MHST 363 Dance: From Ritual to Concert Stage
Dance has always been a part of human life – a part of daily rituals, both spiritual and social, as well as a source of entertainment. At the same time, dance has seeped into the imagination of composers who have included their elements into works composed for the concert stage. What happens to a dance when it travels the path from a physical, bodily activity with a particular function to a work meant to be listened to in silence? The exploration of this question will involve several “dance case studies”, where we will look at the transformation of a particular dance genre – Waltz, Mazurka, Polonaise, Czardas - through their various phases. A particular focus will be on 19th century performance appropriations with national schools on the one side, and various concert genres on the other. Finally we will see how 20th century composers use folk dances and social dances as a form of social criticism and commentary. The course on the one hand draws on an ethnomusicological approach, with inquiry into the original context and function of a particular dance, and on the other, examines 19th century performance practices of works based on those dances. Some of works and composers covered will be: Viennese waltzes of the Strauss family, Ravel’s La Valse, Chopin’s mazurkas and polonaises, Schubert’s and Brahms’s waltz and dance movements, symphonic movements by Mahler and Shostakovich, Richard Strauss’s operas (Elektra and Rosenkavalier), Schnittke’s works, as well as Bartok’s and Ligeti’s usage of folk dance materials. Student projects will range from written assignments (response papers/essays), score and performance analyses, to field and archival research.