Study Abroad Summer I 2019 MUHL4300/5320 “Vernacular Dance Practices”
STUDY ABROAD with The Bassanda Project at the University of Bedfordshire!
[photo courtesy www.tifholmes.com]
Led by faculty members Nicole Wesley (Texas State University, Dance) and Christopher Smith (Texas Tech University, Music), these concurrent Texas Tech/Texas State courses combine as a workshop in arts practice—making, teaching, and sharing music and dance.: Participants will engage in interdisciplinary and collaborative art-making experiences, integrating music, the visual arts, theatre, and dance, and investigating the philosophical and practical implications of such making to the health and survival of transnational global societies. The intensive workshop will culminate with a collaborative performance of music and dance students as part of a gala concert celebrating the partnership; this piece will be offered a repeat performance at the 2019 Arts Practice Research Conference at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas.
COURSE OFFERED - TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY: • MUHL4300/5320 “Vernacular Dance Practices. (Texas Tech University) COURSE OFFERED - TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY: • DAN 2368 World Dance and Culture • DAN 2367 Dance Performance Workshop
An additional component of the course will be a capstone visit/workshop weekend to the University of Limerick (Ireland), for a selection of classes, presentations, and an informal showing of the completed work. UL Arts Practice students (music, dance, theater) will be invited to participate in these offerings at no cost.
Open to enrollment by undergraduates from across the TTU campus: music, dance, design, electronic media concentrations especially welcomed. This course satisfies TTU School of Music music history requirements.
COURSE OFFERED: • MUHL4300/5320 “Vernacular Dance Practices” • Host institutions may also plan to offer special intensive arts & culture course(s) which may be applied (via transfer credit) toward TTU language. • In addition, TTU students enrolling for a minimum of 6 hours in Summer I-II are also permitted to employ all available TTU Financial Aid (loans and other scholarships). Students wishing to follow this path are encouraged to consider Dr Smith’s Summer I distance course “Introduction to Community Arts Entrepreneurship” (3.3; MUSI4000) as a compatible way to generate the requisite 6 hours.
ESTIMATED PROGRAM FEE: • ~$2600.00 US PROGRAM FEE (not including tuition) INCLUDES: • Lodging: $400.00 • Local transportation: $50.00 • 2meals per day: $400.00 • Air travel (RT LBB-London/Heathrow): $1750.00
PROGRAM FEE DOES NOT INCLUDE: • TTU tuition and fees • Insurance ($1.50/day) • Education Abroad Fee ($200)
PROGRAM OPEN TO: • All TTU students
TENTATIVE DATES: • June 9-19 2019 (Bedford) • June 20-23 2019 (Limerick)
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
• Website: http://www.rootsmusicinstitute.com/bedfordshire.html • Course Facebook Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/178779442525927/ • See also https://www.facebook.com/groups/bedfordshirefolk/ • http://www.beds.ac.uk/ • Dr. Chris Smith (Texas Tech): http://www.depts.ttu.edu/music/aboutus/faculty/chris-j-smith.php [email protected] • Prof. Nicole Wesley (Texas State): http://www.theatreanddance.txstate.edu/dance/People/Faculty/Nicole- [email protected] DAILY ACTIVITIES, ENRICHMENT ACTIVITIES, AND DAY TRIPS
Short hops/afternoon tours/evening activities outside Bedford (e.g., ½ days off): • Waddesdon Manor (Aylesbury Vale District; coach=50 minutes) • Priory Church of St Peter, and Lutton Hoo House, Luton: (train=50 minutes) • Woburn Abbey: http://www.woburnabbey.co.uk/abbey/ (stunning country house, coach=26 minutes) • 2nd Wednesdays English session, the Albion, Ampthill (bus=26 minutes) • Dunton Folk Club (coach=26 minutes; beautiful venue) • 1st Tuesday session, March Hare, Dunton (coach=26 minutes)
Evening activities In Bedford (probably on working days): • Hemlock Morris: http://hemlockmorris.com/#/take-more-chances/4580079340 (Gordon Arms, Bedford); https://youtu.be/bJAwUUhO_jE have queried • Tuesday Playford English Country Dance (Tuesday nights): http://gfoster.info/clubs+prog.php#Playford • Bedford Fine Companions (Friday nights): https://www.facebook.com/groups/1174712039217644/ • Bedford Folk Dance club (Thursday nights): http://www.bedfordfolkdanceclub.com/ • Stumpy Oak Ceili Band: http://www.stumpyoak.co.uk/bedford-ceilidh-band/ • Ceilidh nights at the Bedford (some Fridays): http://thebedford.com/event/ceilidh-night/2016-09- 02/ • Happiness Ceilidh (some Saturdays): http://happinessmatters.co.uk/ceilidhs/
