The legendary house of ninja

Overall Prince Dante Lauren, Winter 2019 Syllabus Dance 005, Section 007 & 010: Vogue 1

DANCE 005: INTRODUCTION TO DANCE SECTION 007: MW 8:10AM-9:30AM (ARTS 102) SECTION 010: TR 8:10AM-9:30AM (ARTS 100) Winter 2019, UC Riverside Department of Dance Professor Kellie King is Professor-in-Charge of this course. TA Instructor: Cuauhtémoc Peranda, M.F.A., Overall Prince Dante Lauren TA Instructor email: cpera001@ucr.edu TA Instructor Office & Mailbox: Arts 106.

Office hours: Thursdays 10-12pm, INTN 4016/4018, or by appointment. No Voicemail in the TA Instructor Office.

General Syllabus

Dance 5: Introduction to Dance Course Description: This course provides an introduction to the art of dance through the experience of dancing. Movement is the primary work of this course. No prior experience or training is required. Grading will not be based on technical skill levels, but on mindful, full-bodied participation that demonstrates comprehension and articulation of course materials. TA Instructors will utilize studio practices from their dance experience and expertise to introduce students to important concepts and aspects of dance. The course is modeled on emergent artistic process. Coursework will be developed over the ten weeks of the quarter, drawing from the following areas: 1. Cultivating perceptions of self and body 2. Learning, remembering, and performing movement patterns 3. Moving with awareness of space, rhythm, and other elemental aspects of dancing 4. Generating and arranging movement through composition and improvisation 5. Understanding movement in its social and cultural context 6. Viewing dance and appreciating the role of audience 7. Recognizing aesthetic choices – qualitative decisions made by choreographers and performers 8. Gaining appreciation for the distinctive rigors and discipline required by embodied art Course Requirements: 1. Students are required to attend every class for credit. Students are allowed to miss a total of 2 classes without their grades being affected. 2. Students will be required to view one outside public performance, Ball, or take a vogue class, and write a 2-page response. Students must also view all of Paris is Burning by Jenny Livingston (film will be shown in class, but students must watch it in its entirety). 3. Students are required to take an in-class midterm, the 2nd day of class of week 5. 4. Students are required to form an “Experimental Kiki House”, and complete their final performance project “As-A-House.” 5. Students are required to research and compose a 5-10 page paper on a Legendary Ballscene House, a Legendary Voguer, or important figure in House Ballroom Scene history. Final Draft is due on Safe Assign at 11 pm on the Friday of week 8; the Physical paper is to be submitted in class time, Box, or in Office Hours by Friday at 5pm Week 8.

Overall Prince Dante Lauren, Winter 2019 Syllabus Dance 005, Section 007 & 010: Vogue 2

6. The course will culminate in a showing during the last week of classes. Participation, including inviting an audience member, is a requirement of the course. Absences during the last several classes leading into the showing will negatively affect your participation and therefore your grade by 2 letter grades. There is no make-up final performance. Students participating in athletic tournaments or other end-of-quarter obligations: please be advised! There will be no final during finals week. Assignments: Each TA Instructor designs the specific content of the course. Assignments will frequently be made during class. In addition to movement studies, course work may be augmented by assignments such as short written papers, viewing of videotapes, readings, attendance at UCR campus events, observations, group projects, journals, blackboard, etc. Students are responsible for keeping track of scheduling and assignments. Come to class prepared to write as well as to move, every day. Please note: students are expected to be familiar with UCR’s policy on plagiarism and Academic Integrity. See: http://library.ucr.edu/?view=help/plagiarism.html. Attendance: The art form of dance and its methods call on the whole person. This is a studio course: students are required to attend every class alert and ready to dance. Students at risk for health issues or other potential obstacles to attendance and full-bodied participation are encouraged to consider a lecture course instead. All absences affect participation. Each absence will automatically lower the final grade by 5%. Repeated tardiness and/or leaving early will similarly affect participation and grading, specifically three times will equal an absence and a 5% reduction of the final grade. Students arriving after roll is taken are responsible for signing in with the TA Instructor after class or they will be counted absent. At the TA Instructor’s discretion: if you are well enough to observe actively, and are not contagious, a substitute form of participation might be arranged for you to be counted present. TA Instructors will provide a course-specific assignment option before the end of the quarter, so that all students will have the opportunity to make-up a single absence. Students whose emergencies result in excessive absences and who therefore require a late withdrawal must see their academic major advisor to pursue a petition. Students expecting to graduate in March 2019 are advised that excessive absences will likely make it impossible to complete the course during Spring 2019 and thereby may prevent March graduation—plan carefully.

