This page is a repository for resources
for current Theatre & Dance students.
Theatre & Dance Anti-Racism Action Plan & related information
Two other great resources for Theatre & Dance Students are:
- the Dance Program Blog, featuring information about courses, auditions, master classes, and performances.
- the Muhlenberg Theatre Association website, with information about all student-run theatre performances, ensembles, auditions, applications, and more.
Mnemonic Festival Auditions
Video submissions will be due no later than Wednesday, Jan. 20 at noon ET.
Many details are available here.
Winter Term Theatre Courses
Winter Term 2021 is a four-week course period, Jan. 4-29. Students may register for one course unit (two half-credit courses or a full-credit course) as part of their full-year academic load. Students who wish to take a Winter Term course may do so through Capstone; if they have questions, they can talk to their academic advisor.
Winter Term Theatre Courses
Contemporary US Playwriting
Dr. James Peck THR 181 1.0 course unit
This course examines playwriting in the United States in the last ten years, focusing largely on works by playwrights of color. Likely authors include Ayad Akhtar, Luís Alfaro, Annie Baker, Nilo Cruz, Stephen Adly Guirgis, Aleshea Harris, Quiara Alegría Hudes, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Rajiv Joseph, Qui Nguyen, Lynn Nottage, and Suzan-Lori Parks. How does each playwright represent a world? Who populates that world? What happens in it? What sorts of actions seem to have the power to change things? To whose benefit? How does the dramaturgy of each play shape the audience’s attitude about its characters and events? Towards what ends? Cumulatively, what perspective do these plays offer on life in the United States in the 2010s?
Satisfies Dramatic Literature requirement in old major and the requirement for a course in an underrepresented theatre tradition in the new major.
Prerequisite: THR 100 Theatre & Society: Hist. Intro or THR 105 Performance & Society.
Dialects & Accents
Bridgett Jackson THR 184 .5 course unit
Study with the Dialect Coach of last spring's A Raisin in the Sun! In this course, students will choose an accent or dialect to explore. Students will study the process of adopting a new way of speaking; research the specific sound features, learn proper mouth placement, incorporate new ways of shaping sounds, and find the intonation and rhythm of the new speech pattern. Practice and ear-training will be done with native speaker examples, along with a phonetic analysis of the accent being studied. Students will be more comfortable exploring any accent after learning the fundamentals of this course.
Performance Studies: Performance & the Digital
Dr. Leticia Robles-Moreno THR 212 1.0 course unit
This course introduces the burgeoning interdisciplinary field of performance studies. Performance studies investigates the human body engaged in symbolic action using methods drawn from such disciplines as the performing arts, cultural anthropology, ritual studies, and popular culture studies. Thus, it analyzes aestheticized forms like theatre, performance art, dance, and music but also inquires into cultural performances like political protests, fashion shows, sporting events, and worship services. Students will learn the basic history of the field and develop a working knowledge of its scholarly methods and proclivities.
Prerequisite: THR 100 or THR 105
Meets general academic requirement W (writing-intensive)
Dramaturgy Centering Plays by Black, Indigenous, and People of Color
Gabriel Jason Dean THR 288 1.0 course unit
Focusing on contemporary plays by Black, Indigenous and people of color, we will learn the fundamentals of dramaturgy—how to effectively read, analyze, contextualize, and view plays as theatre practitioners, scholars and critics—while also utilizing theoretical and practical frameworks to become better practitioners and advocates for Anti-Racism in theatre-making processes. Through written assignments and subsequent revisions, oral presentations, class discussion, and conversations with professional dramaturgs, we will examine theoretical foundations of dramaturgy and practical approaches to play analysis, develop dramaturgical skills through hands-on experience, and name and interrogate biases and blinders within the white and privileged gaze. What does it mean to read and stage plays by BIPOC writers in white and non-white spaces? Why is it necessary to interrogate and hold accountable one’s own positionality as white or non-white within a conversation on plays by BIPOC writers? Our semester long conversation will be guided by an imaginative framework: we will picture ourselves the Literary Department brain trust of a major regional American Theatre who has committed to an all BIPOC season of programming. Through this premise, we will engage with dramaturgy in four phases: Phase 1: Dramaturg as Visionary—co-curating this season of plays; Phase 2: Dramaturg as Collaborator – research, feedback and collaboration (the nuts and bolts of practicable dramaturgy) in preparation for rehearsal of our plays; Phase 3: Dramaturg as Messenger— examining creating meaningful context for our plays through marketing, education, corollary programming and community engagement, and finally, Phase 4: Dramaturg as Critic—script reports and theatrical criticism.
