The dance department’s utmost concern is to ensure that every dance student experiences a healthy, safe, and successful progression through each level of our movement intensive dance courses, and fully experiences the depth and breadth offered by our curriculum and faculty, with the goal of providing for each dance student’s optimum physical and artistic development.
The Dance Department offers 2 main types of dance courses: movement-intensive (technique courses in which physical movement is the primary mode of teaching and learning) and language-intensive (theory courses in which lecture and discussion are the primary modes of teaching and learning). All dance courses contain aspects of both.
Movement Intensive Courses:
- All .25 credit courses are repeatable
- Most students spend multiple semesters in one level before moving to the next level
- Some movement intensive courses offer the option of taking the course for either .25 credit or .50 credit. The .50 credit section can only be taken once and includes additional class assignments
Language Intensive Courses:
- 1.00 credit courses that are not meant to be repeated
- Provide the grounding, history, and context for many of the movement intensive courses
Criteria for moving from a 200 level Movement intensive Class to a 300 level Movement intensive class
The Dance Department faculty’s utmost concern is to ensure that every dance student experiences a healthy, safe, and successful progression through each level of our movement intensive dance courses, and fully experiences the depth and breadth offered by our curriculum and faculty, with the goal of providing for each dance student’s optimum physical and artistic development.
At the college level, students should expect to spend the majority of their time at the 200 class level (intermediate).
With this in mind, the Dance faculty have developed guidelines for advancing from a 200 level movement intensive class to a 300 level movement intensive class at St. Olaf College.
Junior or Senior standing.
With rare exception are first year and sophomore students equipped to navigate the physical and expressive requirements and pace of a 300 level class. A solid physical and aesthetic foundation needs to be developed first through *multiple* St. Olaf Dance Department courses at the 200 level.
Extensive Study (with multiple instructors) at the 200 level.
- Expected:
- Successful completion of a 200 level class at least two times. For any dance genres that have multiple faculty teaching them, you should take that class at least once with each of the faculty teaching.
- Optimum:
- Successful completion of a 200 level class for a total of 4 terms. For any dance genres that have multiple faculty teaching them, you should take that class for a total of 4 terms at least once with each of the different faculty before advancing to a 300 level movement intensive class.
Consistently demonstrates the necessary physical skills to succeed in the class.
These skills include:
- Strength
- Integration of upper to lower body
- patterning
- clear articulation of the spine and torso [lateral flexion, forward flexion, back extension]
- musical clarity
- qualitative range of movement
- clarity of movement
- smooth transitions into and out of the floor (if that is part of the form)
- successfully moves through space with ease as well as attack
- not currently nursing a chronic injury (e.g. no jumping)
Demonstrates exemplary class responsibility, discipline, and self-motivation.
The Dance faculty will be looking at the student’s overall participation in previous classes [attendance and quality of participation, including in and outside of class engagement with material, focus, questions asked, and overall work ethic.]
Makes embodied connections between a range of movement and language intensive courses.
This includes connecting the material from the movement intensive and language intensive courses they have taken as well as the movement experiences outside of class including company rehearsals, choreography projects, etc.
Maintains consistent movement intensive experience prior to moving to the next level.