NOTE: Students enrolled in the course who miss either of the first two class meetings may, at the instructor’s discretion, lose

their place in the class. However, it is the student’s responsibility to officially drop the course; otherwise, he/she/they will receive an "F."

Grading:

• In-Class Work: 40%

• Midterm Exam: 10%

• End of Quarter Showing: 20%

• Term Paper: 10%

• Weekly Question Reflections: 10%

• Attendance of Live Performance and Review: 10%

http://library.ucr.edu/?view=help/plagiarism.html
Overall Prince Dante Lauren, Winter 2019 Syllabus Dance 005, Section 007 & 010: Vogue 3

94-100 A 89-93 A- 86-88 B+ 82-85 B 79-81 B- 76-78 C+ 72-75 C 69-71 C- 66-68 D+ 62-65 D 60-61 D- Below 60 F

Criteria: Evaluation is based on: 1. Fullness of participation 2. Quality of and progress in course work 3. Comprehension and articulation of concepts in movement, discussion and writing 4. Capacity to work independently and with others 5. Timely completion of course work Dress/decorum: You will be dancing barefoot unless instructed otherwise by the TA Instructor. DO NOT WALK IN THE STUDIO WEARING STREET SHOES! NO FOOD OR DRINKS OTHER THAN WATER. The unfinished dance floor must be kept as clean as possible. Wear comfortable dance or exercise attire, sweats or other appropriate clothing that permits freedom of movement. AVOID overly baggy clothes, jeans, hats, hazardous jewelry or belts, and tie long hair back. Students needing to change clothes may do so before class begins in Arts 203/204, the dressing rooms on the 2nd floor.

Cell phones are not allowed in class whatsoever--unless, approved by instructor at the beginning

of class due to emergency or risk, such as a pregnancy, natural disaster, etc. NOTE: Some portions of the class may be videotaped as a reference and as part of the dance-making process. Cuauhtémoc Peranda, A.K.A. Overall Prince Dante Lauren, M.F.A., (Mescalero-Apache & Mexica- Chichimeca/Cano) is a two-spirit butch queen voguer from The Legendary House of Lauren, International. He has been voguing since 2008, and has choreographed vogue for his own projects and for professional dance companies in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has had the pleasure to learn voguing from the House of Avant-Garde's School of Opulence in Chicago, and now continues his vogue research and teaching at at the University of California at Riverside's Ph.D. program in Critical Dance Studies. He has performed throughout California, and has presented dance work in New York, Seattle, London, Honolulu, Berlin, Cambridge, and Tijuana. He is graduate of the dance program at Stanford University, and has received his MFA in choreography and performance from Mills College. Please feel free to contact the course Professor if you have any questions, concerns or admirations: Kelli King, e-mail: kelli.king@ucr.edu

***For e-mails, please include your full name, TA Instructor’s name, and section number in all communications!

Overall Prince Dante Lauren, Winter 2019 Syllabus Dance 005, Section 007 & 010: Vogue 4

Dance 005: PERFORMANCE/VOGUE STYLES & HISTORIES

Sections:

 SECTION 007: MW 08:10AM-9:30AM (ARTS 102)

 SECTION 010: TR 08:10AM-9:30AM (ARTS 100) Course Professor: Kelli King, M.F.A., Kellik@ucr.edu Teaching Assistant: Overall Prince Dante Lauren, Cuauhtemoc Peranda, cpera001@ucr.edu Office Hours: Thursdays 10-12pm, INTN 4016/4018, or by appointment.