Meets general academic requirement W (writing-intensive).
Fulfills the requirement for a course in an underrepresented theatre tradition in the new major.
Prerequisite: THR 100, THR 105, or permission of the instructor.
Virtual Directing & Devising
Dr. Beth Schachter & Gertjan Houben THR 383 1.0 course unit
Activists and people are taking their bodies to the streets to break through racism and white supremacy. As theatre artists in this pandemic, we can take creative action in the virtual world as well. Drawing upon the co-teaching team’s expertise in design, directing, and dramaturgy, this course will structure solo and collaborative assignments to answer questions like: “What is liveness in the virtual world?” and “How can I collaborate with artists from a wide range of cultural and artistic genealogies to expand the scope of my process?” Students will have opportunities to learn how to speak productively with designers by working with lighting designer Gertjan Houben. The course is set up flexibly and the specific content of each project will arise from that individual student’s goals. The course culminates with each student sharing either a newly devised collaborative performance or their conceptual work as directors and dramaturgs. We will share our projects with the Muhlenberg community and beyond in a series of virtual performances and presentations.
Prerequisite: THR 100, THR 105, or permission of the instructor.
Solo Performance
Jim VanValen THR 385 1.0 course unit
Students will explore the world of solo performance and create their own performance pieces through creating, developing, and rehearsing within a focused process of personal discovery. Elements of movement, voice and monologue work, and ensemble activities will be incorporated to assist students in shaping their artistic voices and releasing their personal visions as writers, performers, and theatre-makers. The course will also examine various forms of solo work, various solo plays and pieces, and various solo artists throughout theatre. All will be incorporated as actors seek out the stories waiting to be told within themselves. The class will culminate with students performing their own solo pieces for an audience.
This course satisfies the 300-level acting elective for the Acting Concentration.
Prerequisite: THR 251 Acting II: Scene Study.
History of Western Costume & Fashion
Rebecca Lustig THR 388 1.0 course unit
A survey of clothing from early “western” civilization in Mesopotamia, Crete, Greece, Etruria, and Rome through European fashion of the Middle Ages, Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, and American & European fashion of the 19th and 20th centuries to the global fashion of the contemporary period. We will explore the cyclical evolution of fashion, and the costume vocabulary specific to historical periods. Special emphasis will be given to the placement of fashion in artistic, cultural, and historical contexts, and the application of historical costume research to performance design.
Prerequisite: THR 100 Theatre & Society: An Historical Introduction or THR 105, or instructor permission.
Advanced Topics in Acting
Larry Singer THR 450 1.0 course unit
This intensive laboratory course explores the ideas and techniques of one or more advanced approaches to performance. The thrust of the class is to help the Muhlenberg actor integrate what they have learned in the first three years of their training and education along with honing their responses to their instincts and impulses.
Prerequisite: THR 251 Acting II: Scene Study.
Performance & Absence
Dr. Ethan Philbrick THR 481 1.0 course unit
There is a certain common sense about what makes performance specific as a medium: it is co-presence, a simultaneity of space and time, an appearing before others in fleshy proximity, a fleeting assembly of face to face-ness, an ephemeral doing with what is here and now. This course, partially inspire by the conditions of our current pandemic, is a hybrid studio and theory class that begins with an alternative presumption: performance is a negotiation of absence, a questioning of who and what are here and not here, an assembly in the then and there, a doing with bodies but also with ghosts, ideas, objects, images, documents, texts, cameras, and screens. We begin with a week-long theory intensive—reading influential works about the nature of performance by performance studies scholars such as Fred Moten, José Esteban Muñoz, Peggy Phelan, and Rebecca Schneider—before travelling through a three-week series of exercises and assignments devoted to making collaborative performances under conditions of apartness, faraway-ness, and gone-ness (ie. long-distance collaboration and mail art, telepresence performance and internet art, performing with archival materials, the relationship between performance and loss, etc.).
