College for Dancers
tudents may attend college but take their dance classes in local dance schools. College guides list more than 500 dance programs. These may be independent or part of drama, theater arts, fine and performing arts, music, and film departments. Some college programs give credit for dance performance experience.
How did dance get to college? The development of modern dance (eschewing the rules of ballet) spurred an ongoing philosophic debate about dance: its nature, purpose, notation, place in history, and relationship to psyche, gender, pol-itics and change. Margaret Newall H'Doubler's background as a biology major helped her couch dance within a scientific framework of the time. In 1926 she established the first dance major. It was in the University of Wisconsin physical education department. H'Doubler set the common dance education pattern for college and K-12: the process of students creating dances is more significant than students learning a dance technique toward a product, the performance.
In the late 1970s, dance scholarship in the arts, humanities and social and behavioral science disciplines burgeoned. When the 1980s witnessed college dance education partially splintering off from physical education to find an additional home in departments of dance within schools of fine arts or education, dance earned credibility as a serious independent college discipline. Several departments of dance now offer doctorates. The 1990s U.S. government-funded artists-in-the-schools programs and collaboration between departments of dance and medicine, computer and information science, kinesiology and physics has led to more recognition of dance in colleges and K-12.
Today some college dance programs not only offer modern dance but ballet and other dance genres. The University of Utah has a ballet department. The University of Arizona's program includes ballet, modern and jazz. The Hartt School of the University of Hartford offers ballet pedagogy with professional level technique and performance.
Aspirants to Professional Ballet
Because ballet is so demanding, and dancers need to be fluent in other styles, for the impassioned, driven aspirants to be the best in ballet, the youthful years may be wisest spent dancing. Dancers as young as 15 years old join companies. They may finish high school and attend college while in a company and afterwards. Dancers who learn about the science of their instrument can perform at higher levels for more years.
College graduates are commonly 22 years old. "If by 18 a young dancer is not in a ballet company, the dancer's potential for being a ballerina is lost," said Rima Faber, Ph.D., Program Director, National Dance Education Organization. Dance USA, an organization of major dance companies advises, "The performance span of a dancer is limited, competition is tough, and salaries are relatively low. A college degree does not guarantee a position within a company; talent does. Unfortunately, talent cannot be taught; it is an inborn quality that is improved through technique classes. An individual with a dance degree is not necessarily the more talented performer."
Charting a unique path, Septime Webre began studying ballet at 17 years, earned a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in history from University of Texas at Austin and then danced professionally. He became a choreographer and Artistic Director of the Washington Ballet (WB) where the college/professional career choice is a big topic every year. Webre said, "For some, a college degree followed by a dancing career is an excellent choice. In my case I ...majored in history/pre-law and trained about 25 hours per week on the side. It gave me the opportunity to get the classical training I needed while laying an important academic foundation which has proved invaluable in my career as a choreographer and Artistic Director." WB's Chip Coleman received a BA in biology from Dartmouth College. Luis Torres completed his bachelor degree in psychology and dance at Arizona State University. "Former member Cheryl Sladkin graduated from Princeton, then danced with the WB for many years, and then went to Columbia Medical School. Before doing her residency, she danced for Suzanne Farrell and other NYC-based companies, then went back to do her residency," Webre recalls.
Career transition has become a major concern in the dance world, particularly since dancers are marrying more often, having babies and wanting a normal life. College smoothes the career transition for retiring dancers.
Several dance companies offer opportunities for those dancers whose college degrees eluded them. New York City Ballet (NYCB) board member Bob Lipp founded Dance-On, an endowment that has provided tuition assistance for dancers since 1988. Over 100 NYCB dancers have taken college courses on Monday, their free day. More than a dozen dancers graduated, including Peter Boal who became Artistic Director of the Pacific Northwest Ballet, Jenifer Ringer, Teresa Reyes, Andrew Robertson, Pauline Golbin, Dena Abergel and Michael Byars who went into law. Never having attended college, Damian Woetzel was accepted in the Mid-Career Master in Public Administration Program at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.
NYCB's James Fayette was earning a BA in economics. He said, "Performing and attending college is a challenge, especially with companies that tour. But dancing and studying require the same kind of discipline. Dance is in the moment, but academics takes thinking into the future. Dancers tend to be perfectionists in both." While dancing, Fayette was recruited to work with the American Guild for Musical Artists. He continues to pursue his college degree.
