The dance program at Reed emphasizes dance as an art that both responds to and shapes the shifting artistic and cultural landscape of society. The department provides multiple approaches to the study of dance including technique, performance, choreography, history, theory and cultural studies. Through work both in and out of the studio, students learn and create new movement vocabularies and find new perspectives by which to see, question, understand, and evaluate the expressive possibilities of the human body moving in space and time. Dance students at Reed exercise the critical skills valued throughout liberal arts education: the ability to approach and solve problems of many kinds, the ability to deeply investigate a subject matter, the ability to make informed choices from a range of possibilities and the ability to contextualize specific ideas and events among the modes of thought and cultural phenomena that shape our understanding of the world. Dance, as a field, is well suited to this endeavor because it develops one's capacity for a multi-leveled understanding of a wide variety of phenomena--cultural, artistic and formal.

Our curriculum is wide ranging and includes courses in Dance and Technology, Improvisation, Dance Traditions of Southeast Asia, Cultural Studies and a variety of special topics in Choreography, as well as our core courses in contemporary dance technique, choreography and history. In addition to courses offered for academic credit, the department sponsors adjunct classes through the physical education program, including ballet, hip-hop, jazz, and Argentine tango. Our classes typically combine several activities that are mutually reinforcing. Students are encouraged to integrate research and practice and to draw connections between choreography and analogous processes in other disciplines such as creative writing, music, visual art and theatre.

All classes are open to majors and non-majors. The department offers students at all levels of experience opportunities to choreograph, perform, participate in residencies with visiting artists and interact closely with faculty members. It is not unusual for students to undertake independent study projects when their particular area of interest is not covered in the regular curriculum. The department produces two concerts of student choreography each year and Reed dance students participate in Reed Arts Week and perform in student thesis productions. Dance faculty regularly choreograph for the Contemporary Performance Ensemble, and students create work for the Reed Dance Troupe.

Reed brings well-known performing artists to campus each year, and Reed dance students frequently attend off-campus performances and master classes in conjunction with their coursework. In recent years Eiko and Koma, Kidd Pivot, Anouk Van Dijk, BalletLab, Pappa Tarahumara and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar have come to campus, and Reed dancers have attended recent performances by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Stephen Petronio Company, Pilobolus, Urban Bush Women, Ronald K. Brown/Evidence, Marie Chouinard and Chunky Move.

The department believes a Reed liberal arts education fosters a creative and contextual approach to dance. Students may pursue an established interdisciplinary dance/theatre major or combine pursuits within an ad hoc interdisciplinary major; past graduates have pursued majors in dance/Spanish, dance/Russian, dance/psychology, and dance/history. The department successfully prepares students--both majors and non-majors--for specialized work in dance at the graduate and professional levels. Many Reed dance students have received grants and fellowships for graduate work, and gone on to teach, choreograph, or perform professionally. Recent honors given to Reed dance students have included the Watson Fellowship and grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

 

Mark Haim - Technique, choreography, repertory.
Carla Mann - Technique, choreography, improvisation, cultural studies.
Minh Tran - Technique, choreography, Southeast Asian dance. Website