French Theatre of Resistance
Dr. Ioanna Chatzidimitriou FRN 313 1.0 course unit
Theatre in the French Caribbean (with a focus on Martinique and Guadeloupe) has evolved from servile reproduction of European norms and texts by the béké (white colonist) ruling class in colonial times to a vibrant, multicultural, and decolonizing practice in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries when the islands became administrative departments of France. This class will examine both plays written by French- and Creole-speaking Caribbean playwrights (in English translation) and theoretical works by Black Caribbean intellectuals which will serve as historical and philosophical context for our close readings. We will interrogate the intersections of language (colonial French vs Creole), gender, politics and colonial history with the aesthetic and cultural traditions that inform contemporary French- and French-Creole-speaking Caribbean theater: the creole storytelling tradition, the European cultural patrimony, the Black Liberation and Civil Rights movements in the USA, as well as certain African theatrical and cultural practices. Readings will include Aimé Césaire’s Discourse on Colonialism and A Tempest, Ina Césaire’s Island Memories, Maryse Condé’s The Tropical Breeze Hotel, Gerty Dambury’s Trames, Simone Schwarz-Bart’s Your Handsome Captain, Edouard Glissant’s Caribbean Discourse, and In Praise of Creoleness by Jean Bernabé, Patrick Chamoiseau, and Raphaël Confiant.
In English.
Meets general academic requirement HU.
Fulfills the requirement for a course in an underrepresented theatre tradition in the new major.
Winter Term Dance Courses
Winter Term 2021 is a four-week course period, Jan. 4-29. Students may register for one course unit (two half-credit courses or a full-credit course) as part of their full-year academic load. Students who wish to take a Winter Term course may do so through Capstone; if they have questions, they can talk to their academic advisor.
Winter Term Dance Courses
Dance Conditioning
Mon-Fri, 11:30 am – 1:30 pm DNC 185 .5 unit
Chelsea Thompson
Chelsea will be coming at this course from a perspective of readying the body for aerial movement, but the exercises and content are applicable for all forms of dance and performance. We will focus on exercises and stretching regimes to increase strength, ability, and range of motion in the body. With each exercise, we will really hone in on the musculature of the body, understanding how the muscles are working together, and why this is beneficial to the body in a dance/performance context. There is not necessarily one technique or practice that we will use, but instead pull from multiple sources so that by the end of the course you will hopefully be able to put together your own cross-training regime. I am designing this course for all skill levels. So even if you’ve never done a pushup in your life or if you are busting out one-armed handstand pushups on the regular, there will be something for you to challenge yourself as an athletic artist.
Audition Workshop: Musical Theatre Tap
Mon-Fri, 11:30 am – 1:30 pm DNC 280 .5 unit
Nicole Kostura
This course asserts there is an art to auditioning in tap for musical theater productions. Tap technique, taught in a variety of rhythms and tempos is the best way to quickly produce choreography that is entertaining. This course utilizes tap technique at its basic form and concentrates on skills and drills in composition, choreography, and muscle memory. From larger musical production numbers such as “I Got Rhythm” from Crazy for You, to small song and dance pieces like “Good Morning” from Singing in the Rain, students will learn the importance of ensemble dancing as well as being pulled out for soloing. The historical art of the soft-shoe will also be explored. Taught at an intermediate level, beginning students (with at least one semester of Jazztap I) and Int/Adv. students will benefit from this work.
Movement Workshop
Mon-Fri, 2-4 pm DNC 160 .5 unit
Meredith Stapleton
Studio work to expand one's range of expression by crossing borders between dance/theatre/sound. Elements include Modern Dance, Sound and Movement Improvisation, Contact Improvisation, Body Therapies, Yoga, and Theatre Studies.
This course is a requirement for all those pursuing the Performance, Choreography, and Dance Education concentrations in the Dance Major.
Dance Technique & Performance II:
Africanisms in Mind, Body, and Spirit
Mon-Fri, 2-4 pm DNC 215 .5 unit
Jeffrey Peterson
Rooted in mindful embodied practices, this course seeks to deepen a dancer’s self-awareness through technical and performance experiences, repertory, and performance practice rooted in the African diaspora. Students will unpack how psychological and sociological perspectives manifest within one’s own dance technique. Written and embodied exercises seek to encourage intellectual and physical cognizance regarding the influences of history and culture on one’s mind, body, and spirit.
This work is realized within a dialogic approach to jazz movement rooted in the African Diaspora, encouraging students to finesse their aesthetic awareness and individual embodiment of rhythm, musicality, community, and energy. Class time devoted to dancing is supported by dialogue, readings, and autoethnographic writing, revealing the dynamic intersections across race, culture, gender expression, and our unique dancing bodies.
