For many dancers and performers, “class” is the place one goes to acquire “technique.” Drawing from philosophical theories of embodiment, dance and performance studies, as well as disability studies, students analyze how techniques of the body have functioned and been theorized in the history of U.S. concert dance. What can a body do? The course considers the role of technique classes in early U.S. modern dance, including discussions of the Bennington Summer School and dance programs within Historically Black Colleges and Universities, as well as dance schools such as The Martha Graham School, the Katherine Dunham School of Dance, and the Ailey School. Reckoning with the late 20th-century faltering of dance company structures, and considering challenges posed to routines of taking class posed by the HIV/AIDS crisis during the eighties and early nineties and the recent emergence of covid-19, students also explore contemporary experimental dance schools such as “class, class, class,” freeskewl, and the School for the Movement of the Technicolor People. Beyond the acquisition of technique, this course explores what else has been produced through the radical gathering and collective practices that have unfolded under the auspices of “taking class.” This seminar fulfills a dance elective requirement and would be of interest to any students curious about physical performance, histories of education, and theories of embodiment.