“Dancing Culture Religion” was an online version I taught only in the summers of the course I regularly taught at the University of Colorado. When I taught the version of this courses in the classroom I included one hour of dancing for every two hours in the classroom. To adjust for the absence of physical dancing in this online version, I presented all the lectures as video podcasts with ample images and video clips to extend beyond just “talking about dancing.” Unfortunately the videos were dependent on software no longer active, so they are no longer available. However, complementing PDFs of the lectures are all available. This course has some parallels to my book Dancing Culture Religion (2012). The following is a course that introduces many ideas I believe to be valuable to appreciating dancing as a cultural and religious activity the world over and hopefully might inspire one to find events to learn and enjoy dancing.
DCR Lectures
- Intro to Sam & Lecture/Course Overview
Section 1: Placing Dancing in the Context of Popular Western Cultures
- Contemporary American Folk Theories of Dancing—Part 1 (19:04) PDF
- Contemporary American Folk Theories of Dancing—Part 2 (36:23) PDF
- Contemporary American Folk Theories of Dancing—Part 3 (32:53) PDF
- Contemporary American Folk Theories of Dancing—Part 4 (37:07) PDF
- Christian and Western “High Culture” Perspectives on Dancing PDF
- Dancing in Public Education (39:08) PDF
- Dancing in University Education (22:36) PDF
- Dancing in America … or Not (22:23) PDF
- The Importance of Dancing to World Religions and Cultures (21:25) PDF
Section 2: Moving
- Dancing is Moving, but not all Moving is Dancing PDF Johnson, Meaning of the Body, pp. 1-15 PDF
- Primacy of Movement PDF Sheets-Johnstone, Primacy of Movement, pp. 131-39, PDF, 232-46 PDF
- Kinesthetic Sense—The Dancer’s Sense PDF
- Movement and Perception PDF Johnson, pp. 19-32 PDF
- Demanding Self-movement: the Key to Acuity PDF
- Movement “In Itself” PDF Johnson, pp. 113-34 PDF
- Movement & Meaning PDF Johnson, pp. 135-54 PDF
- Breakin’ and Ballet PDF
- I’d rather Throw like a Girl than Dance like a Guy PDF
- Movement, Plasticity, and Life Cycle PDF
- Moving and Dancing, Dancing and Gesturing PDF
Section 3: Gesturing
- Gesture, Visible Action as Utterance PDF
- Gesture and Agency, Dancing as Gesturing PDF
- Dancing as Techniques of Body: Marcel Mauss PDF
- Dancing the Other: Body as Instrument—André Leroi-Gourhan 1 PDF
- Dancing the Other—André Leroi-Gourhan PDF
- “They Jump Up of Themselves” Gesture & Identity in Central Australia 1 PDF
- “They Jump Up of Themselves” Gesture & Identity in Central Australia 2 PDF
- Gesturing and Touching PDF
- The Neuroscience of Touching and Gesturing PDF
- Dancing and the Survival of Men PDF
- Touching & Gesturing: Dance Contributions to Teen Development PDF Gill, “Touch and SalsAmigos Dancing” PDF
Section 4: Self-Othering
- Dancing as Self-Othering – 1: Javanese Wayang Kulit PDF Miettinen, pp. 75-87 PDF
- Dancing as Self-Othering – 2: Javanese Classical Dancing PDF Miettinen, pp. 88-91 PDF
- Dancing as Self-Othering – 3: Merleau-Ponty’s “Flesh Ontology” PDF
- Dancing as Self-Othering – 4: Understanding Dancing PDF
- Dancing as Self-Othering – 5: Reflections on Java PDF
Section 5: Playing
- Play – 1: Nataraja Hindu Lord of Dancing PDF Coomaraswami, pp. 66-78 PDF
- Play – 2: Friedrich Schiller PDF
- Play – 3: Hans-Georg Gadamer PDF
- Play – 4: Jacques Derrida PDF
- Play – 5: Lila, Nataraja, and Dancing as Play PDF Handelman, pp. 1-13 PDF
- Go Up Into the Gaps: Play and Native American Religions – 1 PDF
- Go Up Into the Gaps: Play and Native American Religions – 2 PDF
- Go Up Into the Gaps: Play and Native American Religions – 3 PDF
Section 6: Seducing
- Dancing as Seduction – 1: Bolero PDF Aparisio, pp. 69-82 PDF
- Dancing as Seduction – 2: Baudrillard PDF
- Dancing as Seduction – 3: Aura PDF
- Dancing as Seduction – 4: Feminine PDF
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