ROLE CALL: College Admissions for Dancers™

Description of Program: University of Minnesota Dance focuses on contemporary dance in global contexts through four balanced curricular areas: technique, performance, composition and dance studies. Dance coursework fosters an intensive creative process, offers extensive technical training and performing experience and promotes rigorous intellectual practices. Dance is explored through multiple approaches, drawing from the faculty’s range of professional experience and creative research. Faculty members and visiting artists engage students by refining their creativity and critical abilities, and spark a curiosity to examine dance far beyond its physical characteristics. Students become part of a community that believes embracing difference is essential to social equity and the free exchange of creative and intellectual ideas. Students can choose one of two Dance degree tracks in the College of Liberal Arts: the Bachelor of Arts (BA) and the Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA). Technique courses include modern/contemporary, ballet, jazz, African diasporic movement, and urban/street/hip hop, as well as a variety of electives. Additional coursework includes history, theory, composition, music, kinesiology, pedagogy and production. Numerous performance opportunities each year include informal showings, fully produced concerts by the University Dance Theatre and collaborative performances on campus or professional venues. Classes in improvisation and composition give students hands-on experience using the elements of dance as expressive tools to create their own choreographic work. As a laboratory for creative research, Dance Program faculty, along with several invited guest artists, mentor students toward their professional goals. Several faculty actively create and produce dance for their professional companies. The University Dance Program annually hosts four to six dance professionals of national and international renown in short- and long-term residencies through the Sage Cowles Land Grant Chair visiting artist and scholar program. The Twin Cities has long fostered an extensive and diverse dance environment that supports a vast range of styles and aesthetics, numerous venues and is considered to be one of the most thriving dance communities in the country. The urban campus facilitates collaboration with local arts organizations and professional bridging experiences for students. Enhancing the student experience further are resources on the University of Minnesota campus, including undergraduate research grants, internship opportunities, career centers, student organizations, learning abroad and honors programs. The University of Minnesota Dance Program requires an audition for entry, as well as acceptance through the Office of Admissions application process.
The program is an accredited member of the National Association of Schools of Dance.

Performance, Choreography, Dance Education, Arts Administration, Graduate/Professional Programs, Health Sciences/Additional Fields