At Pennsylvania Ballet, at least 10 company members are currently enrolled in college, taking classes online or attending night and summer courses. In between her starring roles in "Swan Lake" and "Firebird," Riolama Lorenzo has been hitting the books, going online and attending class at University of the Sciences in West Philadelphia. Principal Julie Diana takes one course at a time at the University of Pennsylvania.
In 2005, American Ballet Theater (ABT) began a venture with Long Island University called LIU@ABT. University faculty members teach most of the courses at ABT's studios on lower Broadway. About a third of ABT's 91 dancers have enrolled, including Gillian Murphy, Stella Abrera and Sascha Radetsky. Susan Jaffe, a former principal dancer who is now an adviser to Lewis Ranieri, the chairman of ABT's board, helped set up the program and has taken classes herself. The dancers pay a third of their tuition, the university offers a one-third tuition scholarship, and Ranieri pays the rest.
The liberal arts program of Dominican University in San Rafael, California, joined forces with Alonzo King's San Francisco LINES Ballet School in fall 2006 to offer a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in Dance. The pre-professional dance student combines intensive ballet training with improvisation and composition studies to be able to participate in the creative processes of dance making. Other courses are modern dance, ethnic dance, Gyrotonic (R)/Gyrokinesis (R), dance history, acting, percussion, expository writing, speech and rhetoric, math, anatomy/kinesiology, social sciences, ethics and cultural heritage. Students study King's choreography, taught by many of the dancers on whom the works were originally created. Choreographers are invited to set works on the students. Ultimately, students present their own dances to the community.
The LEAP (Liberal Education for Arts Professionals) BA degree program at St. Mary's College of California, founded in 1999, is specifically designed for current and former professional dancers. Courses are offered at convenient times and locations, and dancers can pursue their individual interests and explore different disciplines. Offering classes in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles, LEAP serves more than 120 current and former professional dancers from leading ballet, modern and ethnic dance companies, as well as musical theater, TV and film. Alumni have gone on to graduate studies and successful new careers in a variety of fields.
Universities without walls include the State University of New York's Empire State College. It offers an on-line degree for working adults. From distance learning via the web to faculty mentoring outside the traditional classroom, the college allows a personalized experience. Since 1971, more than 47,000 students have earned a degree.
Dancers who do not complete college degrees while they are performing are not out-of-place afterwards in college among 18 year-old freshmen. Today, college classes attract in-numerable mature students who are changing careers.
Although dance artists may offer short and long-term college residencies, college degrees are usually necessary for regular jobs in college dance departments and K-12 schools. Jacques d'Amboise and Suzanne Farrell, former stellar members of NYCB, and Galina Panova, formerly with the Kirov Ballet and Broadway, are among the exceptions.
Aspirants to Professional Modern Dance
Modern dance, as well as jazz, Broadway, hip hop, folk and nonwestern dance, is more flexible in the age of professionals, giving college graduates a much better shot at success. Although modern dance is more physically permissive than ballet, its stage performance is still youth-oriented.
College expands body and mind and enhances a performer's toolkit for artistry and creative work. Faber points out that college offers "a perspective of the entire scope of the field, not just technique....Modern dance content is intellectual. Modern dancers don't just take directions but explore what can I do with ..." College permits in-depth exploration of performing arts-related topics not common in a dance company setting
Dana Tai Soon Burgess, dancer, founder and Director of the Moving Forward Dance Company and professor of dance at George Washington University, Washington, D.C., believes that "a well rounded education makes a better dancer. As a choreographer, I have always been attracted to dancers that have had interesting life experiences and education outside of the studio, because they bring their knowledge to my choreographic process and enliven it....Furthermore, dancers with university degrees who have taken kinesiology and dynamic alignment courses better understand their own bodies and can avoid injury while enhancing their technique intelligently.
"As dancers move through their careers, they are going to need to know how to read a contract, respond to it, write a clear bio. As young choreographers, they are going to have to know how to write a grant and fundraise. As mid-career choreographers, they are going to need the skills to build an organization, express what their work is about and negotiate large commissions. If dancers wish to be fine teachers, they will need the skills to write a syllabus and lecture. Finally, being a dance artist is a process, and we never stop learning and craving knowledge that will ultimately inform the dance."
