BA Dance

The Dance major is distinctive for its outstanding faculty of nationally and internationally recognized artists and scholars who draw from a variety of creative and academic backgrounds, including dance making, choreography,  visual art, creative writing, literature, African diasporic ritual cultures, Hip Hop and streetdance, Indian diasporic dance, Indigenous studies, digital technologies, performance studies, queer studies, and cultural studies.

The B.A. degree requires students to take courses in both Choreography/Dance Making and Dance Studies, and eventually choose one track for their capstone project (i.e. performance-based and research paper respectively).  In some cases, students may opt to complete a capstone project in both tracks. The Dance major cultivates rigorous creative research practices as well as critical cultural and historical perspectives on dance, through courses in the studio and seminar. Students examine notions about aesthetics, compositional processes, the body, gender, race, class, and sexuality as part of ongoing conversations in the field. Students are expected to sustain their movement practice every quarter and can choose from courses in Hip Hop, Modern, Ballet, Jazz, West African, House, Capoeira, Somatics, Yoga and Latin American Social Dance, as well as other forms offered by guest artists.