Welcome to Dance at UVM

Mission

Beginning Fall 2006 with the hiring of the first full-time tenure track faculty member in dance, Paul Besaw, UVM began offering courses in dance. Although dance has been a rich and popular past time at UVM, with numerous dance clubs/teams and dance courses offered through the Physical Education Department, this new initiative in the College of Arts and Sciences signaled the first effort to establish a comprehensive academic course of study in the field of dance.

Dance Opportunities

In addition to courses, the new Dance Program is seeking to develop dance performance opportunities for students. Plans to produce dance concerts are underway. Other opportunities include bringing guest artists in dance to campus to teach master classes and/or set dance works on UVM students. The Dance Program is working closely with the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts (http://www.flynncenter.org/) to access the dance artists they present. Our hope is to develop more opportunities for UVM students to see and interact with professional artists.

UVM is also an institutional member of the American College Dance Festival Association (ACDFA - www.acdfa.org). Students attend the ACDFA New England Regional Conference offered each spring at various campuses throughout New England (Williams College, 2007; Connecticut College, 2008). This conference offers university dance students the opportunity to study with professionals and present works from their university dance programs, creating an invaluable exchange.

The mission of the Dance Program is to provide students the opportunity to begin or continue studies in dance, as well as expand their knowledge of dance as a performance art form. Students will interact with dance in the areas of technique, composition, history/theory/criticism, and performance (both doing and viewing). Currently, the focus of the program centers on modern/contemporary dance. However, as the program develops, this focus will be embellished by study in other forms (ballet, jazz, cultural, improvisation, etc.) The Dance Program also seeks to establish and maintain strong alliances with other art forms on campus, including our colleagues in Music, Theatre, Art, and Film. The desire is to explore and advance interdisciplinary approaches to dance study and performance.

Courses

Development of the new Dance Program has started with the offering of courses in Modern Dance Technique, Dance History, Improvisation, The Aesthetics of Jazz Dance, Choreography and Dance Repertory, with hopes to offer additional courses in a variety of dance styles and theoretical approaches to dance history and dance aesthetics. Courses in dance can be found each semester in the Schedule of Courses at the UVM Registrar's website (Fall 2009 schedule).

Dance Minor

We are planning to build an academic course of study resulting in the offering of a minor in Dance for interested students. The Board of Trustees will be voting on the minor during their October 2009 meeting. Some students are choosing to create an Individually Designed Minor in Dance. For more information on this please consult Arts and Sciences website and speak with Professor Paul Besaw.