Dance Appreciation

Course Description

DAN2100 – Dance Appreciation is a 3-credit general education humanities course introducing dance as an art form. It assumes no dance training or experience and is designed for non-majors — students do not need to dance to take it, though many sections include brief participatory experiences.

The course treats dance as something to be read rather than merely watched. Choreography makes deliberate choices about movement, space, time, and energy, and those choices carry meaning the way a director's or composer's choices do. A student who leaves able to describe what a dance is doing — rather than only whether they liked it — has gotten the point.

Content covers the elements of dance — body, action, space, time, and energy; how to watch and describe a dance work; dance as cultural expression across societies; ballet — origins, vocabulary, and major works; modern and contemporary dance — the break from ballet and the figures who made it; jazz, tap, and musical theatre dance; social and vernacular dance; hip hop and street forms; world dance traditions; dance in film and media; the collaborative production — choreographer, dancers, designers, and musicians; the dancer's body, training, and career realities; and critical writing about performance.

Most sections require attendance at live dance performances with written critical responses.

Offered at approximately 12 Florida institutions.

Learning Outcomes

Required Outcomes

• Identify and describe the elements of dance: body, action, space, time, and energy.
• Describe a dance work using appropriate movement vocabulary.
• Distinguish major dance genres and describe the conventions of each.
• Trace the historical development of ballet and identify major works and figures.
• Describe the emergence of modern dance and its break from ballet conventions.
• Describe contemporary and postmodern dance developments.
• Describe jazz, tap, and musical theatre dance and their cultural origins.
• Describe social, vernacular, and hip hop dance forms and their communities of origin.
• Describe selected world dance traditions and their cultural functions.
• Explain dance as cultural expression, ritual, and social practice.
• Describe the collaborative roles involved in producing a dance work.
• Describe how music, lighting, costume, and staging contribute to a work.
• Attend live dance performance and write an informed critical response.
• Distinguish description and analysis from personal preference in critique.
• Describe dance training, the dancer's body, and career realities.
• Describe the role of dance in contemporary culture and media.

Optional Outcomes

• Participate in a movement experience and reflect on it.
• Describe dance notation and preservation of choreographic work.
• Describe dance for camera and screendance.
• Describe representation, gender, and cultural appropriation issues in dance.
• Describe dance therapy and community dance practice.
• Describe arts funding and the economics of dance companies.

Major Topics

Required Topics

• What dance is — definitions, functions, and dance as art versus social practice.
• Elements of dance — body, action, space, time, and energy.
• Watching dance — description, analysis, interpretation, and evaluation.
• Choreographic form — structure, motif, development, and phrasing.
• Ballet — court origins, romantic and classical periods, vocabulary, and major works.
• Ballet in the twentieth century — Ballets Russes, Balanchine, and contemporary ballet.
• Modern dance — Duncan, Graham, Humphrey, and the founding generation.
• Postmodern and contemporary dance — Cunningham, Judson, and current practice.
• Jazz and tap — African American origins and theatrical development.
• Musical theatre dance — Broadway and the integrated musical.
• Social and vernacular dance — partner and popular forms.
• Hip hop and street dance — origins, forms, and commercialization.
• World dance — selected traditions and their cultural contexts.
• Production elements — music, lighting, costume, and staging.
• The dancer — training, anatomy, injury, and career span.
• Performance attendance and critique — the written response.

Optional Topics

• Participatory movement experience.
• Notation and preservation.
• Screendance and dance in film.
• Representation, gender, and appropriation.
• Dance therapy and community dance.
• Arts funding and company economics.

Resources & Tools

• The Dance Experience (Nadel & Strauss) or Dance Appreciation (Cardinal) — common adoptions.
• History of the Dance in Art and Education (Kraus) — where the history emphasis is heavier.
• Recorded performance — the New York Public Library Jerome Robbins Dance Division digital collections; free and extraordinary for viewing significant repertory.
• Marquee TV or Digital Theatre+ — recorded professional dance; check whether the library subscribes.
• The department's own dance concerts — usually the required and cheapest performance attendance.
• Florida dance companies — Miami City Ballet, Orlando Ballet, Sarasota Ballet, Dance Now! Miami, and Tampa City Ballet; most offer student pricing.
• American College Dance Association (ACDA) South region — where Florida college dance programs present adjudicated work.
• Dance Magazine and company websites — current repertory and criticism.

Career Pathways

Dance Appreciation is a general education course rather than professional preparation, but Florida has an unusually large live-performance economy and the pathways are real:

• Dancer (SOC 27-2031) — requiring years of technical training begun well before college.
• Theme park entertainment performer — Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando are among the largest employers of live entertainment workers in the country.
• Cruise line entertainment — Miami and Port Canaveral homeport a substantial share of the industry.
• Choreographer (SOC 27-2032) — see DAA2610C Dance Composition for the craft.
• Dance Teacher and Studio Owner — a large private-sector market in Florida.
• K-12 Dance Educator (SOC 25-2031) — requires Florida certification.
• Arts Administrator, Marketing, and Development staff — where knowing the art form is a genuine qualification.
• Dance Therapist — requiring graduate study and credentialing.

Special Information

General education and transfer

DAN2100 satisfies a general education humanities requirement at most Florida institutions and transfers among Florida public institutions under SCNS. It is designed for non-majors and assumes no background. Dance majors take studio technique and composition courses instead — ballet, modern, jazz, and DAA2610C Dance Composition are different numbers covering different work, and do not substitute for one another in either direction.

The performance attendance requirement has fixed dates and a cost

Most sections require attending live dance and writing critical responses. Two practical points: the department's own concerts are usually inexpensive or free to enrolled students and professional companies offer student rush pricing; and performances happen on specific dates. A student who waits until the last weeks of the term will find the season closed and the assignment impossible. Check the calendar in week one.

Describe before you judge

The most common weakness in a first dance response paper is going straight to preference. The disciplined approach is to describe what actually happened — what the bodies did, how they used the space, what the dynamics were, how it related to the music — then interpret, then evaluate. "The dancers stayed in a tight cluster upstage for the first three minutes, so the moment one broke downstage alone read as a rupture" is analysis. "It was boring at first" is not, though it may be the honest starting observation that leads there.

You do not need to dance to do well

Students without dance backgrounds sometimes assume they will be at a disadvantage, or that participatory sections will expose them. Neither is generally true: the course assesses observation, description, and analysis, and where movement experiences are included they are introductory and not graded on technique. Students with extensive dance training sometimes have the opposite problem — they know one genre deeply and must engage seriously with forms they were trained to dismiss.

Take the cultural material seriously

Jazz, tap, and hip hop originated in African American communities, and many world dance forms carry religious or ceremonial significance. Good instruction treats origins and context as part of the content rather than as background, and questions of representation and appropriation come up honestly. Students should expect that, and expect it to be handled analytically.

Florida has more dance to see than most students expect

Beyond college productions, Florida supports professional companies — Miami City Ballet is nationally significant — along with Orlando Ballet, Sarasota Ballet, and a substantial contemporary and Latin dance scene in South Florida. The theme parks and cruise lines employ performers at a scale few states match. For a student who develops an interest, the practical next steps are attending more work and, if the interest is in making dances rather than watching them, DAA2610C Dance Composition.