Beyond the Stage: Dance Today

photo by Christopher Fitzgerald

Explore dance that reaches beyond conventional theatricality. This class introduces dance that inhabits the natural landscape and urban fabric in site-specific installations and community-based events and takes advantage of film, video and new digital media to create dances free of the constraints of ordinary space and time. This is not a hands-on course: we will watch video, explore readings, ask questions of special guest artists and engage in lively conversation. No experience expected or required, but if available, students are encouraged to bring up to 10-minute video examples of their own site specific or dance on camera experiences. Bring an open mind.

Debra Cash has written about dance, performing arts, design and cultural policy for print, radio, television and the internet. During the year she gives pre-concert talks, provides program notes and moderates panels and events sponsored by regional arts presenters including World Music/CRASHarts and Wesleyan University. A longtime consultant to the National Endowment for the Arts and New England Foundation for the Arts, Debra taught dance history and world dance at Emerson College and has served on panels and nominating committees for the LEF Foundation, The Yard and The Boston Foundation. For 17 years she was dance critic for the Boston Globe, followed by a five year stint at National Public Radio's award-winning WBUR Online Arts website. Debra is delighted to be returning to Bates as Scholar-in-Residence. She earned a Master of Design Studies degree at Harvard and maintains an active career as a user-centered design manager and researcher