Anya Cloud (she/they) is an an experimental contemporary dance artist who is originally from Alaska. Anya is an experimental dance maker. Their research involves the intersections of Contact Improvisation, Improvisation, Contemporary Dance, Somatics, Dance Activism, Choreography, Collaboration, and Performance through queer, feminist, and anti-racist perspectives. Anya co-directs The Love Makers Dance Company with MakisigHer choreographic and performance work, both live and dance film, has been presented nationally and internationally through numerous venues, festivals, universities and in obscure spaces/places. Collaboration as a queer survival practice is central to all of her work. Anya orients her research, pedagogy, and practice through embodied questioning and sensitizing to cultivate radical aliveness. They believe in the transformative power of dancing with the bodies that we have as the people we are. Anya is committed to ongoing justice and decolonizing work, community facilitation and engagement, and supporting the viability and sustainability of experimental dance in relationship with the current world. She is currently working with the research question: what can we do together that we cannot do alone?
DNCE 1013 - Dance Improvisation
Primary Instructor
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Spring 2021 / Spring 2022 / Spring 2023 / Spring 2025
Tactics for dance improvisation as a survival practice toward collective thriving within a precarious and changing world. Through questions, games, scores, and technical skills we devise spontaneous and reliable access to making, imagination, activism, physical/aesthetic range, empathy, and collective world-building. We refuse to separate: 1) mind and body; 2) dance and other disciplines; 3) us from one another. May be repeated up to 12 total credit hours.
DNCE 2021 - Major Technique
Primary Instructor
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Fall 2020 / Fall 2021
Designed for Dance majors. Enrollment by audition only. May be repeated up to 16 total credit hours.
DNCE 3001 - Intermediate/Advanced Contemporary Dance Technique
Primary Instructor
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Spring 2026
Challenges experienced students to sweat while expanding capacity and artistry within contemporary dance. Insists on depth of embodied awareness, efficient athleticism, and experimentation. Dancing is a portal into sensing, feeling, expression, transformation, meaning-making, and community while drawing on diverse lineages. Material is offered through an anti-oppressive approach. We refuse to separate: 1) mind and body; 2) dance and other disciplines; 3) us from one another. May be repeated up to 6 total credit hours. Recommended prerequisite: DNCE 1000 or DNCE 1020 or previous Contemporary dance experience.
DNCE 3033 - Choreographic Resources
Primary Instructor
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Spring 2023
Explores movement invention and strategies of choreographic manipulation of body, space and time. Students add to their toolbox of compositional resources through solo and duet studies. Class interrogates and supports the students' developing language for addressing, critiquing and comprehending compositional choices and structures through verbal and written feedback practice. Can be taken out of sequence with DNCE 3043. Formerly DNCE 2033.
DNCE 3041 - Dance and Dancing: More Dancing
Primary Instructor
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Fall 2022 / Fall 2023 / Fall 2024 / Fall 2025
We will dance and dance some more. We will sweat, feel, connect, and think. In-depth, rigorous, current, and justice-oriented dance training occurs within a specific form. Technical skills are supported by context, histories, and potential futures of the form. We refuse to separate: 1) mind and body; 2) dance and other disciplines; 3) us from one another. May be repeated up to 15 credit hours. Same as DNCE 2021 and DNCE 4061 and DNCE 5001.
DNCE 3043 - Dance & Choreography
Primary Instructor
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Spring 2026
Builds foundational skills in making and unmaking experimental dances to become an artist. Research, showings, revising, feedback, context, and engaging in the unknown are central. We refuse to separate: 1) mind and body; 2) dance and other disciplines; 3) us from one another. May be repeated up to 12 total credit hours. Recommended prerequisite: DNCE 1013 or DNCE 1908.
DNCE 3901 - Technique Practicum
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Spring 2021 / Spring 2022
Topical course (intermediate level) in dance technique. See subtopic for specific form. May be repeated up to 6 total credit hours. May require an audition.
DNCE 4038 - Dance & Performance
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Spring 2024 / Fall 2024 / Spring 2025 / Fall 2025 / Spring 2026
An opportunity to research the relationship between dance, performance, making, feedback, magic, professionalism and the unknown through making a dance or participating in a dance-making process for a dance program production. Requires a high-level of investment and motivation, alongside participation in all rehearsals, showings, technical rehearsals, performances, and strike. We refuse to separate: 1) mind and body; 2) dance and other disciplines; 3) us from one another. May be repeated up to 9 total credit hours. Same as DNCE 5038.
