RACE IN CONCERT DANCE (ECC299)

This course examines how race is constructed and performed in concert dance. Dance is a racialized art form, often undervalued and unacknowledged in the humanities. Dance is also an art in which white people have been highly prominent as dancers, choreographers, and audience members. We’ll examine whiteness as a racial and cultural category. Throughout the course we not only study works by artists of color, but more importantly, think about how these works intervene in normative notions about race and re-script roles for people of color in society. We will also become familiar with dance techniques and aesthetics through viewing and practicing forms of dance.