Dec 13, 2024  
2023-2024 University Catalog 
    
2023-2024 University Catalog

Dance, BFA


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Donna Faye Burchfield, Dean
dburchfield@uarts.edu

Jen McGinn, Associate Dean & Director of Undergraduate Studies
jmcginn@uarts.edu

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

C O N T E N T S

Application

Learn more and apply to the Dance program.

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 (first and sophomore years) and Portfolio & Research Series (junior and senior years).

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) Critical Dance Studies, 5) Capstone Experiences in all years and 6) PODS (Performance Pedagogies of Dance).

Program Requirements (120 credits)

Critical Studies (33 credits)


Writing (6-12 credits)


Students are placed into one of the following writing 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.

Standard


Increased Support


CRIT Choice (9 credits)


  • Select 3 courses from subject CRIT

Critical Studies Electives (15-18 credits)


Students who complete the increased support or ESL writing sequence complete 12-15 credits of CS electives; all other students complete 18 credits.

  • Though not representative of all options, students can select from the following subjects:
    • ​AHST (Art History), HIST (History)
    • AMSL (American Sign Language), FRCH (French), LITT (Literature)
    • PHIL (Philosophy), RELI (Religion)
    • SCIE (Science)
    • ANTH (Anthropology), PSYC (Psychology), SOCI (Sociology)
    •  : 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.

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