughout the semester. You are required to film your work 2 days a week. The purpose is to have a semester’s recordings of your strengths and challenges in the class, documenting your work in every class. It will provide a chance to follow the trajectory of your learning, accomplishments, creative work and performances throughout the semester. You are expected to establish a physical practice two days a week throughout the whole semester. You will need to follow the prompts from Blackboard for warm up assignments and body mind techniques. However, you may also work on various styles and levels of dance and movement studies that you find interesting.

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It is strongly suggested that you develop and set the same time for your practice each week. Consider developing a specific class time for your work so that it will fit into with your academic schedule. It is your choice of which days/times you wish to work. However, after each practice, you will need to record your experience and observations. Also, each week you are to record your responses regarding your strengths, challenges and goals in your work. See below for further information. You are expected to send two videos of your work and your evaluation of the work each week of the semester. Filming your physical practice: • You will need a smart phone or video camera, to film your physical practice two times a week. • After filming, you download the film to your computer and save the film in the existing E-Portfolio or Google Doc Folders through which you are building and maintaining your work throughout the semester. • Both Films for each week, as well as the critiques are due by Thursday at 5pm. These materials need to be submitted each week, as they will be offering a record of your work and attendance in the class. You have 2 absences allowed in the class; and you are also required to make up any absences throughout the semester. It is required that you document your work each week. Please make sure to date the films. You will also be required to include the following: • A written response of your experience in the work. Were you comfortable in the new work and material today? What was new? What did you discover as you were working? What information did you cull from the first work of the day? What did you learn about your strengths? What challenged you and why? What goals developed from your work today? • A second written response is based on what you observed about your work, as you watched the film. Please write your response to the experience first, and then look at the film. • Students are required to turn in their completed E- Portfolio or Google Doc Files on Thursdays of each week by 5pm, you will need to complete all assignments. • Throughout the semester, students will be graded along specific due dates for assignments, so it is clear that you are developing your work through the semester. • Your final grade will be dependent upon the accumulation and completion of the smaller weekly assignments, as well as the completion of the overall creation of the final EPortfolio or Google Doc. • Record, assess, consider and define growth and development through the generation of creative and exploratory dance experiments and improvisations Compare and contrast approaches to creative process and problem solving. • Work with innovation and invention in order to construct and apply new avenues for learning and practice in numerous areas and disciplines

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Attendance and Makeup Policy: • 50%: CLASS WORK: ONGOING PERSONAL PRACTICE, Videos, Critiques and Written work in the E Portfolio or Google Docs reflects upon your attendance. You will be submitting your personal practice as the evidence of your daily work and physical practice two times a week. If you miss a class, you can simply look up the prompts and add the practice to keep up. • You are expected to physically work on assignments for 90-minute sessions, two times each week. The assignment, given on Blackboard, will include the theory, rationale and importance of the practice of the day. There will also be a link access to training films for the focus of the artistic, physical and performance skills each week. • Accumulations of the practice sessions will be developed throughout the semester to offer you a range of skills, techniques and creative work. The goal is to prepare the body for its full potential of human action and experiences. Our work will focus on developing heightened awareness, strength, flexibility, creative work and the relationships of intention to action. • We will take the time during the first 10 minutes of your practice, to quiet the body and mind in order to prepare for physical, creative practice. Quieting the chatter in our lives is a means of heightening our awareness and opening your potential for movement, sensation and strategic practice. • At the beginning of the semester, your practice will focus on preparation and warmup for your physical work. As we move forward, we will test and train the ranges, specifics and details of your movement, creativity, craft, design and technical skills. Course Learning Objectives: • Students will acquire and demonstrate new skills and theories of body mind practice built from study and body mind relationships explored through a range of somatic movement practices. The work and ideas of Hanna, Feldenkrais, Alexander, Laban Movement Studies, Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, Mabel Todd, Lulu Sweigard, Glenna Batson, and others will inspire and direct our process and experiences. •

Students will create E-Portfolios or Google doc files, documenting their work throughout the semester, exploring the trajectory of their learning, and assessing changes throughout the semester.

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Students will document, witness, and evaluate personal body mind skills throughout the classroom sessions, using media and classroom showings; incorporating and assessing kinesthetic, musical, auditory and visual experiences of learning.

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Since “Self-awareness, self-control, and the active application of the will to the processes of growth and development are the major themes of this education,” (Eddy), students will determine what is habitual in their personal practice in order to acquire new ways of thinking or for heighten approaches for body mind practice.

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Students will formulate, construct and perform creative projects, based on the applying historical, theoretical, technical and creative approaches to somatics.

