Come Join the Future of Dance Education

Koplowitz’s international Grand Step Project (2004), Courtesy Koplowitz.

 

Today is the first day of Stephan Koplowitz’s wide-open course, “Creating Site-Specific Dance and Performance Works.” Anyone can sign up for FREE. An online course, this is one of the ways that dance is entering the 21st century. Just as Koplowitz was a pioneer in site-specific work starting in the 1980s, he is now a pioneer in disseminating dance education through tele-presence.

Courses taught by tele-presence have hit other sectors of education, so why not dance? And who better to create such a course than forward-thinking Stephan Koplowitz, who has made scores of delightful, brazen, ingenious and/or beautiful dances in intriguing sites around the world.

He is also dean of the Sharon Disney Lund School of Dance at CalArts, where he’s been developing a new approach to dance education within the arts. He’s someone who thinks on a big scale, as you will learn from his international Grand Step Project in this series.

The popularity of “Creating Site-Specific Dance” when he first offered it last year—thousands of people from 148 countries signed up and hundreds actually completed the course—revealed that many young choreographers are not waiting for a theater to be available. It also means that they want dance to connect to the environment and to reach people who may not be able to afford theater tickets. Koplowitz said that musicians, visua artists, and theater people have also taken the class.

 

Above: Koplowitz speaking to students online, Courtesy Koplowitz

 

The course contains not only wisdom from Koplowitz’s 30 years of making site works, but also interviews with other outstanding dance artists like Joanna Haigood, Ann Carlson, Martha Bowers, and Meredith Monk.

For those who register, the commitment is conveniently flexible. “There’s no requirement to do any ‘homework,’ ” wrote Koplowitz in an email. “Everyone can participate at whatever level is possible or desired.” There’s also an option to earn a “verified certificate.”

Even though the course starts today, registration continues to be open. Click here to find out more.