Deborah Goffe is a performer, dance maker, dance educator, performance curator and intermittent video artist. She is founder of Scapegoat Garden, a Hartford-based collaborative dance theater company, which has served as a primary vehicle and creative community through which Deborah has explored the intersection of dance with other media. A graduate of the University of the Arts (BFA, Modern Dance) and California Institute of the Arts (MFA, Dance Performance and Choreography), Deborah earned a Professional Certificate from Wesleyan University's Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance in 2013 where she explored curatorial practice as a way to nurture the health and vitality of local dance eco-systems.
In 2012, the Connecticut Dance Alliance honored Deborah for Distinguished Achievement in Dance. In service to her work with Scapegoat Garden, Deborah has granted Artist Fellowships from the Connecticut Office of the Arts (2005, 2013), the Greater Hartford Arts Council (2007), and the Surdna Foundation (2008). In 2010, Deborah was invited to participate as New England Emerging Choreographer at the Bates Dance Festival in Lewiston, Maine. In that same year, she served as a yearlong Artist-in-Residence at Hartford’s Billings Forge Community Works.
From 2011-2012, Deborah served as Dance Coordinator at Charter Oak Cultural Center, working closely with area dance-makers to re-envision the Greater Hartford dance community through the Homegrown Dance initiative. As an educator, Deborah has taught dance and related courses in a several institutions, including California Institute of the Arts; CREC Center for Creative Youth; Trinity College; CulturArte—a youth arts summer residency program in Cape Verde, Africa; and 10 years as faculty member of the dance department at CREC Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts. In the fall of 2013 Deborah served as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance at Wesleyan University. Deborah is thrilled to have joined the Five College Dance Department this past fall as Assistant Professor of Modern/Contemporary Dance at Hampshire College.
Recent and Upcoming Courses
- Dancing Modern I: An Introduction to Moving and Making in Context
Dancing Modern 1 is a beginning level modern dance course, which will introduce students to "modern" and "contemporary" dance practices. Establishing the studio as a laboratory, students will be invited to embody a wide variety of movement sequences designed to bring attention to the body's capacity for articulation, spatial awareness, musicality, interpretation and personal expression. This exploration of dance technique will be bolstered by experiments with improvisational and dance-making processes, alongside the research of historical and social contexts relevant to the development of the art form. Students will learn to read, discuss and write about the live and recorded choreographic works we will view over the course of the semester. Ultimately, we will direct our collective openness and commitment to growing acquainted with our expressive bodies in motion, physical and intellectual rigor, the development of dance literacy, and use of the written word as a way to record and process various aspects of embodied experience. No previous dance experience is necessary.
- Modern-Contemporary Dance Technique 3: Intermediate Level
Modern-Contemporary Dance Technique 3 is an intermediate-level class, which will build on students' previous study of modern dance technique. The studio will be our laboratory for a semester-long exploration of a wide range of modern dance concepts with a focus on deepening sensation, clarifying points of initiation in the body, expansive use of space, connectivity and increasingly complex phrase work. Along the way we will give continued attention to alignment, spatial clarity, breath, increasing range of motion and the development of strength and stamina. Ultimately, the goal is for each student to engage in a holistic approach to contemporary/modern dance technique-moving beyond rote mimicry toward dynamic, fully expansive movement exploration. The hope is that this will form the basis of a sustainable and deeply engaged movement practice - one that may inform a lifetime of embodied creative process.
- Making Dances 2: Engaging Process from the Studio to the S
Making Dances 2 will build upon students' prior study of dance composition. The studio will be our laboratory as we identify and employ the tools of choreographic process, individual kinesthetic and aesthetic impulse, the role(s) of the choreographer, the relational nature of the art form and the negotiations these relationships engender (choreographer and dancer/choreographer and audience), as well as the implications of making art of/for/by the expressive body in space and time. We will begin by experimenting with formal structures and play, design and chance. The process will soon give way to group dances each student will develop in semester-long rehearsals outside of class with a group of dancers selected by audition. Culminating works may then be submitted for performance in Hampshire's Winter Dance Concert in the S17 semester. Together members of the class will work to support one another in developing a nurturing space for curious investigation, boundary expanding rigor, generous feedback and playful discovery.
- Modern-Contemporary Dance Technique 4: Advanced Intermediate Level
Modern-Contemporary Dance Technique 4 is an intermediate-level class, which will continue to build on students' previous study of modern dance technique. The studio will be our laboratory for a semester-long exploration of a wide range of modern dance concepts with a focus on sensation, initiation, expansive use of space, connectivity and increasingly complex phrase work. Along the way we will give continued attention to alignment, spatial clarity, breath, increasing range of motion and the development of strength and stamina. Ultimately, the goal is for each student to engage in a holistic approach to contemporary/modern dance technique-moving beyond rote mimicry toward dynamic, fully expansive movement exploration. The hope is that this will form the basis of a sustainable and deeply engaged movement practice-one that may inform a lifetime of embodied creative process.
