Mar 28, 2024  
2019-2020 University Catalog 
    
2019-2020 University Catalog [Archived Catalogue]

Dance, BFA


Donna Faye Burchfield, Director
dburchfield@uarts.edu
(215) 717-6580

School of Dance Office
Terra Building 3rd Floor \ 215.717.6110 \ School of Dance Website

C O N T E N T S

Description

The School of Dance’s major course of study takes the depth and rigor of a discipline-based dance conservatory while engaging students in open discussions within their own practice, valuing their voices as capable of developing new and critical perspectives in dance. These strategies give way to student driven pathways and expand the ways students can access and think about the practices and techniques of making and performing dance.  It is divided into two parts: Foundation Series (freshman and sophomore years) and Portfolio & Research Series (junior and senior).

Program Objectives

The faculty of the School of Dance have developed five essential learning goals that help to shape the school’s curriculum and the young dance artist and professional.

  • Mutuality:  Students will activate relationships in dance on personal, collective, regional and global levels.
  • Relationality:  Students will engage with the world through multiple lenses of collaboration, exchange and difference.
  • Expressivity:  Students will develop tools and ideas of expression to speak, write, and dance about/with/of/alongside.
  • Sustainability:  Students will be immersed in anatomically sound technical training that consistently weaves and references both historical and emerging techniques, forms and styles through informed somatic practices.
  • Resourcefulness:  Students will develop and sharpen skills of reciprocity, relationship and network building through consistent contact with professional artists in the expanded field both within their communities and in the world.

These learning goals are mapped across courses in six different categories: 1) Studio Practice, 2) Body Pathways, 3) Thinking, Making, Doing, 4) History, Theory and Criticism, 5) Capstone Experiences (Sophomore and Senior Projects), and  6) PODS (Performance Pedagogies of Dance).

Program Requirements (120 credits)

Critical Studies (33 credits)


Composition (6-9 credits)


Students are placed into one of the following composition sequences after the completion of a writing placement exam. Students who do not complete the exam may be placed based on standardized tests scores (if available) or high school GPA.

Critical Approaches to the Arts and Culture (9 credits)


  • Select 3 courses from subject CRIT

Thinking Through Science (3 credits)


  • Select 1 course from subject ANTH, PSYC, SOCI or SCIE

Critical Studies Electives (12-15 credits)


Students who complete the developmental composition sequence complete 12.0 credits of CS electives; all other students complete 15.0 credits.

  • Select courses from subjects:
    • AHST (Art History), HIST (History)
    • FRCH (French), ITAL (Italian), LITT (Literature)
    • PHIL (Philosophy), RELI (Religion)
    • SCIE (Science)
    • ANTH (Anthropology), PHIL (Philosophy), PSYC (Psychology), SOCI (Sociology)  
  • Select courses from  : Art History or Critical Studies Elective.

General Electives (9 credits)


  • Complete 9 credits. This requirement is satisfied by any undergraduate course that isn’t required by the program.