T 30 Orientation/Meeting the Ensemble/Discuss Syllabus - Skype session with Texas State University (12-3pm) W 31 Orientation/ Lecture - The Process - Skype session with Texas State University (12-3pm) R 1 Orientation/ Lecture - Collaboration and Interdisciplinary Approaches to Art Making - Skype session with Texas State University (12-3pm) F 2 Orientation/ Lecture - The Product and Beyond - Skype session with Texas State University (12-3pm) Sa 3 Off/prepare for travel Su 4 DEPART - Texas Tech Students arrive/train BDFS, dinner gathering M 5 Dance fest begins (12-3); Vernacular Dance course workshop begins (1-4pm) T 6 Dance fest begins (12-3); Vernacular Dance course workshop (1-4pm) W 7 Dance fest begins (12-3); Vernacular Dance course workshop (1-4pm) R 8 Vernacular Dance course workshop (9am-12pm /1-4pm) F 9 Vernacular Dance course workshop (9am-12pm); Afternoon tour Sa 10 Cambridge UK tour: university campus, punting, Fitzwilliam Museum, Botanic Garden, Polar Museum, Su 11 Off/free to site see M 12 Vernacular Dance course & workshop (9am-12pm /1-4pm) T 13 Vernacular Dance course & workshop (9am-12pm); Afternoon tour W 14 Vernacular Dance course & workshop (9am-12pm /1-4pm) R 15 Vernacular Dance course & workshop (9am-12pm /1-4pm) F 16 Course Lecture/Demonstration (9am-5pm); Dinner with UoB Faculty and Students Sa 17 London tour: afternoon double-decker bus tour, British Museum, sightseeing, group meal Su 18 Off/free to site see M 19 Depart LHR; AUS/SAN MARCOS T 20 Regroup and Open Discussion; Freewrite; Edit films/photos from SA (12-3pm) W 21 Final Presentation Directives (12-3pm) R 22 Final Presentation Work Day (12-3pm) F 23 Final Presentations (12-3pm)
BIOS:
Nicole Wesley is a teacher, performer, and choreographer based out of Austin, Texas. She received an MFA in Dance from Texas Woman’s University and a BFA in Dance from The University of Texas at Austin. Nicole is a Certified Laban Movement Analyst (CLMA) from Integrated Movement Studies at The University of Utah. Her choreography has been commissioned and performed nationally and internationally at performance venues such as the Embodied Citizens: Dance and Civic Participation performance at the University of Bedfordshire, England, The Dissolving Borders Symposia in Dundee Scotland, Culturesfrance’s Danses Caraibe in Havana, Cuba, Dance City in Newcastle, England, The Big Read Festival in Austin, Texas, The Dallas Morning News Dance Festival, The American College Dance Festival, The MAD (Modern Atlanta Dance) Festival, The Fringe Festival in Costa Rica, Austin and New York. She is Co-Founder of Trinidad and Tobago’s COCO Dance Festival and is Co-Artistic Director of The JUSTICE Project with her dance partner of 20 years, Darla Johnson. Nicole is currently an Associate Professor of Dance at Texas State University.
Nicole’s research interests include community building through authentic performance (The JUSTICE Project), interdisciplinary pedagogical and artistic approaches to art-making (The Bassanda Project) and Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) as a methodology in the realm of technical training and performance process.
Dr Christopher J. Smith is a scholar, performer, and professor of musicology at the Texas Tech University School of Music, where he is founding director of the Vernacular Music Center. He has received many honors and awards for teaching and research in a career spanning three decades, and has served as external examiner, guest lecturer, and keynote speaker at colleges and conferences around the world. His 2013 The Creolization of American Culture: William Sidney Mount and the Roots of Blackface Minstrelsy (Illinois) won the 2015 Irwin F Lowens Award and has been called "a dazzling addition to the literature on American popular music and its history"; his new book project for Illinois is Dance Revolutions: Street Dance, “Noise,” and Rebellion in American Cultural History (2016). He has published many articles and book chapters on jazz, classical and world music and is sought after as a speaker, reviewer, and pedagogue. He is the composer, librettist, and music director for the full-length theatrical dance show Dancing at the Crossroads: A Celebration of Afro-Caribbean and Anglo-Celtic Dance in the New World, composed the music for Texas Tech University’s 2015 production of Brecht’s masterpiece Mother Courage and Her Children, and is the founder and music director of the Elegant Savages Orchestra, an innovative “symphonic folk” chamber orchestra exploring the meeting ground between vernacular an classical musics. As an instrumentalist, he concertizes on Irish bouzouki, tenor banjo, button accordion, slide guitar, saz, lute, gittern, Turkish lavta, and percussion.
He is also a former nightclub bouncer, carpenter, lobster fisherman, and oil-rig roughneck, and a published poet.