Opportunities for Dancers
The Brown University Department of Theatre Speech and Dance offers a wide range of opportunities for dancers with diverse interests and backgrounds to choreograph and perform.
THE DANCE ENSEMBLE has enthralled audiences since 1969 with works in modern, traditional, experimental, and vernacular dance forms in concerts on campus and beyond the walls of the University. One of the goals of The Dance Ensemble, open to all Brown students, is to explore the many extraordinary languages of movement which have prepared many for extensive professional careers after Brown. The Dance Ensemble, which strongly supports and encourages student choreography, also has two resident choreographers, Julie A. Strandberg and Michelle Bach-Coulibaly and has worked with guest choreographers, Milton Myers, Talley Beatty, Seydou Coulibaly, Paul Benney, Annamaura Silverblatt, Mary Paul Hunter, Anne-Alex Packard, Jessica Lutes (Brown '88), Bradon McDonald, Amy Spencer, Richard Colton, and guest artist Deborah Carr on the reconstruction of Charles Weidman's "Lynchtown." The Ensemble also collaborates with other artists to create and present interdisciplinary works. The Dance Ensemble performs several times a year in works by faculty, students and guest choreographers.
Founded in 1979, THE DANCE EXTENSION, a touring repertory company, was established by founding director of dance, Julie A. Strandberg, on the premise that the training of dancers must include the opportunity to perform, teach, and revisit masterworks. While the dancers in the company are encouraged and supported to create their own work, they also have the rare opportunity to work with some of our most revered choreographers and some of our most exciting contemporary innovators. The repertory includes works by Carolyn Adams, Ruth Andrien, Laura Bennett (Brown '92), Danny Buraczeski, Jack Cole, Colin Connor, Carolyn Dorfman, Danny Grossman, Donna Jewell, Lorry May, Carla Maxwell, Donald McKayle, Anne-Alex Packard, David Parsons, Pearl Primus, Lowell Smith, and Charles Weidman. The dancers in the company have the opportunity to work with some of the legends of American Dance and to share workshops, seminars, education projects, and performances with other dancers throughout the country. The company has three resident choreographers, Julie Strandberg, Annamaura Silverblatt and Laura Bennett.
The Extension performs several times a year on campus and on tour in diverse venues for diverse audiences. The company has performed at elementary and secondary schools, at other colleges, for Brown University Alumni Clubs in England, Illinois, California, New York State, and Washington D.C. and for general audiences in Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New York City, Boston, MA, and Saratoga Springs, NY. In 1994 the company was hired to perform works from the repertory for schools in New York State.
Through the research to performance methodology, NEW WORKS, WORLD TRADITIONS, directed by dance faculty member, Michelle Bach-Coulibaly, develops new dance theater pieces rooted in Mande dance, music, and culture. Members of the company work with Mande artisans and scholars from Mali, West Africa, and America. They learn dances, praise songs, children's stories, drumming, and mask work, and study films, interviews and oral histories of the Bamana, Mandinka, Minianka, Bobo, Khassonke, and Dogon people of Mali, Guinea, and Burkina Faso. The Company performs several times a year on campus and on tour, often in shared programs with dancers from the cultures they are studying.
BODY AND SOLE is a student producing board for the dance program which coordinates student dance activities and projects and produces the annual Fall Dance Concert. See the link on the right to Body and Sole.
In addition to these companies, there are numerous performance groups on campus based on specific styles, genres, and cultural traditions and students also come together to create new ensembles based on their own interests. Dancers also have performed with local choreographers and companies including, Babemba USA, The Festival Ballet, Fusionworks, and Groundwerx Dance Theatre and are welcomed as members of the exciting dance community of Rhode Island.
The Department also supports student run improvisation and performing groups, and sponsors master classes, lectures, performances, film series, field trips, and student tours to perform at sites outside of the University, such as high schools, other colleges, and alumni clubs.
We do not offer a concentration track in Dance, but we are developing a track in Performance Studies that may be of interest to dance students.