Dance

The Tisch Department of Dance seeks to develop and prepare fully realized dance artists to be critical thinkers, fearless leaders, and fluent performers. Non-majors are invited to participate in this development and may register for any of the following courses. 

Courses

Choreographers, Composers and Designers Workshop

DANC-UT 1013.001/ DANC-GT 2041 | 2-8 units | Instructors: Sean Curran and Andy Teirstein

Choreographers will work on individual and collaborative projects that explore the relationship between text and movement. Creative projects, in collaboration with the Department of Design for Stage and Film and the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program, are performed in concert at the conclusion of the course.

View course schedule in Albert.

Dance Music: A laboratory for Choreographers and Composers

DANC-GT 2325 | 2-4 units | Instructors: Andy Teirstein, Jeremy Nelson

Prerequisite: Permission from the instructor. Undergraduates, please register for DANC-UT 1031.

Open to students in the Department of Dance, Steinhardt composers, and other NYU composers. Departmental elective for B.F.A. and M.F.A. students. Music composition using synthesizers, tape recorders, microphones, signal processors, and MIDI. Multitracking and mixing techniques. As a project, the students compose a work on tape that they later use for choreography.

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Filming the Moving Body

DANC UT-1702 / DANC GT-2202 | 1 unit | Instructor: Cari Ann Shim Sham

This course will serve as practice-based hands on training for dance & new media students to hone their video production skills by filming the moving body.  Practice will be focused on the genre of dance for camera. Students will encounter both concept based and experience based learning, receiving information through class discussion, weekly assignments, studio play, and viewing of each other’s work in the form of video material. Students will work on teams and individually based on assignments throughout the semester.  Adobe Premiere Software will be used for editing. Classroom 5M has stations with Adobe Premiere and is available for student’s use.

A final project will be created for the course and shown at the final class of the semester based on skills acquired in class and inspired by tasks and investigation during the course.

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Graduate Dance Anatomy and Kinesiology

DANC-GT 2026/2027 | 2 units | Instructor: Andrea Zujko

This is a two-semester course offering lecture, exploration and application of anatomy and kinesiology to choreography, technique, coaching and physical practice. As part of a comprehensive review, select topics will be highlighted that are relevant to these studies. Practical applications will include dynamic discussion and demonstration of various dance techniques/styles, exercises to practice, and concepts to help analyze and cue effective optimal dance movement execution.

The scientific and somatic information provided will serve as a base for student dancers to explore the somatic language of the body and be able to apply this knowledge to their dance training and creating through practical experience.

Open to any NYU upper-level and graduate students with a strong dance background outside of the Tisch Department of Dance, with permission of the instructor.

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Intermediate to Advanced Ballet

DANC-UT 1800/ DANC-GT 2801 | 1 unit | Instructor: Selina Chau

This course is a continuation of classical ballet training designed for students who have had previous ballet experience and are currently looking to enhance their technical and performance skills. Students will explore the different styles of ballet training and performance presentation through practice, video viewing and discussions. 

A thorough ballet-barre will be given in each class. Students will then explore center practices. The technical content is based on intermediate-to-advanced-level class with the goal to refine adagio, turns and jumps in the center. Through the instruction of proper alignment and dynamic imagery, students will learn how to dance safely and improve their technical skills effectively. Students will also get to experience the various styles of ballet through learning and practicing different classical variations in class.

 

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Lighting for Dance Workshop

DANC-UT 1051 | 2 units | Instructor: Susan Hamburger

How do we talk about something we can’t see?

Lighting for Dance is a workshop designed to help build a flexible, constructive and effective vocabulary to use when collaborating with lighting designers.

We will discuss elements of light, color and composition and explore how they can come together to create atmosphere and intention for a production. This class culminates with time in the Jack Crystal Theater where they will use the equipment at hand to design lighting.

Students will have brief daily assignments and will have the chance to work in the theatre using the repertory lighting setup to design for each other in an accelerated collaborative experience.

View course schedule in Albert.

Music Composition for Choreographers

DANC-UT 1031 | 2-4 units | Instructors: Andy Teirstein, Jeremy Nelson

Prerequisite: Permission from the instructor. Graduate students, please register for DANC-GT 2325.

