DANC 334 - Healing Our World through Ancestral Performance Practices

Units: 3 ; Breadth Area: GE-UD-3; Sustainability
Exploration of creative movement structures and perceptual frames to understand the intersections between cultural inheritance, ancestral lineages, creative arts, Earth-honoring culture, and the work needed to heal our current climate crises so that future generations can thrive.

Breadth Area(s) Satisfied: GE-UD-3 - Upper Division Arts or Humanities, Overlay - Sustainability
Prerequisites: Completion of GE Areas 1A, 1B, 1C and GE-2 with grade C- (CR) or better (GE Areas A1, A2, A3 and B4 for students on the 2024-25 or earlier catalogs).
Strongly Recommended Preparation: Upper division status (greater than 60 earned semester units) and completion of lower division Area 3 requirements (lower division Area C requirements for students on the 2024-25 or earlier catalogs)s; and ES Majors: ES 100 and ES 200.
Repeatability: Repeatable for credit for a maximum of 6 units.
Possible Instructional Methods: On-ground, or Hybrid, or Online-Asynchronous, or Online-Synchronous.
Grading: A-F or CR/NC (student choice).
Course Typically Offered: Fall & Spring

Student Learning Outcomes - Upon successful completion of this course students will be able to:

identify and describe diverse ways of knowing (e.g. intellectual, kinesthetic, intuitive, visual, emotional) and approaches across diverse cultures for experiencing connections with ancestral lineages.
identify and describe creative practices that contribute to cultural/environmental balance, and what happens to the climate when these practices are no longer in use.
perform Earth-honoring dance, music, stories, and other creative elements inherited from their ancestors (either biological ancestors and/or lineages of affiliation, interest, and passion), and identify the complex ways that this artistic knowledge has been passed down to them through many generations.
apply concepts about inherited ancestral blessings and burdens to their own creative practices and their goals for community/cultural healing.
Create and share an original, speculative 1,000 year creative plan for climate and cultural healing, that is modeled after the Sri Lankan Sarvodaya Movement’s 500-year-peace-plan and projects by the Long Now Foundation, and that draws on each student’s own ancestral knowledge and the aspects of climate change that most directly impact their people.

GE-UD-3. Upper-division Arts or Humanities Learning Outcomes

Demonstrate an understanding of and ability to apply principles, methodologies, values systems, and thought processes employed in the arts and humanities.
Analyze cultural production as an expression of, or reflection upon, what it means to be human.
Demonstrate how the perspectives of the arts or humanities are used by informed, engaged, and reflective citizens to benefit local and global communities.

Sustainability Overlay Learning Outcomes

Discuss multiple dimensions of sustainability, including the scientific, social, cultural, and/or economic.
Analyze interactions between human activities and natural systems.
Describe strategies taken by individuals, communities, organizations, or governments for mitigating and/or adapting to key threats to environmental sustainability.