The dance world is altering. And at Marymount Manhattan School, the Division of Dance’s newly reimagined curriculum is reflecting these modifications with a watch in the direction of fairness. Till this 12 months, MMC’s BA and BFA packages centered closely on ballet and fashionable methods. Now, the curriculum requires incoming college students to position equal weight on fashionable, ballet, jazz (together with a course entitled Embodied Africanist Aesthetics), and improvisation, giving dancers an opportunity to expertise a breadth of motion practices earlier than diving into their chosen concentrations. “The give attention to Western concert-dance was very robust, and the alternatives to delve deeply into African diasporic kinds and vernacular and theatrical jazz had been fewer, and occurred later for college students,” says Betsy Cooper, MMC’s chair of dance.
This evolution has coincided with a college-wide shift in basic schooling necessities. Not solely does this give dancers the liberty to take extra elective programs and minor or double-major in fields outdoors of dance, however it additionally frees up college students’ schedules to give attention to their concentrations extra absolutely. MMC’s dance school believes that the sum of those modifications will enable college students to be higher ready for what comes subsequent, it doesn’t matter what their objectives are after commencement. “It’s a recognition that the sector is various already,” says Cooper. “How will we converse to that, and put together our college students not just for their careers however to be leaders and changemakers, as effectively?”
A Extra Private Audition Course of
The values behind MMC’s curricular modifications are influencing extra than simply the courses college students take—they’re additionally mirrored within the revamped audition course of. “In actually fascinated about this concept of aesthetic fairness between technical kinds, we shifted our auditions,” says MMC affiliate professor of dance Nancy Lushington. “Now, when college students come to campus to audition, we now not begin with ballet. We acknowledge that that’s going to be some college students’ completely happy place, however for different college students, it would shut them down.” As a substitute, auditions start with a somatic warm-up, after which segue into sections specializing in fashionable, ballet, jazz, and hip-hop methods, culminating with a group-based composition task.
Candidates additionally undergo an interview course of, permitting school members to study their pursuits outdoors of dance. It’s a two-way avenue: This helps dancers to know if MMC is the suitable match for them as a liberal arts faculty somewhat than a standalone conservatory. “Our coaching is simply as robust as a conservatory, however it’s greater than that,” says Cooper. “It’s making ready artists for an evolving discipline.”
Expanded Jazz Choices
For the previous two years, MMC has required all dance college students to take Embodied Africanist Aesthetics, a course that features a mixture of hip hop, Latin jazz, and West African and Afro-Caribbean kinds. This 12 months’s updates to the curriculum embody shifting Embodied Africanist Aesthetics (“EAA”) into the Jazz Dance Focus and including extra ranges. “We’ve added extra of it to our faculty, and solidified it in our program,” says MMC assistant professor of dance Jazelynn Goudy, “versus making it an additional class floating outdoors of a focus.”
Goudy says that college students in different concentrations also can take further ranges of EAA as electives. For Goudy, together with EAA within the Jazz Dance Focus reveals college students how expansive jazz is as a style—and what number of of its types have roots in Black and Brown communities. “You’ve gotten your EAA, after which your theatrical jazz, the place you get to put on your LaDucas and PERFECT your fan kicks and pirouettes, and you’ve got Frank Hatchett method, and academics who used to bop with the Fosse people, and then you definately’re additionally studying Waacking and Lindy Hop partnering,” she provides.
What These Modifications Imply
General, the upgrades to MMC’s dance and GE curriculum imply that college students have extra freedom to create individualized programs of examine, comply with their passions, and discover past their consolation zones. And the shift normally schooling necessities implies that BFA college students have extra space to tackle minors or double majors; BA college students can now take extra method courses, and are in a position to audition to carry out in a couple of piece per semester. College students even have extra room to tackle off-campus internships and benefit from MMC’s New York Metropolis dwelling. And that is all along with MMC’s quite a few efficiency alternatives.
MMC’s dance school imagine that these modifications will allow college students to be extra adaptable after commencement. “There are fewer repertory firms, so we’re making ready college students to enter the gig tradition,” says Cooper. And a few MMC alumni select to comply with nonperformance profession paths: Lushington cites the manager director of the Bessie Awards and the chief archivist of New York Metropolis Ballet as examples.
The dance school hope that these modifications will assist put together much more college students to take their careers into their very own arms. “I imagine this program shifting will enable them to be brave and courageous to discover, in addition to to create one thing new,” says Goudy. “Because the dance world modifications, many dance packages, not simply Marymount’s, are striving to raise the sector and produce consideration to its variety.”
For extra data on Marymount Manhattan School’s dance packages, click on right here.
