How MMC’s Newest Required Course—Embodied Africanist Aesthetics—Is Swiftly Making an Impact on Its Dance Majors

In it, the publication writes: “Marymount Manhattan Dance Department’s Embodied Africanist Aesthetic course, which launched last year, is co-taught by a group of five faculty members; each section includes a mix of hip hop, Latin jazz and Afro-Caribbean forms, and includes live drummers, giving students a chance to learn about polyrhythms. ‘We really felt that as an institution, we needed to update our curriculum,’ says department chair Nancy Lushington. ‘We were looking for ways to diversify our training, and we felt that the Africanist aesthetic needed to be as important as teaching ballet five days a week.’ In an ever-changing dance world where artists are asked to be more versatile than ever, Marymount is one of the first dance programs to forge new ground, not only better preparing students for what’s to come, but showing them through practice that all dance forms hold equal weight.”

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