I know what you’re thinking – dance degrees are probably useless. There are many reasons: dance careers are short, it won’t be recognized by anyone but dance companies, etc. However, the situation is a bit more nuanced, and that’s what I’ll be looking at it in this article. To start with, I’ll talk about the different approaches to dance in the academic and education world. I’ll share a bit about my experience majoring in dance at a liberal arts school. And finally, I’ll offer some advice on what route to take and the advantages of the different options.
Please note that I’m discussing mainly undergraduate degrees here, though I’ll touch on Masters and beyond briefly at the end.
Conservatory or Liberal Arts? All About Dance Degrees
There are two main tracks for dance degrees. The first is the conservatory track, where students mainly study the craft, technique, and performance of dance. One of the most famous conservatories for dance in the US is Julliard in New York, though there are many around the world. The second track is liberal arts. This generally focuses more on the field we call “dance studies,” which can cover all aspects of dance and choreography. It’s usually more related to theory, research, and writing, or more traditional so-to-speak education.
Some conservatories also offer theory courses as well, often related to performance like biomechanics or movement analysis. Likewise, a dance major in a liberal arts university might also include technique and performance. In this latter case students can usually choose which direction they want to take with their studies.
Generally we think of conservatories as kind of a prerequisite for joining a dance company, particularly ballet or contemporary. Most people who go to a conservatory for a dance degree are sure that they want to become a professional dancer. They might go on to teach or choreograph as well.
A liberal arts dance degree does not necessarily lead to any one career, and not necessarily in the dance field. A word of advice for nervous freshmen trying to choose a major: it doesn’t really matter in liberal arts. Really. If you get the degree and decent grades, it doesn’t matter. Any specialized work will usually need a master’s anyway, and unless you want to become a doctor or similar, the topic of your bachelor’s doesn’t have to be related for these higher degrees.
Instead this liberal arts approach (and perhaps conservatories as well, I don’t know), there are many different ways to deal with dance as a subject. As an example, I’ll explain a bit about my dance degree.
Case Study: Dance Major at Columbia College in New York
I did my undergraduate degree at Columbia University. The dance major is conducted through Barnard College, which is across the street and has pretty much complete cross-registration with Columbia. Basically, this means that I did the Columbia Core Curriculum and all my major classes at Barnard.
The dance degree was quite open and diverse. It required a variety of classes related to dance categories, which included:
- 1 technique class per semester, in any dance form at any level
- A certain amount of credits from classes with a strong writing component (there were many options such as dance history)
- 1 composition course
- 1 course in anatomy, biomechanics, or movement analysis
- A senior year project, either a 25 page thesis + a performance project or a 50 page thesis
(I might be forgetting something, it’s been a long time.) Usually one course is three credits, except for technique which is one credit only, and the major was something like 30-40 credits. As you can imagine, then, there was a lot of freedom in terms of which courses we took. I did quite a few performance based classes, a history course on the Ballet Russes, two composition classes, movement analysis and mostly ballet and contemporary technique with one semester of tap thrown in. I also spent a full year abroad, where I created my own curriculum with a university partner, which involved a teaching apprenticeship, choreography, and writing a research paper comparing duets in ballet and contemporary. For my senior project, I wrote about Michael Jackson’s movement signature and choreographed a piece for three dancers.
What to choose? Dance performance, Dance research, Dance Education
If dance is your interest and passion, a dance degree is a good option, and no, it’s not useless. One note that I want to make is that there is a stigma that dance teachers are dancers who couldn’t make it. Some people genuinely want to teach dance, and education is incredibly important. Dance as a subject can help students, whether or not they become dancers, in confidence, collaboration, discipline, work ethic, body awareness, and much more. If you think these skills are not important, please, tell me which world you live in.
Aside from dancing professionally and teaching, there are many other routes. You can go into wellness, where dance is used for therapy and healing. Or you could go into history, connected with anthropology and sociology. You could dip into dance studies, which can touch on a huge number of subjects and is a respected academic field in its own right. You could look into motion capture, animation, choreography, and so much more.
My final opinion is that a dance undergraduate degree – especially from a liberal arts school – is a good idea, and no, you don’t need to double major in something ‘real.’ If you are most interested in dance performance, trying for a conservatory can help you, but it’s not the only route. I am a living example of alternative routes, as I got a dance major at a liberal arts school and have done everything from education and choreography to dancing with a professional company! As they say, where there’s a will, there’s a way.
And as a final note: Masters degrees are good if you want to go into academia, and there are more and more practice-based programs out there. Masters in performing arts are terminal degrees, though there are some PhD programs. I haven’t done a Masters, so I can’t say as much, but as mentioned above, it depends on your career path.
Best of luck!