Improvisational Crossings:
\nSocial Dance as Interdisciplinary Intervention
\nHUM 597A (1 credit, C\/NC)
\nInstructors:
\nNaomi Bragin (Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences, UW Bothell), Juliet McMains (Dance, UW Seattle), and
\nJade Power Sotomayor (Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences, UW Bothell)
\nMeeting Dates:
\nAll sessions aside from the colloquium weekend will meet in Communications 218D
\n\u2022 Friday, March 30, 4:30-6:30 pm
\n\u2022 Friday, April 6, 4:30-6:30 pm
\n\u2022 Friday, April 13, 5-7 pm–Meeting with visiting guests
\n\u2022 Saturday, April 14, 10 am-5 pm–Colloquium Research Presentations and Roundtable
\n\u2022 Sunday, April 15, 12-6 pm–Dance Workshops at Washington Hall
\n\u2022 Friday, April 20, 4:30-6:30 pm
\nThis microseminar serves as preparation for and engagement with an April 2018 colloquium that brings together six dance\/ing scholars for two days of lectures, workshops, and dialogue that address border crossings through the lens of improvisational social dances. The microseminar includes visits with important voices in Dance Studies including Jasmine Johnson, Kareem Khubchandani, and Marta Savigliano. The course includes a brief overview of how social dancing has been historically framed, followed by an introduction to the colloquium participants\u2019 various engagements with social dance. By looking at social dance less as a fixed, static category, and more as a term that describes the relationality produced through movement practices, this microseminar asks students to examine dances of togetherness, or \u201ctogether dancing,\u201d and to think how this dancing can be both lens and method for engaging in interdisciplinary inquiry. The course thinks at the intersection of conventional disciplinary divisions, by centering improvisation as an analytic that can challenge Dance Studies\u2019 historical investments in the choreographic while simultaneously calling upon an embodied conceptualization not traditionally present in Music and Sound Studies.<\/p>\n
In addition to attending all scheduled meetings, the lectures and dance workshops, students will be asked to complete reading assignments in advance of seminar meetings and write a short final
\nreflection. See improvisationalcrossings.org for a schedule and information about colloquium participants.
\nFor more information contact Jade Power Sotomayor (jyps@uw.edu).
\nNaomi Macalalad Bragin is Assistant Professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences at UW Bothell, where she teaches courses in black performance theory, performance research, and dance improvisation. Her current project, Black Power of Hip Hop Dance: On Kinethic Politics, traces the role of freestyle street dance in the generation of black political aesthetics.
\nJuliet McMains is Professor of Dance at UW Seattle and the author of Spinning Mambo into Salsa: Caribbean Dance in Global Commerce (2015) and Glamour Addiction: Inside the American Ballroom Dance Industry (2006).<\/p>\n
Jade Power Sotomayor is Assistant Professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences at UW Bothell. She is a performance scholar and practitioner writing and teaching about US Latinx
\nperformance and a Puerto Rican bomba cultural worker and dancer. Her current project is titled \u00a1Habla!: Speaking Bodies in Latinx Dance and Performance.<\/p>\n
The University of Washington is committed to providing access, equal opportunity and reasonable accommodation in its services, programs, activities,
\neducation and employment for individuals with disabilities. To request disability accommodation contact the Disability Services Office at least ten days in
\nadvance at: 206.543.6450\/V, 206.543.6452\/TTY, 206.685.7264 (FAX), or e-mail at dso@u.washington.edu.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","categories":[47],"class_list":["post-1334","course","type-course","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive-courses"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-16 01:28:50","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/uwcps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/course\/1334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/uwcps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/course"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/uwcps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/course"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/uwcps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/uwcps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}