Handbook : Unit informationEdith Cowan University

School: Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts

This unit information may be updated and amended immediately prior to semester. To ensure you have the correct outline, please check it again at the beginning of semester.

• Unit Title

  Contemporary Dance and Allied Techniques 2

• Unit Code

  DAN2125

• Year

  2017

• Enrolment Period

  1

• Version

  1

• Credit Points

  20

• Full Year Unit

  Y

• Mode of Delivery

  On Campus
  

• Unit Coordinator

  Mr Justin Niels RUTZOU

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Description

This unit provides practical technique classes at an intermediate level in different styles of contemporary dance with allied study of duo and improvisation. Class will be structured to challenge the students to broaden their range and vocabulary. The importance of daily class in maintaining and developing strength and improving facility is emphasised. Classes promote the understanding and application of safe dance practices. The importance of physical, social and cultural sustainability relating to artform practice and professional career paths is also embraced in this unit through: the choice of repertoire; engagement with industry partners; building social and cultural confidence via exposure to diverse performance environments locally, nationally, regionally and internationally.

Prerequisite Rule

Students must pass 1 units from DAN1025

Equivalent Rule

Unit was previously coded AWD1202

Learning Outcomes

On completion of this unit students should be able to:

1. Achieve a developed understanding of dance improvisation as a skilled technique directly related to performance and choreography.
2. Achieve a developing knowledge of dance improvisation's application to composition techniques.
3. Articulate ideas on an extensive range of aesthetic and identity issues. On completion of the Duo element of this unit students should be able to:
4. Articulate, with an increasing awareness of complexity, the principles of alignment and functionality involved in the exercises.
5. Comprehend and reproduce movement sequences with ease, speed and rhythmical understanding.
6. Demonstrate a maturing performance quality in solos and group work.
7. Demonstrate a sense of individuality and "presence" in performance.
8. Demonstrate how to fall safely in different situation, e.g. by themselves and with their partners.
9. Demonstrate increased facility and expertise in each section of class work.
10. Demonstrate the skill of moving with a partner using spatial and time relationships.
11. Design, set and teach with an increasing level of detail classroom exercises using technical terms and describing the functional and meaning-making aspects of the exercise.
12. Engage in self-assessment processes that indicate an informed level of critical analysis of the technique.
13. Execute a number of safe lifts using counter balance and various parts of their bodies to be lifted and be lifted.
14. Execute rhythmic and spatial precision in performance. On completion of the Improvisation element of this unit students should be able to:
15. Explore the use of voice as a further means of expression to enhance the student's skill as a performer.
16. On going demonstration of well developed levels of strength, flexibility, coordination and functional alignment.
17. Show an increased capacity to apply varied dynamic inflections in class material.

Unit Content

1. A wide range of contrasting rhythmic and a-rhythmic structures in class work and performance.
2. Choreographed moves based on anatomical correctness, with and between partners.
3. Complex movement sequences with detail to dynamic inflexions, musicality and sense of individuality.
4. Contemporary dance techniques which include warm up, floor work, centre practice, turns, travelling sequences, jumps and warm down at an intermediate level.
5. In Contemporary Technique students will engage in:
6. In Duo students will be introduced to working/moving with a partner through:
7. In Improvisation the student will continue to develop knowledge by:
8. Movement stimuli and their purpose in expanding vocabulary of the practitioner.
9. Presentation of complex culturally specific rhythmic patterns, eg Indian and Spanish dance.
10. Rolls, falls, counter-balances, the giving and receipt of weight and the exploration of the use of gravity.
11. Scored solo and group works with an emphasis on extending performance quality within studio and informal showings.
12. Strength, flexibility, coordination and alignment through the execution of sequences fundamental to contemporary dance techniques.
13. Text and vocal techniques and their integration into improvisation.
14. The functions and qualities of an extensive range of movements - eg falls, turns in open and off-centre positions.
15. The purpose of improvisation with partners in developing new material for performance.
16. The study of current choreographers working within the genre.
17. Transforming mathematical structures into meaningful musical phrasing and its integration into performance.
18. Trust techniques.

Additional Learning Experience Information

Practical sessions, Group discussions, Video sessions, Classroom tasks, Individual assignments, Discussion and Writing and Journal.

Assessment

GS1 GRADING SCHEMA 1 Used for standard coursework units

Students please note: The marks and grades received by students on assessments may be subject to further moderation. All marks and grades are to be considered provisional until endorsed by the relevant Board of Examiners.

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