Lang’s General Degree Requirements
In addition to the requirements outlined here, Lang has specific requirements, including a minimum number of credits in liberal arts courses as well as college residency requirements. All students should read Lang’s General Degree Requirements and consult with both their Student Success advisor and their Departmental Faculty Advisor each semester to ensure that they are on track to graduate.
Degree Works
To be sure your Degree Works account reflects the information in this worksheet, students should forward any approved exemptions from the following requirements to their Student Success advisor.
Requirements for the BA in Contemporary Dance
As of fall 2020, students declaring the major in Contemporary Dance must take 12 courses, outlined as follows. Students must earn a grade of C or higher in all courses to meet the requirements for the major in Contemporary Dance. Declare your major by
following the process outlined in Declaring Your Major. Students who have declared the major
in Contemporary Dance before fall 2020 but wish to follow the fall 2020 curriculum can consult their Student Success advisor about submitting a Change of Catalog Year request. Only specific courses satisfy the major requirements, including electives. Courses
should be chosen carefully, in consultation with the Departmental Faculty Advisor and your Student Success advisor. Track your progress using the worksheet (below). See the university course catalog for fall 2024 Contemporary Dance courses that fulfill these requirements and consult our 4-Year Lang Career Pathways Map (PDF) for
helpful steps and resources to link your academic journey to your future plans.
The curriculum of the Contemporary Dance program is structured around four focus areas:
Movement Practice
Rather than using the familiar term "technique," the Dance program uses "movement practice" for its dance classes to signal an ongoing approach to physical exploration, as opposed to a linear path toward "mastery." With an opportunity to study movement
practices ranging from ballet to contact improvisation to vogue, students consider diverse understandings of the body and virtuosity. Engaging in dynamic studio work, students and faculty ask: What can a body do?
Choreographic Research
In Lang's "choreographic research" courses, students explore varied approaches to the creative process as conceived and employed by some of the field's most adventurous contemporary practitioners. These courses frame dance making as a series of investigatory
acts, an arena for research and discovery. Students work individually and collaboratively as choreographers and learn methods to describe, analyze, and critique one another's movement studies.
History and Theory
Lang Dance students engage in a range of academic seminars, analyzing dance through a variety of methodological and theoretical approaches and honing their skills as readers and writers. Working closely with faculty and peers (including students majoring
in music, visual arts, theater, and a range of other disciplines) students think critically about the body and consider the opportunities and challenges that come with analyzing movement. In addition to considering dance in relation to other art forms,
students learn to situate dance within social and cultural contexts.
Performance
Each semester, students have the opportunity to work with guest artists in an intensive rehearsal process, presenting a re-staged or new dance in a public performance. Residencies often include a study of the influences that have affected the guest artist's
life and work. Guest artists have included Sarah Michelson, Eiko Otake, John Jasperse, Luciana Achugar, Reggie Wilson, Souleymane Badolo, Beth Gill, Yvonne Meier, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Juliette Mapp, Sally Silvers, and representatives from the Trisha
Brown Dance Company. Each year, one performance work is created by an artist-in-residence from Movement Research, a New York-based professional organization that serves as a laboratory for experimentation in movement-based performance arts. Recent
MR artists include Juliana May, David Thomson, Ivy Baldwin, Jeanine Durning, Joanna Kotze, and Nami Yamamoto.
Major Requirements
The Contemporary Dance major requires courses in the four focus areas listed above, distributed as follows.
Introductory courses:
- LDAN 2018 Foundations in Dance Studies (3-4 credits)
- LDAN 2040 Introduction to Dance History (3-4 credits)
- LDAN 2050 Choreographic Research Intro (2 credits)
- LDAN 2502 Experiential Anatomy (3-4 credits)
Movement Practice courses:
- Select a combination of 1- and 2-credit courses to fulfill this requirement (total 5 credits).
Choose from:
- LDAN 2102 Trio of Contemporary Dance Practices (required; 2 courses)
- LDAN 2004 Introduction to Contemporary Dance Practices (1 credit)
- LDAN 2100 Contemporary Dance Practices (1-2 credits)
- LDAN 3150 Contemporary Dance Practices, Continued (1 credit)
- LDAN 2024 Introduction to Modern Dance Practices (1 credit)
- LDAN 2300 Introduction to Ballet Practices (1 credit)
- LDAN 2500 Ballet Practices (1 credit)
- LDAN 3300 Ballet Practices, Continued (1 credit)
- LDAN 2305 Hip-Hop Dance Practices (1 credit)
- LDAN 2305 Hip-Hop Dance Practices, Continued (1 credit)
- LDAN 2201 Contact Improvisation Practices (1 credit)
- LDAN 2503 Capoeira (1 credit)
- LDAN 2017 West African Dance Practices (1 credit)
Other required courses:
- Lang InterArts (LINA) courses (9-12 credits)
- 1 Dance seminar elective (3-4 credits). Sample classes:
- Vogue'ology
- I Have a Dream: Dance in Education
- Dance History (a second course, in addition to the major requirement)
- Politics of Improvisation
- Debates in Performance Studies
- Ephemeral Art
- Practical Side of Performance
- Arts Media Toolkit
- Approved Dance elective (studio or liberal arts seminar; 8 credits). These eight variable dance credits can be fulfilled by either studio or liberal arts credits, in any combination, from courses within the Dance area of study. For example, students
who become interested in the field of Critical Dance Studies could fulfill this requirement with two Dance seminars; students more interested in performance careers could take predominantly studio courses such as dance practice and performance
courses; and students more interested in creative practice could fulfill these elective credits primarily with choreographic research courses.
Senior Capstone
- Choose one in consultation with the Departmental Faculty Advisor (3-4 credits):
- LINA 4900: The Arts Senior Seminar: Essay
- LINA 4990 Approved individual independent project
Total credits: 39-47