DNCE 4053 - Dance & Making Dances
Primary Instructor
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Fall 2020 / Fall 2021
Explores dance as a medium of art making. Challenging assumptions about what choreography is and does, we unpack and burn that which limits our imaginations and keeps us regurgitating other people�s ideas and moves. Then, we attempt to make dances that interest us, that solve/make problems, that tell a truth, or start a revolution. We refuse to separate: 1) mind and body; 2) dance and other disciplines; 3) us from one another. May be repeated up to 12 total credit hours. Recommended prerequisites: DNCE 3043 or DNCE 1013. Same as DNCE 5053.
DNCE 4909 - Dance and Special Topics
Primary Instructor
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Fall 2022 / Fall 2023 / Fall 2024 / Fall 2025
Explores topics and research in and through dance such as technology, environment, performance, politics, martial arts, somatics, social and racial justice, criticism, and more that the normal sequence of course offerings may not allow. We refuse to separate: 1) mind and body; 2) dance and other disciplines; 3) us from one another. May be repeated up to 12 total credit hours. Same as DNCE 2909 and DNCE 3909 and DNCE 5909.
DNCE 4939 - Dance & Community Practice
Primary Instructor
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Spring 2022 / Spring 2023 / Spring 2026
Offers an opportunity to go do something real in the community with dance. This student driven internship is supported by faculty mentorship in collaboration with an established arts or teaching organization. We refuse to separate: 1) mind and body; 2) dance and other disciplines; 3) us from one another. May be repeated up to 6 total credit hours.
DNCE 5001 - Dance & Dancing: More Dancing
Primary Instructor
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Fall 2020 / Fall 2021 / Fall 2022 / Fall 2023 / Fall 2024 / Fall 2025
We will dance and dance some more. We will sweat, feel, connect, and think. In-depth, rigorous, current, and justice-oriented dance training occurs within a specific form. Technical skills are supported by context, histories, and potential futures of the form. We refuse to separate: 1) mind and body; 2) dance and other disciplines; 3) us from one another. May be repeated up to 15 total credit hours. Same as DNCE 2021 and DNCE 3041 and DNCE 4061.
DNCE 5038 - Dance & Performance
Primary Instructor
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Spring 2025
An opportunity to research the relationship between dance, performance, making, feedback, magic, professionalism and the unknown through making a dance or participating in a dance-making process for a dance program production. Requires a high-level of investment and motivation, alongside participation in all rehearsals, showings, technical rehearsals, performances, and strike. We refuse to separate: 1) mind and body; 2) dance and other disciplines; 3) us from one another. May be repeated up to 9 total credit hours. Same as DNCE 4038.
DNCE 5053 - Dance & Making Dances
Primary Instructor
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Fall 2020 / Fall 2021
Explores dance as a medium of art making. Challenging assumptions about what choreography is and does, we unpack and burn that which limits our imaginations and keeps us regurgitating other people�s ideas and moves. Then, we attempt to make dances that interest us, that solve/make problems, that tell a truth, or start a revolution. We refuse to separate: 1) mind and body; 2) dance and other disciplines; 3) us from one another. May be repeated up to 12 total credit hours. Same as DNCE 4053.
DNCE 5909 - Dance and Special Topics
Primary Instructor
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Fall 2022 / Fall 2023 / Fall 2024 / Fall 2025
Explores topics and research in and through dance such as technology, environment, performance, politics, martial arts, somatics, social and racial justice, criticism, and more that the normal sequence of course offerings may not allow. We refuse to separate: 1) mind and body; 2) dance and other disciplines; 3) us from one another. May be repeated up to 12 total credit hours. Same as DNCE 2909 and and DNCE 3909 and DNCE 4909.
DNCE 6073 - Choreography
Primary Instructor
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Spring 2025
Covers in-depth practical and theoretical approaches to dance composition for graduate students; solo and group forms; and analysis of historical and contemporary dance works. May be repeated up to 6 total credit hours with different instructors.
DNCE 6969 - The Graduate Project
Primary Instructor
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Fall 2021 / Spring 2022 / Fall 2022 / Spring 2023 / Fall 2025 / Spring 2026
Provides the opportunity for synthesizing the graduate experience through the execution of a project related to the student's major area of interest. Project must be approved by the graduate faculty advisor.
