DANCE college!

[janemac]

someone please give me some colleges that have a strong dance program preferably in ballet .

i don't want a college that's "art only."

thank you in advance !

[calmom]

Jane, do you want to major in dance? Or do you want to have a good dance program available to you while you major in something else? (It makes a difference, because at some colleges most of the courses are open only to dance majors).

[abasket]

I've heard Butler has a good dance program.

[dt123]

SMU in Dallas has a good dance program.

[mercymom]

Second for Butler. Strong program, primarily ballet focus. The director has lots of ties to NY companies and professionals. Our friend's D who just graduated from Butler spent her summers working in NY with Jacques D'Amboise's ballet outreach program, getting trained for that (she decided not to pursue being in a company), but we've seen their graduates in companies like Dance Theater of Harlem.

The Butler grad also looked at SUNY Purchase, FSU and TCU, plus a school in NYC (not NYU altho' we know someone there as well) I can't think of right now. Manhattanvile (?) maybe.

Oh, I U Bloomington has an excellent ballet degree. Know a graduate who went with the Louisville Ballet and a boy who is there now on full scholarhsip. Good luck!

[janemac]

i'd like to major , calmom.

[mercymom]

Our school also has a recent grad of Juilliard, but you said you want a program in a regular college, not a conservatory. Dickinson College in Carlysle Pa. has a pretty good ballet program and close ties with CPYB. The CPYB summer students stay in Dickinson's dorms. There is a physics prof at Dickinson who's written a couple of books on the Physics of Dance that are very worthwhile reading, all ballet focused due to his 25 year ties to CPYB. There are pictures of Julie Kent in it working with the prof when she was starting out.

[ophiolite]

I'm unsure of how it ranks per se, but I know someone who went to Ohio State for dance...

[janemac]

to add to my above post , i want to major in a dance program that is strong in ballet , but also contains courses about dance therapy and physiology & anatomy and stuff like that .

thanks !

[katliamom]

University of California - Irvine has a world-class dance program, very strong in ballet - and all the other programs you'd expect in a major univeristy.

[janemac]

katliamom , great minds think alike ! UCI has been my dream school since the 7th grade !

[katliamom]

Are you a CA resident? If so, you can't go wrong with Irvine -- but it could be tough to get into if you're OOS

[TheDad]

X-posted...another rec for Irvine buried below.

My D was a very serious ballet dancer, part of a strong pre-professional studio, and access to high-level ballet was one of her serious criteria. As we investigated possibilities, "access" became the operative word, because not all ballet possibilities were directly through the college.

A key question is how picky you are about your non-Dance academics. U/Indiana and U/Utah both have strong ballet-centered Dance majors but are academically very ordinary. Two womens colleges, Barnard and Smith, have pretty strong ballet classes...Barnard's were the best ballet classes that D found during her search but she preferred Smith overall; both have very good academics.

University of California--Irvine has a pretty strong Dance major with good ballet depth; I know someone who's going there who's very happy with the program. It's a middlin' UC, not excessively challenging but not chopped liver either. It was the last school crossed off D's application list and might have made it as a Safety if it hadn't been in-state.

Some colleges have a very strong "EC" ballet component but no ballet major. Stanford's Cardinal Ballet is a very serious group that has staged Balanchine works under the direction of repetiteurs from the Balanchine trust, for instance, but there is not a dance major per se offered at Stanford. I know at least one dancer from the Sacramento Ballet who is taking an academic degree at Stanford and whom I believe has participated with Cardinal Ballet along the way.

New Haven Ballet was virtually across the street from Yale and Crimson Ballet appeared to be similar to Cardinal Ballet in its ambitions and execution. D did not apply to Brown because the associated ballet opportunity was through a Providence Ballet company whose website indicated a Russian-oriented style of ballet that D wasn't wild about (she's a fusion of Balanchine & RAD).

DANCE magazine at least periodically has an extensive round-up of all the college dance programs. Many many more schools offer Modern-oriented Dance programs than ballet. For many schools, ballet offerings top out at "Intermediate." D's Safety, Skidmore, was in large part chosen because its ballet offerings included a separate Pas de Deux class, a rarity.

While this may not apply to the OP, who is looking to major in Dance, D found a doable option in D.C. with Washington Ballet, which could have been the ballet anchor if she had gone to Georgetown or George Washington.

[huskem55]

barnard
connecticut college
oberlin
skidmore
smith
vassar
wesleyan

[TutuTaxi]

janemac- TheDad gives a great summary of university dance programs. Are you looking for primarily classical ballet, modern, or a combo? What are your goals after graduation?

You should join “Ballet Talk for Dancers” - they have a wonderful forum dedicated to college dance programs.

Good luck