A college offers a protective environment in which to explore artistic concepts to apply in professional dance. After dancing professionally, Burgess returned to graduate school to learn how to create his own company and become a better teacher. Working on his Master's of Fine Arts (MFA) at George Washington University allowed him to launch his professional company. "I focused my thesis around exploring my individual dance aesthetic.
"My MFA program gave me a place to begin teaching on the college level as well as new information about choreographing. Furthermore, I had access to dancers over a three-year time period, space to rehearse and a theater. In retrospect, it was quite a utopia! All these elements are so difficult to acquire in the dance world on one's own, and it takes years to create a company and a dance community.... Within a safe educational environment, an artist can easily grow and really develop skills for remaining in the dance field for a lifetime."
After dancing with Kei Takei's company, Moving Earth, for 11 years, Mary Fitzgerald pursued an MFA at Arizona State University in order to develop as a choreographer. Degree in hand, she accepted a teaching job there.
Some college dance programs are strictly pre-professional, such as New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and North Carolina School of the Arts. The Julliard School, College Division, Dance Program, states that "dancers learn what is essential to cross the bridge from studio to stage. Dancing alone or with others, they work to perfect the body as a communicative instrument. Dance students learn what it means to be a professional, from the smallest detail of reading a rehearsal schedule to the appropriate manner of bowing at the end of a performance. Guided by highly regarded artists, they develop the ability to live in the moment in a way that gives their dancing excitement, veracity and eloquence."
Julliard's vision is to create "a 'fusion dancer,' one who is trained equally in both the centuries-old techniques of the classical ballet and in techniques of the modern dance of our time. Using this preparation of the best from the past and the present, the dancer's eye and mind are consciously opened."
In 1998, Fordham University, Lincoln Center, NYC, began to offer a BFA degree in dance in a program jointly administered by Fordham and Alvin Ailey American Dance Center. The Ailey-Fordham students are dancers who have the potential to become professionals.
Bill T. Jones, modern dancer/chor-eographer and Artistic Director of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, began his dance and theater training at State University of New York at Binghamton. His company members are usually college graduates, and he guest teaches at numerous colleges. Jones observed, "It's a curious fact and, depending on one's point of view, a disturbing or hopeful one, to recognize that while the dance world is sorely underfunded, poorly served by professional administrators, poorly housed, not encouraged with funds for new works and often discounted by newspaper editors, still there is a seemingly endless number of young dancers/practitioners being turned out by universities from coast to coast. When one realizes that such a small percentage of them will ever be recognized or able to earn a living through dancing, it's cause for a celebration of the impulse to move and/or the recognition that there is a great deal of denial in this system."
Aspirants to Non-Professional Dance Performance
Many college dance students do not aspire to become professional dance performers. Some graduates will perform in amateur companies. Teaching dance in studios and private and public schools or opening their own studios is another path. Some students major in dance out of a love to dance for enjoyment and health. Other college dance students have double majors or go on to earn graduate degrees to work in dance-related fields, for example, fund-raising, promotion, writing, research, notation, teaching, administration, photography, therapy, psychology and medicine. And yet other graduates choose a line of work unrelated to dance. Of course, dance education creates astute audience members.
Resources:
Changes are always occurring in college opportunities for dancers, so here are a few resources to find up-to-date information appropriate for your particular interests:
*ArtsLynx, http://www.artslynx.org/dance/univ.htm, lists 194 college dance programs
*http://db.education-world.com/perl/browse?cat_id=7203&url_start=1&cat_start lists 1418 programs
*Dance USA (has links)
*Dance magazines periodically have college guides
*American Dance Festival has arrangements with colleges that give credit for student participation
*National Association of Schools of Dance (NASD) lists schools it has accredited according to what it considers important in a college-level dance program. College dance programs that do not chose to be certified by NASD may still offer valuable education.
*Career Transitions for Dancers ($2,000 is available for education)
Issues to explore about a college dance program:
* Reputation of the dance department in and outside of the college
* Professional facilities, e.g., large studios with sprung floors, stages equipped for dance productions, and live musical accompaniment for classes
* Curriculum offerings
* Performance opportunities for those who audition successfully or everyone, on campus or off-campus
* Faculty
* Guest artists
* Jobs of the graduates
Judith Lynne Hanna is author of Partnering Dance and Education. Her Dancing for Health: Conquering and Preventing Stress has just been published.