COURSE DESCRIPTION: Vogue, Voguing, Performance, or Presentation, is a dance form that comes out of the New York City underground Black, Latinx, & Indigenous House Ballroom Scene culture of drag, runway walking, fashion, physique, and realness. Since the mid-1980’s, vogue has spread throughout the United States, and internationally to Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Italy, Canada, Japan, France, Jamaica, Spain and Russia. Though its popularity and notoriety in popular culture ebbs and flows, it remains a treasured means of communication, empowerment, expression and unity for Queer and Transgender People of Color who steward the House Ballroom Scene’s ‘balls’ (pageantry competitions). This quarter, the course will focus on the techniques and creative arts of the Old Way Vogue, Vogue Femme & Luscious Vogue. Vogue Femme being the most popular form of vogue, born in the 1990’s out of the Transgender Latinx Ballroom Scene children, who needed a dance style that was more feminine, and less masculine, than the earlier techniques of Vogue Old Way, or New Way Vogue. With Vogue Femme, we will explore the embodied knowledge kept in the techniques of vogue, to get a taste for the Trans*Latinidad deep in the kinesthesia and rhythms of the dance. With Luscious Vogue we expand the techniques from the runway and explore the range of movements from tight poses to expansive and experimental stage dance. By the review and werk of the FIVE ELEMENTS OF VOGUE, we will build our confidence and body strength, break a sweat, learn fabulous choreography, and create our own personal-expressive dance phrases to whip out whenever we feel a beat! We will have fun! We will get strong! And, we will be Fierce! “THE TEA WILL BE SERVED HOT AND SWEET!” SPECIFIC COURSE GOALS: 1. To learn the Voguing/Performance vocabulary and the fundamentals styles of the dance form. 2. To gain more understanding about the relationship between dance and culture: Queer and Gay cultural history, Hip Hop, House Ballroom Scene, Drag Imperial Court System, Subcultural Life. 3. To understand and analyze more deeply the technique and symbolism involved behind each step and vernacular phrases to gain an awareness of Ballroom protocol in both the composition and performance of dance. 4. To improve coordination, rhythmic skills, precision in movement execution and performance quality, and gain enough confident awareness in order to correct one’s technique as a mover. 5. To increase one’s personal artistic growth while encompassing the importance of the techniques of voguing. COURSE COMPETENCIES: Competencies will be evaluated according to an individual’s progress, effort, attitude, openness and attendance. Students may vary in their competency levels on the abilities described above. You can acquire new skills only if you honor all course policies, attend classes regularly, complete all assigned work in good faith and on time, and meet all other course expectations of you as a student.

mailto:Kellik@ucr.edu
mailto:cpera001@ucr.edu
Overall Prince Dante Lauren, Winter 2019 Syllabus Dance 005, Section 007 & 010: Vogue 5

TOPIC & COURSE OUTLINE: 1. Each class will contain the following:

a. Warm-up: Circle stretch & Welcome Discussions, Reading Discussions. b. Opening the circle for dance, warm up phrase/conditioning on floor. c. Luscious Body Techniques in Mirror or Runway/SoulTrain. d. Mirror, Center & Barre work: 5 Elements of Voguing. e. Locomotor: Across the floor rhythms and voguing practice. f. Learning and Performing Contemporary Voguing Phrases. g. Improvisation Exercises, Ciphering, Battles, and Commentating. h. Composition work and Class Projects. I. Cool down in the space to circle. J. Last discussion and updates.

2. Classes will have a sequential progression, continually deepening our learning and appreciation of the steps, dances, culture(s), genders, and spatial awareness. 3. There will be Weekly Reading Assignments given out as homework for discussion to broaden our understanding of the context by which we dance. There will also be video viewings. A weekly Response is due in iLEARN, on Friday, in MLA Format, 1-page to 2-page response (MAXIMUM) addressing a question that is posed at the beginning of the week, in-class/online. Due Fridays @ 6pm. 4. You must attend one dance performance. A one 2-page reflection is due ASAP on iLEARN, before the Friday of week 9 @ 6pm [Hard Deadline, GET IT DONE EARLY!]. Your paper should address all of the following: How do the bodies on stage dance? How do you describe the choreography? What is the décor? How does it, or does not, speak to your own experiences? 5. Midterm quarter evaluations:

a) The student self-evaluation: student will evaluate their own progress of acquisition of the dance material and its relationship to the Ballroom culture. Rubric will be provided. b) The instructor evaluation: this evaluation will look at specific performance improvement of certain dances, improvisations, and combinations to evaluate your technical and artistic growth. Rubric will be provided beforehand. c) Evaluation MID-TERM: Performance of vogue phrases, composition, battle, cipher, or commentations that we have worked on through the quarter.

