Dance (BFA)
The Dance program at University of the Arts is one of the top-rated, most diverse undergraduate dance populations in the country. Our location is in the heart of Philadelphia's thriving art scene. You'll have the opportunity to study with some of the finest professional teaching artists in the world, and extend your dancing into our city and beyond into some of the most important dance and cultural centers in the world.
Apprenticeships, internships and international study cycles will be woven into your college experience. Many choreographic and performance experiences abound right on campus, such as those available through our Thinking, Making, Doing curriculum series and Senior Projects.
UArts Dance alumni Dominique Loude '17 and Ashley Seldon '07 perform prominently with Beyoncé and Jay-Z in their new video, "Apes**t," from their surprise joint album Everything is Love.
Ashley has been a featured dancer with Beyoncé for several years, performing with her in the halftime shows at Super Bowls 47 and 50, and in a number of previous videos, including the powerful “Formation” in 2016.
Dominique also got an Instagram shout-out from Beyoncé, who posted a photo of Dominique seated in front of one of the Louvre’s large-scale paintings. The post received more than 2 million likes.
Ashley and Dominique are currently performing with Beyoncé and Jay-Z in the music power-couple’s “On the Run” tour across Europe and the United States.
The Philadelphia Inquirer featured a profile of the two talented UArts alumni, and you can learn more about the significance of this video by reading recent articles published on the New York Times and the Atlantic.
Watch the video below:
Faculty & Mentors
Your classes will be led by passionate instructors who love dance as much as you do. From ballet to hip-hop, jazz to modern, you'll have the opportunity to learn from instructors with a variety of dance backgrounds and expertise. Click on the images below to meet faculty of the Dance program.
Visiting Artists
BFA '17
Knowing Dance More Series
Presented by the UArts School of Dance, Knowing Dance More is a series of lectures, conversations, and informal showings led by important artists and scholars in the international field of dance. This series brings into focus current issues within the production, performance, and practice of dance works and will hopefully foster ongoing conversations about knowing dance (more).
Upcoming events TBA.
Curriculum
Sample Curriculum
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).
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.
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Mutuality: Students will activate relationships in dance on personal, collective, regional and global levels.
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Relationality: Students will engage with the world through multiple lenses of collaboration, exchange and difference.
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Expressivity: Students will develop tools and ideas of expression to speak, write, and dance about/with/of/alongside.
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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.
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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: Studio Practice; Body Pathways; Thinking, Making, Doing; History, Theory and Criticism; Capstone Experiences; and Performance Pedagogies of Dance.
First Year
Body Pathways
Studio Practice: Ballet
Contemporary Art Practices
Studio Practice: Modern, Jazz & Hip-hop
First-Year Performance Workshop
Introduction to Improvisation Performance Practice
Languaging Dance, Thinking Choreographically
Second Year
Sophomore Performance & Coaching Project
Studio Practice: Ballet
Studio Practice: Modern, Jazz & Hip-hop
Movement Invention & Theatricality
Expanded Field in Dance & Performance
Body Pathways Movement Lab
Critical Dance Studies I
Third Year
Junior Seminar
Performance Pedagogies of Dance
Studio Practice
Solo Studies
Collaborative Practice and the Choreographic
Body Pathways Research Lab
Critical Dance Studies II
Fourth Year
Senior Seminar
Senior Thesis Workshop
Performance Pedagogies of Dance
Studio Practice
Choreography as Research
Improvisation as Research in Performance
Explore the Full Curriculum
Alumni Spotlight
BFA '13
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BFA '17
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BFA '17
Dance (MFA)
With the goal of educating thinking artists as world citizens, The University of the Arts in Philadelphia sets in motion a new Master of Fine Arts (MFA) program in Dance that extends the context of learning from the studio, theater and classroom to the international festival environment as a space for learning.
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