School of Arts
Dance Studies

Dancing Through Prison Walls is a California-based dance and performance project whose mission is to dance with, choreograph with, and tell stories within embodied carceral landscapes and beyond, amplifying the voices of incarcerated individuals and addressing mass incarceration. This event centers a screening of the award-winning dance documentary film, Undanced Dances Through Prison Walls During a Pandemic (2021). The film highlights six choreographies written by incarcerated dancers from their bunks inside prison and sent out to "the free world." The dances are embodied and brilliantly performed by members of the Dancing Through Prison Walls community with deep knowledge in a diversity of styles including hip-hop, breaking, tap, performance art, quebradita, spoken word, butoh and contemporary dance. Following the film, Artistic Director Suchi Branfman hosts a community discussion with the Dancing Through Prison Walls team of artists. Co-Sponsors: Cross-Cultural Center and Dance Studies

Pleasurehood, directed by Eric Geiger in collaboration with Jordan Daley and Nick McGhee. Through Pleasurehood we've been asking ourselves how can we create the conditions in order to sense more, feel more, and drop into pleasure more? The dance and the dancing is tender, intimate, and sensuous. Pleasurehood offers all of us, together, an opportunity to question and wonder who we are rather than expressing who we believe we are. Pleasurehood gives ourselves permission to continue to figure it out

As part Dance Studies's DANCE IS FOR EVERYBODY: Locally Grown Dance Series, Sunset Bodega visits us to share their vogue with us. This two-hour movement class will include a brief introduction to voguing and the culture of the House Ballroom Scene, followed by a warm-up, voguing drills based on the elements of vogue femme, and finally some choreo' to bring you into their style and movements. Should time and energy allow, we will have a cipher to share and exchange in our own phrases with each other. Lastly, after a short break, Sunset will have an extended conversation with us to share their experience about the Kiki Ballroom Scene in San Diego/The West Coast and answer any questions you may have about Ballroom Culture, or queer/Transgender Urban Street Dance. We look forward to seeing you on the floor, AND VOGUE DOWN! This class is open to CSUSM students, and all levels of dancer are welcome to participate.