The Dance Department offers a distinctive, impactful curriculum that centers diversity, equity, and inclusion across various movement expressions. Our goal is to provide students with an exceptional education in equitable approaches to dance training, dance scholarship, and dance-making. We take this step to open our program to prospective students with diverse proficiencies in dance and to give our students access to an expanded range of careers in the evolving field of dance.
The Dance Department will:
- Work to dismantle systems of oppression by pursuing instructional and research practices that are informed by anti-racist pedagogies and philosophies.
- Implement a comprehensive initiative to re-envision the curricula to better meet the needs of our student population and more accurately reflect the diversity of peoples and practices in the field.
- Engage one another in dialogues that productively analyze and critique the ways in which European-derived dance forms and historical/cultural perspectives are privileged within higher education to better understand the implicit bias underpinning such privilege.
- Change the way dance is conceived, produced, and presented in order to address inequities related to representation and access within dance as a creative and intellectual profession.
Our department often works with and invites guest artists and scholars to participate in performances, master classes, and guest lectures. Past guests have included Doug Varone, Susan Marshall, Mark Morris Dance Group, Stephen Petronio, Urban Bush Women, Keerati Jinakunwipha, Beth Gill, Kyle Marshall, Kimberly Bartoski, Mabingo Alfdaniels, Kinetic Light, Netta Yerushalmy, Katy Pyle, Ballez, Michell Manzanales, Niall Jones, Kun Yang Lin Dancers (KYLD), Nicolette Alberti, Tentacle Tribe, Chuck Wilt, UNA Productions, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, Camille A. Brown, Darrell Grand Moultrie, Ohad Naharin, Batsheva Company (Israel), Olivier Tarpaga (Burkina Faso), Pavel Zuštiak (Slovakia), Bereishit Dance Company (South Korea), Trisha Brown Dance Company, Germaine Acogny (Senegal), Vertigo Dance Company (Israel), Dr. Claudia Jeschke (Austria), Dr. Rosemary Candelario, Eiko Otake (Japan), and Dr. Katherine Profeta.
The Dance Department collaborates with numerous organizations, both on and off campus, to broaden and diversify the dance experience for students, including: Accademia dell’Arte, American College Dance Festival Association, Dance Education Laboratory at the 92Y Harkness Dance Center, DanceJerusalem, Dance New Jersey, Dance Studies Association, National Association of Schools of Dance, National Dance Education Organization, and Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music & Dance.
The Dance Department is an accredited institutional member of the National Association of Schools of Dance (NASD)
Undergraduate Programs
Bachelor of Fine Arts
The Dance Department offers the following undergraduate dance programs:
Bachelor of Arts, Minors, and Certificates
The Dance Department offers the following undergraduate dance programs outside of the bachelor of fine arts:
Graduate Programs
Master of Education
In partnership with the School of Graduate Studies, the Dance Department offers the following graduate dance programs for the master of education:
- BFA/EdM Five-Year Program: Bachelor of fine arts in dance and master of education in dance studies
- EdM Dance Education Post-Baccalaureate Program: Master of education in dance studies with certification in dance education
- EdM Professional Teacher Advancement Program: Master of education in dance studies