This course is required for all Dance Majors and Minors
Updated Dance Audit Policy 8/20/20
Dance Technique Course Audit Policy (revised 8-20)
The complete Dance Technique Attendance Policy During Covid-19 document is available here.
- All audits are processed during the first week of the semester. Please do not submit requests until the start of the semester.
- Submit the following forms to the Dance Program Director (Jeffrey Peterson):
- An official audit form from the registrar with a filled out top portion
- The completed audit application (see Dance Major/Minor Canvas Page) - Please make sure that you email the two forms as attachments in one email to Jeffrey no later than Friday at 4 pm, the first week of classes.
- Submit the following forms to the Dance Program Director (Jeffrey Peterson):
- Audits are available only to declared Dance Majors and Minors
- Student must have successfully taken the course for credit in a previous semester
- Student should be taking another technique class for credit, and the audit class should represent a course load beyond 4 credits.
- Student must attend class regularly and participate fully in all studio work including performance day projects.
- The attendance policy applies to auditing students. Should an auditing student exceed FOUR CLASSES absent in a course, the student will not receive credit for the audit, and future auditing privileges will be revoked.
- Faculty teaching the course will determine written requirements and additional parameters around what an audit will mean in their course. These parameters may involve additional specifics related to online delivery, as determined by the faculty. Please communicate with your instructor for additional details.
- No audits can represent enrollment beyond a course’s capacity.
- Student may only audit one dance course per semester.
- You will receive an email from Jeffrey when your forms are approved. It is then your responsibility to forward the signed forms to the registrar before the Add period has closed in order for the course audit to become official.
- Students who have in any way abused their audit privileges the previous semester will not be approved to audit.
Students who are not dance majors or minors may opt to take a dance course pass/fail. Please see Muhlenberg College Catalog section on Academic Policies for information regarding this option.The teacher of the course can sign this form.
Important Theatre Curriculum Updates (July 23 Email)
Theatre Curriculum Updates
This informaiton was sent via email on July 23 to all Theatre students, from Professor James Peck
Dear Theatre Majors in the Classes of ’21, ’22, and ‘23,
I am writing with some updates about the Theatre Curriculum in light of the disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. I apologize that this arrives close to the time of re-registration. As you probably know, Troy Dwyer recently went out on medical leave. Since then, we have been figuring out how to move forward as a program. Yesterday afternoon, it was determined that I will oversee the area of Curriculum for the Theatre major. So I am writing you now with several updates. If you have questions about what’s below, or anything else related to your studies, please be in touch with your academic advisor. They’ll probably know the answer, and if not they’ll refer you to me.
- I’ll start with two points of clarification:
- There has been some confusion about what the different modes of course delivery mean for students studying online. Any course being taught in the Fall can be taken online. Even if the course is listed in Capstone as being taught in a hybrid format or in-person, you can take it online. In the first Town Hall for Acting students, Holly and I were unclear about this (because we weren’t entirely clear ourselves), so we want to be explicit about it in this email. It might be more satisfying to take a course specifically designed to be taught online instead, but you won’t be inhibited from taking a class designated as hybrid or in-person. If you have questions about what the modality might mean in a specific course, we encourage you to write the instructor.
- In-person and hybrid classes will follow protocols for social distancing. Like the Dance program, we’re following the recommendations of DanceUSA. This means there will be 10 feet between people at all times, and everyone will need to wear a mask throughout the class.
- In light of the Covid-19 pandemic, we are instituting variances to some of your graduation requirements in order to ease your path to graduation. These are all designed to support your continued path through the major while maintaining its essential structure.
- We are going to be much more flexible about how you can fulfill the Theatre Scholarship requirement. You are still required to take five Theatre Scholarship courses, and one of them must be a Writing Intensive. However, the other categories (such as Dramatic Literature, Theatrical and Aesthetic Theory, etc.) can now be regarded as recommendations rather than as strict requirements. This will make it much easier to fulfill this component of the major. As part of the Theatre program anti-racism initiative, you will see that we are increasing the number of courses focused on minoritized theatre traditions. We particularly encourage you take advantage of these new offerings.
- We are adjusting the graduation requirements for the Acting and Directing Concentrations.
