HomepageTeaching and Learning InstituteDance professor brings expert artist-teacher to her class

Dance professor brings expert artist-teacher to her class

Karen Clemente, Professor of Dance, brought Kista Tucker, a guest teaching artist, to her Fall 2014 course on the Fundamentals of Dance. Both Clemente and her students learned from Tucker’s expertise and live instruction.

With support from the TLI, Clemente invited dance artist/educator Kista Tucker, artistic director of Kista Tucker Insights, a Washington D.C.-based modern dance company, to campus during the Fall 2014 semester. 

 

While on campus, Kista taught Clemente’s ?Fundamentals of Dance ?students two master classes based on her contemporary technique grounded in Laban Movement Principals/Bartenieff Fundamentals. As Clemente explains, “Though I have systematically introduced such work to my students as a regular part of the Dance Fundamentals course syllabus, having Kista on campus brought a unique perspective to the work.” She shared aspects of her seven-part warm up series that is detailed in her forthcoming text, the KT Warm-up Project. Throughout the classes, Kista helped students to access full body connectivity in a hands-on manner, giving them practical tools for dancing from the center out to the “edges” of their movement possibility. Also while on campus, Kista attended my Dance Repertory course, in which she provided invaluable assistance to me and the dancers. As we worked to complete a choreographic work for the Ursinus College Dance Concert, Kista asked important questions and provided feedback for our process. Clemente notes, “Her expertise in both dance technique and choreography came at just the right time in the semester, when we needed an outside perspective.” And, Clemente concluded, “It is my hope that Kista Tucker can return to campus again, teaching master classes and adding individualized sessions with students as well.”

 

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