Academics
Departments & Courses

Dance

Dance is an integral part of the Cambridge School of Weston. All students have the opportunity to experience dance beyond the technical training level. Other dance-related courses include Motion Art, Cultural Studies in Dance, Dance History, yoga, and dance improvisation to name a few. The CSW dance curriculum offers all students a chance to express themselves through this art form. 

Coursework in the Dance Department falls into four categories:


Theory

Theory courses combine movement studies and performance with research, writing, and in-class discussions. 

Experimental

Experimental classes explore improvisation, technology, and experimental methods as tools for creation and performance, and as a means to develop students’ creative problem-solving skills. 

Technique

Technique classes develop essential skills and grow more rigorous as students become more proficient. Along the way, students develop and improve movement patterns, rhythm awareness, strength, agility, alignment, balance, flow, and important dance vocabulary related to a variety of genres and disciplines. 

Performance

Performance opportunities throughout the year are another opportunity to engage in our program, in addition to the coursework listed above.

  • Advanced Dance Technique

    Dance Technique focuses on modern and contemporary vocabularies that enhance the artistic and physical prowess of the dancer. Students are placed in appropriate levels of beginning, intermediate, or advanced depending on their level of training. All three levels explore the same content of technique training but at different accelerated paces. Classes are designed to introduce the technical study of dance movement to students of levels beginning through advanced. The style and technique explored is determined by the individual instructor and the dance chair. Students new to CSW who desire to be placed in the intermediate or advanced level must receive the permission of the Dance Department chair.

  • All That Jazz

    This course is a jazz dance class taught to live music provided by CSW’s jazz ensemble. Students will expand their knowledge of jazz, America’s first art form, through the integrated study of movement and music composition. Dancers will focus on the rhythmic patterns that are created through the influence of such jazz genres as swing, blues, bebop, and jazz-fusion, among others. Such terms as syncopated rhythms, body isolations, improvisation, high level of energy, and low center of gravity will be practiced as movement qualities that are direct derivatives of jazz music. Jazz ensemble will learn to perform jazz standards in a group setting. Emphasis will be on establishing a repertoire, building skills in improvisation, and performance.

    * This course awards credit towards the Social Justice graduation requirement

  • Applied Anatomy in Motion (Dance)

    (9-12) This course combines the structural dynamics of physiology and dance as a means to investigate how the two disciplines interact. By approaching movement from the perspectives of both science and dance, the student will examine how anatomy informs dance and how dance is an expression of human structures and systems.

    This course awards 1 Science or 1 Dance credit, selected by the student.

  • Beginning/Intermediate Dance Technique

    Dance Technique focuses on modern and contemporary vocabularies that enhance the artistic and physical prowess of the dancer.  Students who are novice and new to our community will start at the Beginning/Intermediate level. All levels explore the same content of technique training but at different accelerated paces.  Overall the style and technique explored is determined by the individual instructor and the dance chair. Students new to CSW, who desire to be placed in the advanced level must receive the permission of the dance department. 

  • Caribbean Dance Movement

    This course is an introduction to the popular dances performed throughout the Caribbean. The focus of the class is to understand the indigenous people who dance the rhythms of the New World islands, including Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Trinidad, and Puerto Rico. We begin with an anthropological approach to the dances using the research footage conducted by the late dance anthropologist Katherine Dunham. Students will learn both traditional/ceremonial and social dances of the countries mentioned above. Students will dance the Yanvalou from Haiti, and the Bomba of Puerto Rico, and the most popular movements such as the Rumba, Salsa, and the Bachata that come from the clave rhythm.

    *This course awards credit toward the social justice graduation requirement. 

  • Choreography Seminar

    Student Choreographers work with groups of dancers to craft their own pieces for the annual dance concert. Students will be expected to attend Choreography Workshops in addition to scheduling time to work with their dance group(s). Students who sign up for Choreography Seminar must also sign up for Dance Concert and will earn 3 dance arts credits and 3 D-Block credits for completion of this experience.

