Introduction

If we define dance as ‘movement in time and space’, then the first thing to say is that everyone can dance. Everyone has a personal and expressive way of moving the body; it’s the first level of communication, before speech. Next, a high percentage of us get involved with dance in our lives, either doing it, participating in it, making it, teaching it or watching it as spectators. We enjoy dance’s physicality, its feeling, its social interaction or its aesthetic. We may have different motives, expectations and desires, but dance gives us pleasure. Third, and this might come as quite a surprise, students and scholars all over the world are learning or teaching Dance Studies as a discipline in the university. In faculties of Performance, or Education, Arts or Technology, Dance is a growth area of study at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. This book is specifically about the fundamentals of Dance Studies, to introduce intending students, their parents and careers teachers to what is usually studied in the first year or two. Today, in Europe, America, Africa, Australasia and the AsiaPacific region, students can enter university to study Dance. These courses will no doubt acknowledge their own geographical, historical and cultural dimensions, their country’s demographic, but the core subjects of the discipline will be retained: the training of dance performance skills, compositional methods, practices and applications, dance history and contextual studies, dance pedagogy and dance technology. But a word of warning: studying Dance in the university sector is not a soft option. Not only do students need to be able to dance to a reasonable level before they enter a Dance Studies programme;

understanding and studying Dance from the perspective of philosophy, aesthetics or cultural studies demands intellectual stamina and requires more than a desire to perform. Do you think you can dance? Consider how many youngsters take part in dance classes every week. You might have done it yourself, when you were younger, perhaps been a cheer leader or taken some ballet or tap exams and still have the certificates to prove it. You may enjoy clubbing at the weekend, or attend music festivals in the summer, shaking your body and stamping your feet to rock, pop, blues, reggae, folk or bluegrass. Is hip hop and b-boying your thing? Or you may be one of the millions of television viewers who are hooked on Strictly Come Dancing, the UK’s favourite ballroom dance television programme, Dancing with the Stars (USA) or So You Think You Can Dance in Australia, Canada or the United States. Such a broad spectrum of different kinds of dancing – to perform as art or cultural belief, to perpetuate a tradition, to watch, to join in, to socialize with friends, to get fit, to chill out . . . And with the appropriate kinds of analytical skills, these forms can all be researched, investigated and interrogated. Like many other human experiences, dance today is affected by globalization. Through travel, migration or cheap air flights, we cross borders and experience new ways of moving or other people’s established traditions. Technology seems to have made the world smaller and communication more accessible, challenging our assumptions and offering us alternative views of the world and our own part in it. We can marvel at the cultural dance forms of other countries, and create new forms of dance expression by learning, sharing and borrowing. This range of dance activities can be ‘mapped’ to identify professional or amateur forms; it is found in theatrical, educational or social applications; dance can utilize highly technical dance language or use ordinary, everyday pedestrian movement; it can involve a group or be an individual endeavour. For example, depending on where you live, you can see local groups of Irish dancers in Dublin, Boston or New South Wales, learn country dancing or creative dancing in school, watch urban dance on MTV and attend a ballet class in every city in the world. Do you enjoy musicals like The Sound of Music, West Side Story, Hairspray, or Billy Elliot, or films like Black Swan? Perhaps you have danced round the

kitchen to old musical films on television like those starring Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly in some of their amazing dance routines? Or had the opportunity to learn flamenco dance or Argentine tango? Do you think you can dance? And, more to the point, have you ever considered studying Dance full time at university? Although more and more students want to study the subject, the vast majority of their teachers and parents have no idea what ‘studying Dance’ might entail. What will you do, they ask, and why? Wouldn’t you prefer to study medicine, law or teaching? So here is the first bit of information, the counter-argument. Everything in Dance Studies is studied both in theory and in practice, as students are expected to be able to fully understand what they learn in the dance studio, to document, analyse and reflect upon it. When they take part in a dance technique class, they need to apply both somatic and anatomical knowledge in developing their skills; when creating new dance works (choreographies) they need to demonstrate craft of choreography and their understanding of creative processes. In order to write essays, just as in any other discipline, they learn to research, collect data from books and articles, decide upon a theoretical framework, analyse, evaluate and construct an argument. Many people are sceptical about the place and treatment of dance in the university sector, but my experience of teaching Dance Studies at undergraduate and postgraduate levels in three different countries leads me to believe that intelligent and talented young choreographer-practitioners are hungry to learn beyond the boundaries of their discipline; they are naturally curious, creative individuals, excellent problem-solvers, who enjoy being introduced to new ideas from semiotics, phenomenology, cultural studies, gender studies, aesthetics and other disciplines; they gain great confidence from developing the ability to argue their case in essays, presentations and dissertations, and often find that literature new to them can be inspirational to their creative processes in making new dance work. Artistry feeds scholarship, and vice versa. Experiencing dance means doing and thinking in an integrated way. Can you see yourself as a multi-skilled individual who can choreograph, teach, perform, and also write and present your research about dance? Would you like to be commissioned to work within

the community, or to work with actors or musicians, to facilitate dance in education or in therapeutic contexts, to research, be a dance critic, direct ballets, contemporary dance or musicals, or make dancefilms for television? Reading this book might be the first step on the ladder towards a future career in dance. A glossary of dance terms is provided on p. 191.