In Acting, you are still required to take four units of Acting Studio classes, one of which must be Acting I. However, in light of the pandemic we have decided to count several other Acting courses toward the Theatre major. Acting courses taken at the 100 or 400 Level can now be applied toward the Acting Concentration. The Verse requirement is eliminated (though still recommended). So, examples of courses that can now count toward the major are: Voice and Speech, Intro to Physical Theatre, Intro to Musical Theatre Performance, Advanced Topics in Acting, Stage Combat, Audition Workshop.
Acting classes taken in study abroad or study away programs can also be counted. In accord with the typical College practice, you can still transfer in only a maximum of two units toward the major as a whole. Please note that the requirement is four units in Acting Studio, not four courses. (Holly and I were vague about this in the first Acting Town Hall, and apologize for that.) These changes are retroactive, so they apply to courses you have already taken. If you have questions about how these adjustments to the Acting Concentration affect your particular situation, please be in touch with your Academic Advisor.
In Directing, Acting I will now be the pre-requisite for all Directing courses. To fulfill the Directing Concentration, Concentrators must take Acting 1, two Directing courses, and one additional Theatre Studio class (in Acting, Design, Directing, or Stage Management). If you opt for Design, it would be a Design course in addition to the Creativity and Collaboration course that is already required.
- This last section applies only to students enrolled in Acting 1 for Fall 2020.
As you may have noticed in Capstone, Holly and Jim Van Valen are teaching their sections of Acting I (mostly) in-person; Larry Singer and Drew Richardson are teaching their entirely online. If you either need or hope to switch to a different mode of delivery, here is the process to apply to do that:- If you are enrolled in an "in person" section but need to take the class online (either for health reasons or because you will not be coming to campus), we will figure out a way to move you to an online section. In this case, please write Gianna Neal an email by Tuesday, July 28 to let her know. You don't need to give reasons; you just need to indicate that you need to move to an online section. You should also tell Gianna the times of the other courses you are planning to take in the Fall semester. Gianna will collect this information, and she and I will work with the Registrar's office and you to figure it out. These sorts of changes will get top priority.
- If you are enrolled in a section of Acting I, but the time for one of your other classes has been switched such that the two classes are now meeting simultaneously, you should write to Gianna by the 28th and explain your situation, again including your full course schedule. I'll try to move you to another section, particularly if you are doing a double-major. These sorts of changes will get the second priority.
- If you are in an online section but prefer to take the class in-person, you should write to Gianna by the 28th to let her know you hope to move to an in-person section. These will be the pool of folks I use when I switch people from the first two categories. However, I want to be clear that it is unlikely everyone who wants to move to an in-person section will be able to do so. These requests will be the lowest priority because unlike the two categories above, you still have the opportunity to take the course.
If you can't be moved and you don't want to take Acting I online, we will offer Acting I in the spring, and you can wait and take it then, hoping some sections will be offered in-person. That said, I want to emphasize that there is no guarantee we will be able to offer in-person sections in the Spring at all. I would encourage you to stick with the course irrespective of the mode of delivery.
Looking to the spring, we want to let the students in Acting I know we will not be offering Acting II, at least by that name. Instead we will be offering an array of Acting courses appropriate for sophomores that are similar to what has been Acting II. The courses will have new names, truer and more specific to the content emphasized by each instructor, and the bulk of the seats will be reserved for Sophomores. These will count toward the requirements of the Acting Concentration. This means that Acting II is no longer required for the Acting Concentration. This will give you a great deal of additional flexibility in planning your schedule going forward. Again, if you have questions, talk to your Academic Advisor.
Thank you for taking the time to review these updates. Again, if you have any questions, please contact your academic advisor.
We all wish you the very best in this complicated moment. We are impressed by your dedication to your education, and excited to see you soon.
Sincerely,
Jim
Dance Program Update: Re-Registration, Attendance Policy, Audits (July 20 Email)
Dance Program Update:
Re-Registration, Attendance Policy, Audits
This informaiton was sent via email on July 20 to all Dance students.
Course Changes & Re-Registration
You do not need to re-register from scratch! The courses you have already registered for are still on your schedule. However, there will be a period for re-registration, for students who wish to revisit their schedules.