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Students will incorporate visual and kinesthetic skills in order to write about the process, historical legacies, theory and practice of somatic practice. Students will learn to articulate their ideas through body mind actions of physical expression, writing, performance, creative work and speech.

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Students will demonstrate their ability to transform critiques received from technical and creative evaluations into implemented action items to determine the next stages for their growth, learning, training and creative work. The weekly assessments will use information from the textbook as well as the accumulating practice and performance work.

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Assignments will be reviewed and described at the beginning of the class two times a week on Blackboard You can also contact me through email during my office hours for discussion and further clarification of the weekly task: or for any other need to assist with your general creative work, development and learning. If you have personal needs or questions beyond class, please contact me after class time through email, and I will respond as soon as possible

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Attendance and Makeup Policy: Absences or non- completed work over the maximum limit of 2 missing assignments will result in lowering your final grade 1(one) full letter per every extra cut. If you miss 2 days of your work in class, your grade will be lowered. Remember, you can always go back and make up any class work through the materials on Blackboard. Observations from class include descriptions of movement, invention and technique observed, movement ideas, theory/corrections/technical instruction, technical and creative training, how focus/attitude/intention/attention/etc. change work, energy as a catalyst for technical and creative work. Required Texts: Brodie, Julia A. and Lobel, Erin E., 2012. Dance and Somatics. McFarland & Company. INC.

Various Supplementary readings, materials, videos, lectures and mind maps will be posted on Blackboard throughout the semester. Notes from these materials also need to be entered in your E Portfolio or Google docs at the end of the semester. You may format your notes into bullets or you may write narratives about what impacts your work, from readings and/or experiences. Grading: • 50% Class work: Daily Class Work and Notes (filmed and posted on Blackboard). Your daily work in class is a major part of your grade in this class. Your warmup, discipline, performance, technical process, collaborations, creative development, and attendance all enter into the final grade. 4

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Please use writing pads, laptops, notebooks, while you develop your practice, in order to notate some of your questions, breakthroughs and insights. Make time to document these important challenges and goals as part of your practice. Please bring you phones every day with enough space to record your movement, and experiments in dance and movement. 50% E-Portfolio Requirements: Completion of Trajectory of Learning, Writing, Media and Creative Explorations Written summary notes from all chapters of your required text. Cull the points, theory and insights that you consider to be significant for your work. You may use bullet points or write a narrative A journal of your most valuable points and insights to remind you of your goals, as you develop your creative and physical work throughout the semester. What stands out to you as significant information and exciting or informative ways of thinking and moving? Video documentary of classwork and showings throughout the semester Semester Synopsis of your overall personal critiques and evaluations of the technical and creative work you have developed. This is written from your perspective. Keep a log/chart of accomplishments and the trajectory of your own work, one full entry each week of the semester. Reviews of the films such as, “Still/Here by Bill T Jones, posted in Blackboard. One page of significant ideas or new insights from the films. Can be in the form of bullets or narrative. Development of a personal practice built throughout class. Develop a 10-15 minute Somatic practice for experimentation throughout the semester. The focus of the practice is to combine new ideas from class and weave them into other ways of moving or into a practice that you have already learned, created, developed. ` You will be developing this personal practice throughout the first half of class, then you will film the practice you have been developing in class. Some practices will be taught to you, some practices will require you to create and experiment individually. All of your notes on films, reviews of your work and your challenges and goals. Questions, Break throughs, and new understanding Final Project: Film, Quality, creative and intention of the work, explorations and final Project 15-minute somatic practice, focused on breathing and centering the mind and body, followed by a structured technical warmup. We will move on to explorations through improvisation, followed by training with center work patterns to develop sensorimotor learning and artistry. “Motor control depends upon the integrated functioning of the brain, skeleton, joints and nervous system.” (Donna Krasnow).

The course provides a basic introduction for understanding the human body and its potential for interacting with creative and experiential learning. The course focuses on intrinsic motivation, the importance of embodied thinking and the body’s sensory attunement as foundational for thinking, research and creative process. The course provides a foundational and experimental elective for performing, visual arts, social science, biological science, and health science. Our focus is to develop a practice and understanding of the potential of the body/mind. 5