  • Contemporary Ballet

    This course is designed for students who have had at least 1 year of ballet class experience. While the level of the students enrolled in the class do vary, the class is designed to first review the rudiments of the codified classical dance form and then learn to perform more  complicated phrasing of the barre and center exercises that lend themselves to a more contemporary use of ballet. The students will study and work on modern ballet movement studies that explore the endless use of this dance form. Students will work on the positioning of the arms(port de bras) proper alignment , transferring of weight and the  fluidity and graceful movement through space. 

  • Cultural Studies in Dance

    In this class we will explore the relationship of “culture” and “dance” and the ways the study of one informs our understanding of the other. We will take a non-comprehensive survey of dance in varied geographic and cultural contexts ranging from East Asia through the Americas. Our readings, viewings, and discussions will examine culture and history have shaped movement qualities  all over the world. As a complement to these larger scale considerations we will use movement explorations to reflect on our individual relationships to place, history and community.

    *This course awards credit toward the social justice graduation requirement. 

  • Dance Concert Performance

    The Dance Concert Performance course is designed for all dancers who are potential performers for the annual Dance Concert. The dancer may be working in a group piece with another choreographer or creating a solo. All participants in this course are required to make all of the rehearsals called by their choreographer and to learn the movement on their own. It is up to the entire group with the choreographer to determine the actual times of the rehearsals and the weekly schedule. Each dancer is also required to be a part of the Selection Day process at which that specific dance may be considered for the concert. Once Selection Day is passed, the dancer is required to be part of the show’s overall stage production in some capacity (lighting, dressing room duty, theatre custodial cleanup, makeup and costume shop, etc.).

  • Dance Conditioning

    This class is for anyone who seeks to develop the flexibility and strength for which dancers are known. The course will incorporate some Pilates, yoga, and traditional dance exercises. Those who don’t study dance, but who want to get into shape, will be able to work in a very relaxed and non-competitive atmosphere.

  • Dance Repertory Project (M,W)

    This course is open to the serious, conscientious student who aspires to make dance a career. Students who participate must make a commitment to the rigorous structure of this class. Dance students will participate in the creation of a new dance work by choreographer and Department Chair Nailah Randall-Bellinger and/or a guest artist. Rehearsals for this piece will be scheduled after D Blocks and on weekends, with the goal of performing the work at the annual Student Dance Concert.

  • Dance Repertory Project (T,F)

    This course is open to the serious, conscientious student who aspires to make dance a career. Students who participate must make a commitment to the rigorous structure of this class. Dance students will participate in the creation of a new dance work by choreographer and Department Chair Nailah Randall-Bellinger and/or a guest artist. Rehearsals for this piece will be scheduled after D Blocks and on weekends, with the goal of performing the work at the annual Student Dance Concert.

  • Dance, Media, and Technology

    The integration of dance, media, and technology extends the language of choreography and performance, enabling artists to express themselves in new contexts. Through both theory and practice, this class introduces the emergence of new trends in the world of dance having to do with new technologies. We focus on “screen dance,” an experimental art genre started in the 1950s, which is burgeoning today with the proliferation of digital technology (low-cost cameras, editing software) and populist broadcast/distribution vehicles (YouTube). A “screen dance” is a dance that exists on the screen alone, and nowhere else. We also explore the integration of media with live dance performance using new technologies (video manipulation programs, 3D motion tracking/capture programs, the internet, and communication devices). Class time is split between the computer lab and the dance studio.

  • Experiments in Movement

    Just as the title suggests our approach to creating the dance will be through the lens of experimentation. This course is a deeper exploration of the dancing body as it plays with the essence of movement, especially through technical manipulation. 

    Course objectives: 
    ● To use a filmed phrase to create multiple presentations of movement through the use of various time, space and energy arrangements 
    ● To analyse, reconstruct and deconstruct traditional and structured movement vocabulary we will create new possibilities of movement. Through the replacement of the proscenium stage setting with site specific spaces we will create installation pieces that allow the evolution of dance moving through space.study 
    ● To use editing techniquest to create film dance/ camara dance to explore the illusioary nature of dance through the use of the camera and computer editing techniques. The physical dance will be altered into a state of camera dance 
     

  • Hip Hop Dance

    Explore the history, evolution, and physicality of hip hop dance styles. This course will raise awareness of the roots of hip hop dance and its transformation over the years through high energy, expressive movement, and the cultural impact it has had on the 20th and 21st centuries.