Here's the timeline:
- July 21: Updated Fall 2020 and Winter 2021 course schedules are available to students
- July 21-24: Advising of returning students, if necessary
- July 27: Seniors drop/add date July 29: Juniors drop/add
- July 31: Sophomores drop/add
Considering the guidance you've received from the Registrar, you are welcome to take a normal 4 or 4.5 credit course load this fall, as long as you are in good academic standing and are comfortable doing so. If you're thinking of taking a Winter Term course, there will be no additional cost to you if your load is 3 to 4.5 credits this fall. If you are interested in taking a Winter term course, please look through the offerings on Capstone when they are published tomorrow, and consult with your advisor about how to register.
In the revised course schedule, released July 21, you'll see a designation for each course to let you know whether the course will be taught in-person, online, or in a hybrid of the two.
Your instructors may email you to let you know more about the delivery modality of your course. For hybrid and online courses, they will provide more information about the types of learning experiences they envision in a particular course. If the course is listed as in-person, that may mean additional information isn’t necessary at this time, and you may not hear from them. Regarding any in-person instruction, please refer to the email sent July 2 for additional information about our program’s protocols regarding distancing, cleaning, testing, etc.
Only a couple of scheduling changes will be announced to Dance courses. Jeffrey will be in touch directly with the few students whom those changes will affect.
Dance studio courses will be limited to 60 minutes this semester. Two important health considerations inform this change. The first is that it allows sufficient time for cleaning and disinfecting all surfaces within the studios between classes. The second is that 60 minutes is an appropriate limit for continuous intense physical activity, as airflow into and out of the body will be somewhat limited by your mask.
Attendance Policy
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the term “attendance” has new meaning.
For purposes of this semester, "attendance” means "participating" in class activities, whether in-person or online. If you find yourself needing to isolate or quarantine — either mandatory or voluntary — and you're unable to attend class, your instructors will work collaboratively with you to determine alternative methods to participate in required class activities.
This approach to participation will acknowledge that students who are isolating may not be able to access course materials "in real time" — for example, by logging into a Zoom call — and may not have access to sufficient space for full physical participation in dance activities. As long as you are participating, according to this standard as more specifically agreed upon by you and your instructor — and as long as you communicate promptly with your instructor — remaining physically distant will not affect your grade.
Audit Policy
For the Fall 2020 Semester, there will unfortunately be no auditing of dance technique courses. Due to the complexities of adjusting to the pandemic, the additional approaches to teaching that will be required of instructors, and the complications that hybrid and online teaching formats, the faculty of the program has made the difficult decision to forgo audits for the semester.
Dance Program Practices & Policies during COVID-19 (July 2 Email)
Dance Program Practices & Policies during the COVID-19 Pandemic
A version of this message was sent via email on July 2 to all Dance students.
The Dance Program believes in the moving body as a source of inspiration, wellbeing, and support. In the wake of the pandemic and the parameters that will be placed upon your experience as movers this fall, the Dance Program would like to take this moment to communicate a commitment to supporting your dancing self.
This upcoming semester will include many new norms and so all of us (students and faculty) must do our best to not compare our experiences to how it could be under different circumstances, or to the experiences occurring in other classes. Each instructor is taking special care to process their course goals and their unique registration numbers, space constraints, and other personal and professional limitations in order to arrive at the best possible approaches.
That said, dance technique offerings this fall could be offered all in person, hybrid in person and online, and/or completely online, and the mode of delivery may change throughout the semester. Overall, our individual and collective flexibility in entering this new experience will go a long way toward generating balance in body-mind-spirit as we move together. As always, all Muhlenberg dance technique courses will reveal a commitment to the physical experience of dance training.
All of the planned guidelines below are being shared at this time in order for you to have a clear handle on the fall semester. These are derived of the DanceUSA guidelines, available here: Return to Dancing and Training Considerations Due to-COVID-19 and COVID-19 FAQ for Dancers and Dance Companies Returning to the Studios, combined with Muhlenberg College protocols as currently understood.
As the pandemic continues to evolve, these protocols and guidelines will likely need to evolve as well. And once we have gathered together again in person, they will be continually revised to promote safety. The faculty and staff will be in constant communication with you about any and all changes.
Specific Policies
- Masks: Campus Policy will be that if you are anywhere on campus, a mask is required — indoors or in most spaces outdoors. Considerations for dancers wearing masks:
- A mask will make it harder to breathe during exercise initially, and dancers should self-monitor for symptoms of: lightheadedness, dizziness, numbness or tingling, and shortness of breath
- Monitor the intensity of your class/workout as you get used to wearing a mask during exercise.