- Tilling the Field: Examining and Reimagining Contemporary American Arts Ecologies
How does one sustain a life in the arts? While this question looms large for lovers of the arts, a host of other questions lurk just beneath the surface: How is success defined and redefined? Where are the points of entry and who are the gatekeepers? How do performance, making, educational, community-engaged, curatorial, and scholarly practices relate to one another and to the organizational structures that support them? What is the role of place? This course will function as a think tank of sorts,inviting dialogue around the evolution of existing arts ecologies and our place in their futures. Through critical discourse, research and entrepreneurial strategies, and with special emphasis on performing arts, we will imagine holistic and innovative approaches to sustained arts engagement that are responsive to social, cultural and economic realities. Geared for upper Division 2 & 3 emerging arts practitioners, administrators, entrepreneurs, curators, scholars, cultural critics, advocates and the like.
- Dancing Modern I
Dancing Modern 1 is a beginning level modern dance technique course, which will introduce students to "modern" and "contemporary" dance practices. Establishing the studio as a kind of the laboratory, students will be invited to embody a wide variety of movement sequences designed to bring attention to the body's capacity for articulation, spatial awareness, musicality, interpretation and personal expression. How does this capacity change throughout the semester-long process? What might the refinement of these skills prepare us for? What is the relationship between our in-class practice and the art form's manifestation in performance contexts? By viewing choreographic works by experienced choreographers, students will learn to read, discuss and write about a diverse range of dance performance. Students will be expected to approach class work with openness and a commitment to rigor, to develop dance literacy by attending live performances throughout the semester, and to use the written word as a way to record and process various aspects of the experience.
- Making Dances 2: Meaning in Motion
Making Dances 2 will build upon students' prior study of dance composition. The studio will be our laboratory as we engage in a series of choreographic experiments, with a particular focus on group forms. Employing the elements of movement (weight, time and space), formal structures and play, each experiment which will provide cumulative insight into how compositional choices/strategies lend themselves to embodied meaning-making and serves to frame each students' unique creative impulse. The insights gathered from these in-class experiments will inform each student's development of a group dance which will be developed outside of class in semester-long weekly rehearsals with a group of dancers you will select by audition. Theses culminating works may then be submitted for performance in Hampshire's Winter Dance Concert. Together members of the class will support one another in developing a nurturing space for curious investigation, boundary expanding rigor, constructive feedback and playful discovery.
- Modern/Contemporary Dance Technique 2: Advanced Beginner
Modern/Contemporary Dance Technique 2 is an advanced-beginning level class, which will establish an foundational experience with modern dance technique. The studio will be our laboratory for this semester-long exploration of a wide range of modern dance concepts with a focus on sensation, initiation, expansive use of space, efficiency, safety, connectivity and embodiment of phrase work. Along the way we will also bring attention to alignment, spatial clarity, use of breath, increasing range of motion and the development of strength and stamina. The hope is that this consistent engagement in movement practice over the course of the semester will form the basis of a sustainable and deeply engaged movement practice-one that may inform a lifetime of embodied creative process.
- Modern/Contemporary Dance Technique 4: High Intermediate Level
Modern/Contemporary Dance Technique 4 is a high-intermediate level class, which will build on students' previous study of modern dance technique. The studio will be our laboratory for this semester-long exploration of a wide range of modern dance concepts with a focus on sensation, initiation, expansive use of space, efficiency, safety, connectivity and increasingly complex phrase work. Along the way we will give continued attention to alignment, spatial clarity, use of breath, increasing range of motion and the development of strength and stamina. Ultimately, the goal is for each student to engage in a holistic approach to contemporary/modern dance technique-moving beyond rote mimicry toward dynamic, fully expansive movement exploration. The hope is that this consistent engagement in movement practice over the course of the semester will form the basis of a sustainable and deeply engaged movement practice-one that may inform a lifetime of embodied creative process.Prerequisite: previous study of modern dance technique.
- More than the Sum of its Parts: Practicing Collaborative Art-Making
There is a magic that exists in the space between artists and between art forms. Collaborative processes offer dynamic ways to access/leverage that magic and examples abound of artists who employ such processes to transcend any one discipline. In this course, students representing a wide variety of artistic disciplines will bring their knowledge of a given art form to a shared art-making process. By claiming the unique power of one's primary discipline and bringing that power into dialogue with other media, students will learn the language of other art forms and establish a common vocabulary for negotiating artistic decisions as co-makers. The body will provide a beginning point and constant point of departure with movement as a unifying practice. This semester-long development of a shared time-based interdisciplinary work will be supported by contextualizing research and will culminate in an informal class showing. Prerequisite: Previous formal study in an art form (or forms) required.
