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Dance has always occupied a position in society across the spectrum of artistic ‘levels’, from the high technique of ballet to the untrained dancer in the night club. Yet these boundaries have become increasingly blurred to the point where technical virtuosity and creativity cannot be located in the categories of traditional divides. Cultural theorist Richard Peterson observed in the early 1990s that we have become ‘culturally omnivorous’ and our tastes not only span boundaries but break them. Popular culture no longer denotes ‘low’ art, and dance in popular culture draws from all possible genres from artists and choreographers of highly diverse backgrounds and skills; it is rife with both exuberant creativity as well as accusations of dumbing down and inequality, and the term ‘popular’ itself is hard to pin down, making it a valid discourse and practice for dance students.

This module aims to engage students with dance in popular culture in the present day, to create dance that relates to our ‘now’ and that reflects this understanding in the practice. As such the module operates ‘thinkingly’ (as opposed to unthinkingly) with the production of dance in popular culture, and to engage with other disciplines (music, film making etc.) that are an integral part of much dance within popular culture.