- Your body will adapt over a few weeks to wearing a mask.
- If you start to feel dizzy, imbalanced, or over-fatigued, stop your activity and rest.
- You may not remove your mask during class. If you do need to remove your mask, dispose of single use masks in the trash or place a reusable mask into its own sealable bag, wash your hands and/or use an alcohol based hand sanitizer, letting it dry for 30 seconds, and then replace it with a clean one.
- Dancers will likely require multiple masks to get through the day. If your mask becomes saturated with moisture from breathing or sweat, you need to change into a dry mask, because a wet mask is less efficient at filtering bacteria and viruses.
- You should change your mask following physical activity (likely after each dance or studio class) and must wear a clean, fresh mask every day.
- All reusable masks should be cleaned, ideally in a washer with hot water and soap and then dried in a dryer prior to next use. Ironing on the highest setting can also disinfect after washing and drying.
- There are now multiple commercial reusable mask options available for use during dance/exercise.
- Social Distancing
- No hands-on corrections. No partnering or other activities that require the space between people to be less than 6 feet.
- Barre:
- Dancers need to stand at least 6 feet (2 meters) apart.
- Dance places on the barre will be marked with tape.
- Dancers will be required to wipe down the barre before and after each use (wipe supplies will be provided).
- Dynamic exercises with larger movement should be avoided to minimize air turbulence in the room.
- Center Work:
- For stationary center work, dancers should be able to maintain 8- to 10-feet distance.
- Normal breathing should be encouraged over forced breath cues, as forced exhalation spreads larger droplets farther distances.
- Across the Floor: the usual structure of organizing to go across the floor must be reimagined. Based on the guidelines below, social distancing marks around the entire perimeter will be provided, in order to facilitate these guidelines.
- Dancers must avoid following right behind each other; it is safer to work next to each other. If dancers travel directly behind each other, they are in the slipstream, where droplets remain suspended. To avoid contact, dancers need to allow even further distance.
- Dancers will maintain 6 feet distance apart standing side by side in one line and allow each group to complete the combination to the end of the room before the next group starts.
- Dancers should be reminded to maintain a distance of at least 6 feet when waiting to go across the floor and after completing the combination.
- Shoes:
- Shoes can be a potential transmitter of disease. Street shoes should be removed prior to entering any studios. Dance shoes should not be worn outside of the studio.
- Cleaning:
- At a minimum, floors and any other areas touched by anyone will be cleaned before the next class — Jess Bien is spearheading the effort to hire a staff of studio cleaners to ensure that between each in-class meeting, all studios are cleaned thoroughly, including floors, door handles, and barres.
- Music:
- Sound equipment will be cleaned before and after use.
- Consider the volume of music. The louder the music, the louder the instructor will have to project, potentially causing droplets to travel further.
- Temperature checking:
- All dancers will have their temperatures checked once every day via no-touch thermometer on their way into the studio. If temperature is less than 100.4° F, students will receive a stamp on their hand to indicate that they are ok to dance that day. If temperature is greater than 100.4° F, then the individual must go back to their dorm and follow College protocols.
Thank you all for your flexibility and patience, and for taking the time to familiarize yourself with these guidelines.
How to Get Places — a Video Tour
These videos give you a first-person look at how to get from point A to point B in the world of Theatre & Dance. Thanks to Mia Shmariahu '19 for the video assist!
- Baker Center for the Arts —> Trexler Pavilion
- Empie Theatre
- Baker Theatre
- Studio Theatre (Black Box)
- Box Office
- Trexler Pavilion —> Baker Center for the Arts
- Box Office
- Studio Theatre (Black Box)
- Baker Theatre
- Empie Theatre
- Brown Dance Studio
- CA 226 — The Tap Box (Center for the Arts)
- Dance Wellness Center & Pilates Studio
- Hillside House & Rehearsal House
- Lav Lounge / Lavender Lounge / Green Room
- Theatre & Dance Offices
- Scene Shop & Environs
- Scene Shop
- Damon Gelb's Office
- Eric Covell's Office
- Loading Dock
- Dumpster
- Other Tech Locations in the Center for the Arts
- the Vault (electrics)
- Paul Theisen's Office
- Prop Storage
- Bonus Round! The Baker Closet