Open to students in the Department of Dance, Steinhardt composers, and other NYU composers. Departmental elective for B.F.A. and M.F.A. students. Music composition using synthesizers, tape recorders, microphones, signal processors, and MIDI. Multitracking and mixing techniques. As a project, the students compose a work on tape that they later use for choreography.

View course schedule in Albert.

Pedagogical Inquiry

DANC-GT 2315 | 3 units | Instructor: Pamela Pietro

Pedagogical Inquiry offers instructional methodologies for teaching dance in multiple settings: high school, higher education, private studios, and community organizations. The primary focus includes the investigation and discussion of pedagogical material that encompasses both the theoretical and practical aspects of dance education. On Wednesday mornings, we will thoroughly discuss the required readings. On Friday mornings, we will spend time in the studio investigating the practical application of teaching: The Doing. The Making. The Practice. Students are offered an additional, optional opportunity to work in the studio with high school students in a program called Future Dancers and Dancemakers (FDD).

Future Dancers and Dancemakers (FDD), a Saturday high school program housed in the Tisch Department of Dance, serves as the vehicle to hone pedagogy skills in conjunction with community outreach. The Future Dancers and Dancemakers program provides a platform and opportunity to synthesize the reading materials into a physical teaching practice.

 

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Research Topics in Dance Science

DANC-UT 1807/DANC-GT 2207 | 2 units | Instructor: Dr. Elizabeth Coker

Research Topics in Dance Science is a seminar-style course focused on the production of scientific and pedagogical knowledge in dance. This course will address issues specific to current research in dance from multiples perspectives including neuro-cognition, motor learning, elite performance, and teaching. We will discuss how and where research in dance is created, who accesses the literature, and how knowledge is applied contextually to the studio, onstage and clinically. The course is grounded in principles of scientific literacy and critical interrogation of scientific texts. Students will be guided through creating their own research questions and the course will culminate in a formal proposal to investigate these questions.

This course is intended to be accessible to dance majors and minors and graduate students, as well as any other students with an interest or background in dance, movement training or teaching, and/or biobehavioral research.  Research Topics in Dance Science strives to facilitate the creative production of novel areas of research in dance and to empower students through access to and critical investigation of traditional and ongoing modes of dance inquiry.

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Science of Movement

DANC-UT 1605/DANC-GT 2205 | 2 units | Instructor: Elizabeth Coker

The Science of Movement will introduce students to the multidisciplinary field of motor learning and control. Main goals of the course include: creating understanding of how the body and brain interact as a dynamic system, investigating neurophysiological correlates of human movement, and building practical knowledge about teaching and learning applications of current research in the movement sciences.

The Science of Movement is appropriate for undergraduates and graduate students with an interest in human movement, neuroscience and behavior, physical education and/or dance. No prior course of study in neuroscience is necessary to successfully engage with the course material. The course is divided into three sections: Motor Performance, Motor Learning, and Topics. The first two sections will introduce foundational concepts in neuro-motor control and learning, while the third section focuses on contemporary research in specific topics such as balance/locomotion, motor disorders, mental practice, and elite performance.

Students will sharpen critical analytic skills by observing movement learning in action; skill sites may include dance, yoga, physical education, and clinical/occupational motor rehabilitation. Guest speakers will reflect expertise in the fields of dance physical therapy, collegiate athletics, and neuro-rehabilitation.

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Video Art

DANC-UT 3301/DANC-GT 3301 | 3 units | Instructor: Cari Ann Shim Sham

Undergraduate students must obtain professor's permission to enroll in this course.

This course explores the design, creation, and application of immersive interactive video art, traditional and abstract screens and multi-projection system design for dance.

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World Dance Herstory - Dancing Across Geographies and Genders

DANC-GT 2105 | 2 units | Instructor: Richard Move

This dynamic, interactive survey course examines the development of World Dance forms from the beginning of the 20th Century to the present with contemporary perspectives. The course explores the intercultural influences and sociopolitical events that inform and produce dance across genres, geographies and genders. The class uses utilizes an interdisciplinary, analytic Dance Studies methodology, placing dance in dialogue with other disciplines such as Media Studies, Critical Race Theory, Gender Studies, Queer Theory and Dis/Ability Studies. The course simultaneously incorporates current topics of the field including social activism, recreation, choreographic legacy, technology, modes of documenting dance and the impact of globalization upon the arts. Theories of temporality and the examination of mediated aesthetic representations of dance from around the globe are the thematic foundation of the course research.

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