Month: August 2018

DANC 213 – JAZZ TECHNIQUE .5 credit
TUESDAYS/THURSDAYS 6:30 – 8:10 PM @ 247 Pine Street / SCHONBERG DANCE STUDIO
This course is an introduction to the African American jazz dance vernacular through the embodied practice of Simonson jazz. It will cover basic principles of alignment, centering, and technique through the context of jazz’s African roots. Class sessions will principally consist of movement exploration including a comprehensive warm-up and will be supplemented by online discussions and media to better understand the place of jazz dance in society and culture at large.
With JOYA POWELL, Visiting Assistant Professor, Dance (jpowell01@wesleyan.edu)
DANC371 Site Specific Dance Making, 1 credit
TUESDAYS/THURSDAYS 2:50 to 4:20
This course addresses the construction of contemporary performance in alternative, nontheatrical spaces. Students will create, design, and structure movement and image metaphors; design and realize scenic objects; and integrate technologies that enhance performance at large. Daily practice will focus on developing compositional tools to trigger events, to set off the performance space, and to create optimal conditions for audience and performer participation. Skills in movement observation, critical reading, and video analysis will inform the course’s practical and historical frameworks.
With Pedro Alejandro (palejandro@wesleyan.edu)

Bharata Natyam II: Embracing the Traditional and the Modern
Taught by Prof. Hari Krishnan
M/W 1.20-2.40pm

This advanced course is designed to further students’ understanding of the technique, history, and changing nature of Bharata Natyam dance and of Indian classical dance in general. The primary aim of the course is to foster an understanding of the role, function, and imaging of Bharata Natyam dance vis-à-vis ideas about tradition and modernity. Although the course assumes no prior knowledge of Bharata Natyam, we will move rapidly through the material. We will focus mainly on more complex studio work, extensive readings, and video presentations. In preparation for this course, students should have movement experience in other dance tradition(s). Occasionally, the class could include a guest lecture given by either a visiting scholar, dancer, or choreographer respected in the field of South Asian dance internationally.

CHUM 302
Fall 2018
Section: 01

Crosslisting: AFAM 312, E&ES 125, FGSS 301

Certificates: Social, Cultural, and Critical Theory

Course Cluster: Queer Studies

The genre of black speculative fiction–in the form of literature, art, music, and theory–provides a generative framework through which to (re)think understandings of race, gender, sexuality, class, the body, disability, citizenship, and the human. Often couched as taking place in the “future,” black speculative fictions also engage the past and critique the present. This makes the genre a critical resource for addressing the Anthropocene. The term “Anthropocene” first emerged from the discipline of geology in 2000. Scientists proposed that Earth had entered a new epoch (following the Holocene) in which “humans” had become geological forces, impacting the planet itself. However, the term Anthropocene raises numerous questions. What does it mean to think about the human at the level of a “species”? What constitutes evidence of the Anthropocene and when did it begin? Who is responsible for the Anthropocene’s attendant catastrophes, which include earthquakes, altered ocean waters, and massive storms? Does the Anthropocene overemphasize the human and thus downplay other interspecies and human-nonhuman, animate-inanimate relations? Or does it demand a (potentially fruitful) reconceptualization of the human? Further, how does artificial intelligence complicate definitions of the human and, by extension, of the Anthropocene? Centering the work of black speculative thinkers and placing it in conversation with scientific studies ranging from marine biology and geology to cybernetics, this course takes an interdisciplinary approach to the Anthropocene that endeavors to (re)conceptualize the human, ecological relations, and Earth itself. Texts engaged will include: novels, art, music, theory, and scientific studies.

Work for Family Weekend and/or Homecoming 2018 (Sept. 28-29th & Oct. 10th) as part of the University Relations student staff. Student workers play an
integral role in both events by greeting guests at the registration site, assisting with activity and event preparation, escorting guests around campus in shuttle vans, and much more. This is a great opportunity to network with alumni and parents, as well as demonstrate your school spirit!

Application
Link: https://goo.gl/forms/9pCcdAUc5WrsA6z72

Application
Deadline: Monday, September 10th at 5pm

Hiring
Notification: Friday, September 14th

Best,
Interns

Fred Wills ’19, Sophia Law ’20, Ainsleigh
Caldicott ’21, and Iiyannaa Graham-Siphanoum ’21
Family Weekend & Homecoming 2018 Interns