  • Motion Art

    This course is a creative movement class designed to introduce the novice dancer to dance in a comfortable learning environment while allowing the experienced dancer to further develop their choreographic tool box. Both novice and experienced dancers will explore and develop creative thinking skills, useful to the learning process. We will look at the different impetus of motion that can be initiated by the stimulus of sound and imagery, as well as external energy forces outside of the kinesthetic realm of the body. The course relies heavily on improvisation as a primary tool for finding one’s own authentic movement quality and is structured to liberate the way we move through space and communicate with each other by freeing up habitual patterns that may be restricting our unconscious and kinesthetic flow of energy. Throughout the mod there will be visiting guest artists who will guide us through their artistic lens to help us explore the dynamics of motion on varying levels.

    * This course awards credit towards the Social Justice graduation requirement

  • Movement Improvisation

    Movement Improvisation is a module designed to develop dance improvisation skills from a variety of influences. Improvisation  examines the relationships between dancers on stage and the movement dynamics that can be developed from collaboration. Dancers will learn the various partnering pivot points of modern dance and contemporary partnering.  Students will also focus on improvisation scores and the foundation building blocks of choreography.

  • Moving Yoga Dance

    This course compares the elements of dance movement to the practice of the yoga asanas. It is designed to introduce the student to the Vinyasa flow of yoga. The sun salutations A and B sequencing (asanas-positions) will be taught as a means to encourage students to open up, lengthen, and relax their physical body and mental state of being. The final project of the class will be a choreographed dance that incorporates the Vinyasa flow.

  • Moving Your Way

    This course introduces students to the fundamental elements of improvisation as a tool to exploring authentic movement and spoken word as a means to self expression. The course is structured to liberate the way we move through space, and increase our bodies' range of motion by allowing spontaneous movement choices to create the composition of the dance. We will explore various body alignment exercises through improvisation.

  • Open Ballet

    An open ballet E block class.

  • Performance Studies (Dance)

    Performance studies is an interdisciplinary field of research that draws from the social sciences, the humanities, and the arts. It focuses on the pervasiveness of performance as a central element of social and cultural life, including not only theater and dance but also such forms as sacred rituals and practices of everyday life, storytelling and public speaking, avant-garde performance art, popular entertainments, microconstructions of ethnicity, race, class, sex, and gender, potentially any instance of expressive behavior or cultural enactment. Within this field, performance entails the presentation or "reactualization" of symbolic systems through both living and mediated bodies.

    This course may award 1 theatre or 1 dance credit

  • West African Dance

    The content of this course gives an introduction to basic West African movement, rhythms, and songs. Each class begins with a warm-up to prepare the body for this particular style of movement, followed by movements across the floor, and finally work on specific dances. Students will learn several dances from West Africa, primarily from Nigeria, Mali, Guinea, and the Senegambia regions. Classes are accompanied by live drumming, giving the students the opportunity to understand the unique connection between polyrhythmic timing and the body in motion. While the class focuses on the dances of West Africa it is also a means for understanding the culture of the people.

    This course awards credit toward the social justice graduation credit.

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Department Faculty

  • Photo of Nailah Randall-Bellinger
    Nailah Randall-Bellinger
    Dance Department Chair
    781-642-8657
    Bio
  • Photo of Matthew Hooper
    Matthew Hooper
    Dance Faculty
    781-642-8620
    Bio
  • Photo of Ella Wechsler-Matthaei
    Ella Wechsler-Matthaei
    Dance Faculty
45 Georgian Road, Weston, MA 02493
Phone: (781) 642-8600
CSW—a gender-inclusive day and boarding school for grades 9-12—is a national leader in progressive education. We live out our values of inquiry-based learning, student agency, and embracing diverse perspectives in every aspect of our student experience. Young people come to CSW to learn how to learn and then put what they learn into action—essential skills they carry into their futures as doers, makers, innovators, leaders, and exceptional humans who do meaningful work in the world.