It’s rare for dance students to have created or choreographed a piece before getting to college. And for many, that won’t happen until later in their college career. But thanks to a first-year seminar at the University of Iowa, some students will have left their mark on a new work by the end of their first semester.
The UI Department of Dance three years ago developed a first-year seminar to give new students the opportunity to immediately participate in creative research and perform at the college level while building community and allowing them to work closely with a world-renowned faculty member.
For the second year, UI Professor and Director of Dance Production Armando Duarte is leading First-Year Student Dance.
“The main objective is to share an opportunity with first-year students to engage in the creative atmosphere of the Department of Dance,” Duarte says. “It is slightly different from the regular dance classes they are taking because they are required to participate closely in the creative process. It’s challenging, but exciting at the same time.”
“It’s cool to see a teacher involving his students in the choreography. Instead of saying, ‘I have this choreography, let me teach it to you,’ he always asks us, ‘How do you feel about this?’”
—Aaron Choi, first-year dance student from Des Moines
While Duarte develops the dance during the course of the semester, the students are full participants in its creation.
“This is not show-and-tell,” Duarte says. “I’m not just telling them to run, leap in the air, roll on the ground, and stand. They need to figure out how to do those movements. Ideas are generated in the studio for different ways of running, leaping, rolling, and standing.”
Aaron Choi is a first-year dance student from Des Moines enrolled in the course this fall.
“It’s cool to see a teacher involving his students in the choreography,” Choi says. “Instead of saying, ‘I have this choreography, let me teach it to you,’ he always asks us, ‘How do you feel about this?’”
Duarte says the students often are shy about the process at first, but he encourages them to trust the collaboration and have fun. Mary Grace Henderson, a second-year student from Des Moines studying dance and communications, says she felt apprehensive when she took the first-year seminar in fall 2017.
“You’re coming up with your own choreography, and you’re improvising. It definitely takes guts,” Henderson says. “It was hard at first, but as everyone got to know each other over the course of the semester, everyone came out of their shells and we had fun. Some of the best friends I’ve made since coming to Iowa are from that class. It’s something I’m really grateful for.”
Along with diving into creative research their first semester at the UI, the first-year seminar provides students a space in which they know they will perform as part of the Faculty/Graduate Concert early in the spring semester.
Henderson says getting the chance to perform before she otherwise might have helped her be more comfortable with later performances.
“Getting to see how the college preparation process goes so early on in college was definitely beneficial,” Henderson says.
Dance at Iowa
A degree in dance can pave the way to a variety of careers in the performing arts, including performing, choreography, education, private teaching, and in related areas such as arts management, technical theater, or dance and physical therapy.
Dance students at Iowa enjoy multiple performance opportunities. Earning the degree involves course work in choreography, dance technique, human anatomy, and history as well as the broad liberal arts education provided for all University of Iowa students.
Learn more at the Iowa Office of Admissions website.
Henderson says she was a little nervous about making friends her first year and hoped the seminar would be an opportunity to get to know other students in her major, as well as a faculty member on a first-name basis.
“I went home for Thanksgiving and my parents asked if any faculty knew my name, because they were worried would be in all these huge lecture halls,” Henderson says. “Armando made an effort to get to know everyone. He wants to know about you, where you’re from, what else you’re studying, and what you’re interested in doing. And whenever I see him, he knows my name and asks how things are going.”
Duarte says he sees students build confidence over the course of the semester.
“They start showing up with a different attitude,” Duarte says. “Having that environment, a faculty member who is giving attention to the creative process and having them participate in the process, it forces them, in a positive way, to take the leap.”
Choi says Duarte challenges each dancer to improve and expand their skills.
“Since my only experience is choreographing for myself, he’s pushing me by having me do a duet,” Choi says. “It’s prepping me for the future instead of letting me stay in my comfort zone.”
The students aren’t the only ones challenged by the first-year seminar. Duarte says the course also is an opportunity for him to exercise and expand his own creativity and research.
“At the beginning of the semester, there is something exciting and scary about it,” Duarte says. “You have these students whom you didn’t know and are very different from each other. What are you going to do with them? But you have this laboratory of creativity, and eventually what you create can maybe transform into something you end up seeing at Dance Gala six months later—maybe even with the same cast. Or perhaps you return to it years later. Or you can revisit a work you did years ago. It’s really a win-win situation.”