The Dance Program at Luther is grounded in the Movement Fundamentals (MF) paradigm, which provides a foundation for practicing embodiment, refining movement, and crafting expression.
The MF Tenets of Practice are standards for agency, artistic refinement, and inclusivity and access the body as primary source for radically different ways of perceiving, learning, connecting and creating.
What are the Tenets of Practice? They help you:
- Learn through sensory awareness, proprioception, and imagery
- Know the body as an intelligent source for direction and information
- Develop skills in awareness, responsiveness, expressiveness, observation, and documentation
- Employ bodily systems to create dynamic balance and form
- Explore vocabulary of anatomy, spatial intent, movement qualities, and design elements
- Allow personal questions and emotions to guide research
- Investigate the unfolding of embodiment, generosity, and personal virtuosity
- Apply MF principles, tenets, and phases as guides for living and creating
- Practice, create, and perform anywhere
- Embolden every body shape, age, and ability with agency and refinement
What Makes Us Unique
This curriculum develops dancers who understand the intelligence of their bodies. This gives agency to our dancers. It also challenges the ideals held in traditional dance, which can often be destructive for dancers.
I want to create a program that trains dancers as artists and empowers people to love and feel gratitude for their bodies.
Jane Hawleycreator of MF
Movement Fundamentals Beliefs
MF promotes that:
- The body is an intelligent source and tool for expression and design
- Dancers must know the skeletal structure and the interdependence of the body–they see them as the tools for balance and form
- Vocabulary based on anatomy, imagery, visual art elements, and spatial design concepts grows a dancer’s artistic ability
- Dancers research and discover the body through guided movement explorations
- All movement is dance
This program promotes diversity in body shapes, range in ages and abilities, self-reliance, and economic access to dance practice and performance.
Individualized Interdisciplinary Major in Movement Fundamentals
We offer a specialized track in Movement Fundamentals through an Individualized Interdisciplinary Major. MF certification is highly encouraged for this track of study.