Occidental’s Folk & Historical Dance Troupe provides a space where students learn about ancient dance traditions from various countries and continents, such as Eastern Europe and North America, and learn to perform the dances themselves, further developing their understanding of the subject matter.
This 1-credit course is taught by Associate Professor Emeritus of Mathematics and Cognitive Science Alan Knoerr. Knoerr said he picked up folk dancing in high school and continued the practice throughout college and graduate school before teaching it at Occidental.
According to Knoerr, when he came to Occidental, he met Professor Emerita of Linguistics and Archaeology Elizabeth Barber, who shared his interest in folk and historical dance. Knoerr said Barber created a troupe in the early 1970s with some of her students who also found an interest in the dance style. Knoerr said when he joined in 1991, the troupe was primarily focused on performance, but since then, it has gradually developed to center around teaching and sharing the dance forms with students.
According to Knoerr, in addition to the class, the troupe exists as a club that meets on Sundays. Knoerr said students enrolled in the course are welcome and encouraged to join the Sunday sessions, but the club is also open to alumni who are interested in continuing to participate and learn the dances.
“People came with different interests and expertise, and so they would teach new kinds of dances,” Knoerr said. “So what started out as kind of a core recreational international folk dance really started to broaden and deepen in a number of ways.”
Knoerr said he invites students with all levels of dance experience to join the class. Knoerr said a tool for his own learning and understanding of the dances is his education in cognitive science, as it allows him to make scientific connections between the brain and the dance steps.
“[Dance] is just active, it keeps your mind engaged. There are little puzzles to work out about how your body’s moving and how you’re interacting with other people,” Knoerr said. “My background in cognitive science has actually been helpful there because the brain is controlling muscles as well as doing thinking as well as receiving, so the systems interact, but they’re also somewhat distinct in the way they work.”
Knoerr said he emphasizes his students’ understanding of dance in terms of its historical context and social issues.
“There’s a lot of historical threads that run through all this,” Knoerr said. “It’s not just history, it’s also that many of the issues concerning international and historical dance are very current issues around intersectionality, appropriation and what is the nature of art.”
Rodrigo Tejado (senior), who is enrolled in the class this semester, said the class has become a space of creative expression where he can exercise in a way that is enjoyable and allows him to engage in a welcoming community.
“It’s fun, but it’s also very community-based. I’m moving around but also getting in some laughter with friends,” Tejado said. “A lot of the time it’s like line dancing, but also a lot of times it feels like ballroom because there’s a lot of pair work.”
Julia Frank (senior), who is also enrolled in the class this semester, said she joined as a way to spend time with friends and try something new. Frank said she learned eight new dances in the first class she attended.
“We [first] learn the choreography [without] music, and Alan, our Professor, just teaches us the basic steps,” Frank said. “For some of [the dances], we split into groups, [and] some of them it’s one big group, and we learn the basic steps and go over them and he adds the music and tells us a little bit about what the music would look like.”
Noemi Justino-Ruiz (junior), who is president of the Folk & Historical Dance Troupe club and has taken the class three times, said she began the class as a way to improve her confidence and engage in a form of exercise that invites engagement and creativity.
According to Justino-Ruiz, Professor Knoerr utilizes a physical map in class to display the geographical locations of where different dances come from. She said Knoerr will invite students to look at the map between dances to develop a better understanding of the roots of different dances and traditions.
“Folk historical dance can be quite interesting, because the styles that people typically dance now, whether it’s more popular dance or ballroom dance, they all came from somewhere,” Knoerr said. “And where they came from was the dances that we’re looking at.”
Contact Amalia Rimmon at rimmon@oxy.edu
