Classes
The Movement Lab works closely with the Barnard Dance Department to host multiple classes each semester. Students benefit from the lab function of our space and the technical resources we provide.
Fall 2025
Screendance: Composition with Professor Gabri Christa
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11:00 AM - 12:50 PM
Prerequisites: Must have taken a Dance Department Composition course and have some dance training. This experiential, hands-on course requires all students to choreograph, dance, and film. Focusing on single-shot filmmaking, the duet of the camera and the dance will create an understanding of the interaction between the two, enabling students to create a final short film.
Human Anatomy and Movement with Professor Chisa Hidaka
Mondays and Wednesdays | 10:10 AM - 11:25 AM (Section 1) | 11:40 AM - 12:55 PM (Section 2)
Dancers and other movers will acquire concrete, scientific information about anatomy and integrate this knowledge into their sensed experience of movement. Through readings, lecture/discussions and movement practice, students will explore: (1) structure and function of bones and joints, (2) muscles, neuromuscular function and coordination, (3) motor cognition and learning.
Annual Collaborations
Columbia School of the Arts | Intro to Moving Image: Video, Film & Art (Various Instructors)
During the Fall/Spring semesters, the Movement Lab collaborates with Columbia's School of the Arts to host a lighting workshop within the course Intro to Moving Image: Video, Film & Art. Students are taught the basics of lighting for the moving image and work collaboratively to recreate lighting setups from various film stills selected by the instructors.
Intro to Moving Image: Video, Film & Art is an introductory class on the production and editing of digital video. Designed as an intensive hands-on production/post-production workshop, the apprehension of technical and aesthetic skills in shooting, sound and editing will be emphasized. Assignments are developed to allow students to deepen their familiarity with the language of the moving image medium. Over the course of the term, the class will explore the language and syntax of the moving image, including fiction, documentary and experimental approaches. Importance will be placed on the decision making behind the production of a work; why it was conceived of, shot, and edited in a certain way. Class time will be divided between technical workshops, viewing and discussing films and videos by independent producers/artists and discussing and critiquing students' projects. Readings will be assigned on technical, aesthetic and theoretical issues.
Columbia Music Department | Composing for Dance with Zosha di Castri
The course presents tools, techniques, methodologies, and concepts for composing original music for dance (both acoustic and electronic). Composers will develop a work for dance collaborating with choreographers, culminating in a public showing at the end of the semester. Weekly meetings will be used to discuss the unique challenges (both practical and aesthetic) that this type of interdisciplinary collaboration raises, and to troubleshoot potential solutions. Students will examine case studies of collaborative composer/choreographer pairs (especially from the last 75 years), as potential models for working via the study of artist statements, interviews, articles, videos, and classroom discussions with invited guests. No prior experience writing for dance is necessary. Basic familiarity with a digital audio workspace is preferable. For participants who don’t write music or work in sound, a research project either analyzing a composer/choreographer pairing or looking at a topic relating to music and dance more broadly will serve as an equivalent final project (resulting in an academic paper, a podcast, or the production of an educational video).
Previous Course Collaborations
Dance Department | Rehearsal and Performance with NiNi DONGNIER (Fall 2024)
In Fall 2024, the Dance Department presented a concert of new works by illustrious faculty and guest artists presented at New York Live Arts. Auditions were open to Barnard and Columbia students. The Movement Lab's Curator of Special Projects and Artistic Associate, NiNi Dongnier, recreated and staged a new work in collaboration with Associate Director Guy de Lancey.
Dance Department | Movement Analysis (Various Instructors)
An introduction to the theories and methods of movement analysis, focusing on its application to dance performance and research. Through lectures, readings, integrative movement exercises, and observation labs, students will learn to analyze and describe the qualitative aspects of human movement; to notate movement in motif writing; and to refine their ability to move efficiently and expressively.
Columbia Computer Music Center | Techniques of Live Sound with David Adamcyk (Spring 2023 - Spring 2025)
This course explores both analogue and digital tools for the sound reinforcement of concerts in all formats. Through hands-on experience, the course addresses the impact and potential of contemporary tools on the aesthetic choices of musical projects. The course supports artists (performers, composers, improvisers, sounds artists, etc.) by providing a solid foundation and a working knowledge of live sound concepts in order to improve the realization of their creative audio work. A significant feature of the course is direct experience producing live concerts in order to fully understand the implications of the transition between the pre-concert studio preparation and live concert execution. Under the supervision of the instructor, students are expected to oversee the audio-related technical aspects of two to three music department events, including the doctoral composition work of the Columbia Composers concert series. Topics include the practice and theory behind analog and digital mixing, live sound processing, concert diffusion, spatial audio, sound reinforcement, mixed music techniques, concert recording, and efficient equipment set-up and tear-down. Please note that students must be available for two whole-day Saturday events whose dates will be determined and distributed by the instructor at the start of the semester.
Dance Department | Coding Choreography with Mimi Yin (Academic Year 2018 - 2019)
The Coding Choreography class was taught through the Dance Department by Professor Mimi Yin who is full-time faculty at NYU. The class was offered to both Barnard and NYU students. This course re-conceived interactive media as a form of choreographic intervention. Instead of asking how dancers can control media, it turned the tables and asked how interactive systems can influence movement. To accomplish this, choreographers learned how to apply computational thinking to choreography and programmers learned to apply choreographic thinking to computation. The class met twice a week and both students and faculty used the Lab heavily outside the class.