ROLE CALL: College Admissions for Dancers™

Missouri Valley College

Description of Program: Welcome! Making a decision about what college to attend can be a daunting task. If you are looking for a smaller, more personalized education, one that knows you and invites you to get involved right away, then we encourage you to take a close look at us. Our programs are challenging, creative, and personalized. Our performance opportunities and experiences are varied and diverse. Our students are talented, friendly, and dedicated. Our faculty members are committed, passionate, and caring.

History
Founded by Presbyterians in 1889, Missouri Valley College is a private, coeducational, career-oriented, liberal arts college with growing national and international outreach. Known for its dynamic, richly diverse, and friendly educational environment, the College prepares students to succeed in a knowledge-based global society. With a student body of some 1,400, on a beautiful campus in west central Missouri, Missouri Valley College has been continuously accredited since its inception in 1917. Dance has been part of Missouri Valley College for many years. Initially classes were introduced to strengthen the Theatre program, in the 1980s a dance minor was created and in the fall of 2009 a Dance Major was established. With the commitment from the college to develop the dance major a new dance studio, J & D Morris Dance Studio, was built in the fall of 2010. The J & D Morris Dance Studio is located on the first floor of the Morrison Fine Arts Center. The studio was custom designed with a sprung marley dance floor.

Mission
The Department of Dance within the Division of Fine Arts is committed to developing the full potential of students through creative and intellectual inquire. Students have numerous opportunities to perform, choreograph, and design for productions. We offer a variety of coursework and training in ballet, modern, jazz and tap technique, improvisation, composition, dance history, independent study and more. Students who graduate will be prepared to enter a variety of dance careers such as performance, choreography, teaching, writing or continuing their education in a MFA program.

The majority of our graduates pursue teaching dance, others have become professional dancers, choreographers, business managers, dance team coaches, and executive directors.  Several have gone on to graduate school.