6. Students are required to form an “Experimental Kiki House” (EKH). This EKH will be your Final Class Showing House, as you will create a final vogue performance together.

a. It is suggested to have this EKH be between 3 to 7 voguers. b. Your final performance time requirement is dependent on your House Size (1.5 minutes + 1

minute for everyone in the house). That means a 3 member House must show a 3.5 minute final dance, minimum.

c. Father & Mother titles are required as points of contact with TA. Prince, Princess, Overseer, Underseer, Godmother, and Godfather titles may be given if needed…

7. Students are required to research and compose a 5-10 page paper on a Legendary House, a Legendary Voguer, or important figure in House Ballroom Scene history. Final Draft is due on Safe Assign at 11pm on the Friday of week 8. The Physical paper is to be submitted in class time, Box, or in Office Hours that same week, or by Friday at 5pm (when I leave campus). 8. Showing: Dance 5 Performance of group Vogue Demonstration. You must bring one person to see the performance, as per Dance Department Policy. They must sign in under your name.

Overall Prince Dante Lauren, Winter 2019 Syllabus Dance 005, Section 007 & 010: Vogue 6

Dance 005: Performance/Vogue Styles & Histories Course Bibliography Buckland, Fiona. Impossible Dance: Club Culture and Queer World-making. Middletown, Conn.:

Wesleyan, UP, 2001. Print.

Bailey, Marlon M. The Labor of Diaspora: Ballroom Culture and the Making of a Black Queer

Community. Diss. University of California, Berkeley, 2005. ProQuest.

Becquer, Marcus. "Elements of Vogue." Third Text 5 (1991): 65-81.

How Do I Look. Dir. Wolfgang Busch. Perf. Kevin Aviance, Pepper LaBeija, Willi Ninja, Octavia St.

Laurent, Emanuel Xavier. Art From the Heart Films, 2006. DVD.

Jackson, Jonathan David. "Improvisation in African-American Vernacular Dancing." Dance Research

Journal 33 (2001): 40-53.

Jackson, Jonathan David. "The Social World of Voguing." Journal for the Anthropological Study of

Human Movement 12, no. 2 (2002): 26-42.

Muñoz, Jose Esteban. Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics (Cultural

Studies of the Americas, V. 2). New York: University of Minnesota P, 1999. Print.

Muñoz, Jose Esteban. "Gesture, Ephemera, and Queer Feeling: Approaching Kevin Aviance." Dancing

Desires: Choreographing Sexualities on and off the Stage. Ed. Jane C. Desmond. Madison,

Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin, 2001. 423-45. Print.

Newton, Esther. Mother Camp: Female Impersonators in America. Chicago: University of Chicago,

1979. Print.

Paris Is Burning. Dir. Jennie Livingston. DVD. Miramax, 1990.

Peranda, Cuauhtémoc. "The Doing of Vogue: LGBT Black & Latino Ballroom Subculture, Voguing’s

Embodied Fierceness, and the Making of a Quare World on Stage." Thesis. Stanford University,

2010. The Doing of Vogue. Stanford Center for Comparative Studies in Race & Ethnicity, 5

June 2010. Web. .

Sontag, Susan. "Notes on 'CAMP'" Partisan Review 31 (1964): 54-65.

Overall Prince Dante Lauren, Winter 2019 Syllabus Dance 005, Section 007 & 010: Vogue 7

COURSE REQUIREMENTS BREAKDOWN:

1. Work Ethic, Class Work, and Attendance (40% of grade)

a. Work Ethic during class involves maintaining respect for your instructor and your peers, and

having an open mind towards the material presented in class. It requires a constant effort to

produce results and apply corrections. This attitude can be adopted at all levels of dance

training, with or without prior dance experience: 20%

b. Class Work refers to one’s commitment in class (daily practice). It requires maintaining a

concentration where one is constantly moving closer to refinement, understanding and

performance of all movements. You are expected to listen carefully, and apply corrections given

in class; learn the movement and cultural material with concentration and care. Complete the

assigned readings, and prepare for discussion. Improvement is expected in the areas of strength,

flexibility, historical context, coordination, rhythm, basic body awareness, and performance

quality: 20%