Visit Us
Welcome to the School of Dance!
There's a great deal of creation and performance going on around the clock in the College of Fine Arts. We welcome you to stop in and see some of our performances or exhibitions. To ease your visit, we have created the Calendar of Events, a page for the Fine Arts Box Office and a Directions page.
Please also see the Community Outreach opportunities available through the college.
Imagine
. . . a college dance program that has been invited to the Kennedy Center to perform in a festival where only professional companies are presented
. . . a college dance program that has been invited to international gatherings in Hong Kong and Germany,
. . . a college dance ensemble that has toured Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands and major U.S. cities,
. . . a college dance program that has hosted national and international festivals including the American College Dance Festival and the Congress on Research on Dance
No need to imagine. You can be a part of this program -The University of Arizona School of Dance!
The dance curriculum is designed to prepare students for careers as performers, choreographers, movement specialists and teachers and develops scholarly foundations for specialized and advanced degree work. It approaches the study of dance as an art form and as a means to understand society, history, the human body, and other areas of scholarly endeavor. Unique among universities, The University of Arizona offers jazz, ballet, and modern dance with equal emphasis. Students have the opportunity to experience all three and to work closely with outstanding faculty and resident artists. Faculty members teach both undergraduate and graduate courses and take seriously their responsibility to extend their expertise and artistry to the community beyond the campus.
Alumni include many dancers and choreographers who have gone on to careers with national and regional dance companies such as River North, Chicago; Oklahoma City Ballet, Dance Spectrum, Seattle; Louisville Ballet, Radio City Music Hall Rockettes, Denver Ballet, Houston Ballet, Dance Kaleidescope, Indianapolis; Rhode Island Ballet, San Diego's modern jazz dance company, Rincon Dance Collective, Chicago, Melissa Thodos and Company, Chicago, Dayton Ballet and Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Company, Colorado. Other venues for University of Arizona dance graduates are and have been, Disneyland Tokyo and Anaheim, Disneyworld, various cruise ship lines, the Wayne Newton Theatre, Branson, Missouri, and Space Dreams, Germany. Some have begun their own companies, choreographed for national companies, dance festivals and events; others chose to attend graduate school earning the degrees of Master of Fine Arts and PhD. Still others carry the dance tradition to students in the elementary, junior high and high schools or work in dance therapy programs.
Program Honors
The UA's Dance Divison is conisdered one of the top programs in the United States and England. Carol J. Everett, Direfctor of Admissions at Juilliard, listed the UA's dance programs as one of the best 20 in her 1992 "The Performing Arts Major's College Guide". In addition to being internationally recognized, in 1995 the program was selected for the top department awrd at the University of Arizona. In awarding the School of Dance the University-Wide Teaching Award for Meritorious Departmental Achievement in Undergraduate Education, A UA committee lauded the School of Dance, "for sharing (your) vision, your art and inspiration across cultural, educational and disciplinary bounds."
The University of Arizona Dance Program is a charter member of the National Association of Schools of Dance.