Session Description

Beginning in the fall semester of the freshman year, the BFA Program focuses on the students’ technical, creative, and theoretical development. This integrated development is achieved through the sequential progression of the entire undergraduate curriculum. In the beginning level studio work (workshop and technique courses), emphasis is placed on the acquisition of basic locomotor skills, movement sequencing, problem solving techniques, and improvisational abilities. During the freshman year, students are also introduced to body conditioning, somatic training, musical theory, and cultural dance forms. The intermediate level studio work focuses even more specifically on dance technique and conditioning, on individual/group performance, and on abstraction and thematic development in choreography. In the kinesiology courses, sophomore students pursue an in-depth scientific understanding of the mechanics and workings of the human body along with a clear and detailed understanding of the prevention and care of dance injuries. In the advanced level studio work, students continue to work on technique but focus more intensively on the creative process. During this time, students are more deeply involved in the production of their creative and/or scholarly research. During their junior and senior years, students expand their critical thinking abilities by investigating dance within a contextual framework that incorporates history and cultural practice, philosophy, aesthetics, and musical theories. During this same time, students are given pedagogical experiences in the elementary and secondary public schools through the teaching methods courses (Children’s Dance and Secondary Teaching Methods). Our pedagogy supports the very basis of the BFA Program– improvisation, choreography, and performance with theoretical, pedagogical, and scientific support. Because of this integrated curriculum, the students experience and utilize interactive, relational, and process-oriented pedagogy. The program is both teacher-directed and student-centered. Upon graduation from our undergraduate program, our students are fully prepared for the demands and expectations of the dance profession as future performers, choreographers, teachers, scholars, dance artists, and dance advocates.