Course Outline Weekly: Week 1: August 24 and 26: Review course syllabus, Preparations: Listening to the body, Overview of E-Portfolios, Media Buddy System, Introductions. Gentle work, breath and beginning a warmup., Introduction to developing a Movement practice for heightened physical and mental clarity. Reading for 8/31: Dance and Somatics Chapter 1: Pedagogy: Strategies for Teaching and Learning Based on Somatic Principles Week 2: August 31 and September 2: What is Somatic Learning? Focus attention on the body’s sensory stimuli, breath, sensory attunement and process orientation. Readings for 9/9: Dance and Somatics Chapter 2: Breath: Bridging the Conscious and the Unconscious Monday, September 9/7: Labor Day, NO Classes Week 3: September 9/9: Kinesthesia: The Sixth Sense for Dancers. Overview of Sensory System, Kinesthetic System, Open and Closed Loop Systems of Control. Barriers to change, Maximizing Kinesthetic Input, Proprioceptive Sensing, Scanning the Body, External Kinesthetic Feedback and/or Imagery Reading for September 14 and September 16: Dance and Somatics Chapter 3: Dance and Somatics: Kinesthesia: The Sixth Sense for Dancers Week 4: September 14 and September 16: Rest: The Balance of Rest and Activity – Allowing the nervous system time to process and integrate. Allowing the physiological system time to recover. Reading: Posted on Blackboard for Glenna Batson’s article, The somatic practice of intentional rest in dance education – preliminary steps toward a method of study Week 5: September 21 and September 23 : The Visual System and Its Relationship to Other Modes of Sensing and Learning. Reading: Dance and Somatics, Chapter 4 “More Than Just a Mirror’s Image” Week 6: September 28 and September 30: Intrinsic Motivation: Self Organizing Movement Internally – How one moves, rather than what the movement is. Attending to and exploring Sensory feedback. Introduction to Improvisation and Authentic Movement Week 7: October 5 and October 7: Forces in Movement, Laws of Motion, Structural Connectivity, Developmental Patterns, Applications to Improvisation Reading: Dance and Somatics, Chapter 5: Connectivity to Self, the Environment and Others 6

Week 8: October 19 and October 21: Review Intention and Initiation. Begin developing a practice of one’s own Reading: Dance and Somatics, Chapter 6 and 7, Review the main points of developing a practice. Then apply them in the next stage of development for your movement signature and practice. Develop 2 short phrases (at least 3 minutes each): using verbs and intention, OR sensation and abstraction. Weave them together and pull them apart. Then, video the work, including both short phrases and review it. Send it to me as a link and I will offer feedback as well. Week 9: October 26 and 28: Creative work: Context, Articulation, Intention…how to begin creating in the body Introduction to Creative work in Zoom Discussion of possible styles of work, voice, movement, space, time, etc Week 10: November 2 and November 4: Creative Work: Attention, Magnetism, Attitude, concepts from Anne Bogart Testing them out and using them for personal strategies for creative experiments Week 11: November 9 and November 11: Beholding, Responding, Knowing what to do Take your work to an interesting environment that you have access to. Test you work in a small space, how does it change? Test your work in a large space, how does it change? Film the final version of your creative work in both spaces. Submit it to me as a link. I will gather the links and send them to you all. Review the links to become inspired from your peers in class; and see what may be possible for your work as well. The links will be posted on a document on your email; and then we will set up some chats to discuss what you have developed during next week. Week 12: November 16 and November 18 Complete your creative project and submit it to Professor Sullivan for Feedback [email protected] I will make a document of the links from whole class; and we will set a Zoom discussion after we have reviewed what others have accomplished in their work.

Week 13: November 23 to November 29: Thanksgiving Break Enjoy! Week 14: November 30 Final Written assessment Final assessment and written evaluation of your work (this is a reflective activity, focused on what you are finding though your work. The activity is for you to understand the changes you have experienced in class, the work you are developing, and the way you assess your own work and ideas to develop the styles and content that will be authentic expression and performance for your particular physical practice. Please send 2 links that you are most pleased with, throughout the semester, to share with the class. Week 14: December 2: Final Projects: Final Stages of Completion: Final Creative Project 7

Week 15: December 7, Final work: Eportfolio and/or Google Docs Final submission. All work Due by December 11 at midnight. You are welcome to submit earlier. Class Protocol • Wear clothing that will allow maximum movement and comfort. T shirts and form fitting sweats, leotard and tights, etc. No street clothes or shoes. No jeans, zippers, or shirts with buttons. No hats, watches, jewelry. You are encouraged to wear socks rather than shoes to allow the feet to find new purpose as well. • Bring extra wraps or wear layers in case the studio or space where you are working is cold. BLACKBOARD The class will be using Blackboard. All students need to check Blackboard on a regular basis for reminders for class assignments, posted video and media documentaries, upcoming showings, readings and other important materials. You can access Blackboard at: https://blackboard.stonybrook.edu/webapps/login/ Student Accessibility Support Center Statement https://www.stonybrook.edu/sasc/ If you have a physical, psychological, medical, or learning disability that may impa...