2025-2026 Edition

Academic Catalog

Dance Minor

Minor Description

The Minor in Dance introduces students to aspects of the creative act of dance—imagining, making, and doing. Students minoring in Dance will combine classes in physical practice and technique with elective courses in which performance projects are conceived and created, and other electives and hybrid courses that explore topics such as the cultural history of dance as a form of research, writing about dance, and anatomy and kinesiology.  

Dance minors will gain interdisciplinary knowledge and abilities that can enhance their opportunities for future study or careers, such as creativity, performance, body awareness and mechanics, discipline, and time.  

Admission to the Minor

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Minor Requirements

The Minor in Dance consists of 5.50 credits:

Physical Practice in Dance Techniques  2 credits

Four courses (two credits at .5 credits per course) in a physical practice representing at least two traditions, and achieving level 2 in at least one tradition.

Elective 1 credit   

One additional credit (any level) within the Dance Department. This can be in the form of one 1 credit course, or two .5 credit courses.

Performance .25 or .5 credit 

One Advanced Dance Practice experience (either DANC435 .25 credit or DANC445 .5 credit).

Technical Practice .25 credit

One Advanced Technical Practice experience (DANC444 .25 credit).

Project-Based courses 2 credits

Two credits must be in project-based courses within the Dance Department that culminate in making. At least one of these must be an upper-level course. These may be dance-making courses  or hybrid courses that require a substantial final practical project in the form of a public performance or event. The culminating project does not need to be a choreographed dance. Projects could be events, workshops, site-specific happenings, social media platforms, etc., that have an embodied component and circulate in a public context. Projects need to be approved by a Dance Department advisor.


Physical Practice Courses include:

DANC202Ballet I: Practice and Theory0.5
DANC211Contemporary Technique I: Partnering and Social Dance - The Athletics of Intimacy0.5
DANC213Jazz Technique0.5
DANC244Delicious Movement: Time Is Not Even, Space Is Not Empty1
DANC251Javanese Dance I0.5
DANC260West African Dance I0.5
DANC261Bharata Natyam I: Introduction of South Indian Classical Dance0.5
DANC360West African Dance II0.5
DANC362Bharata Natyam II: Embracing the Traditional and the Modern0.5
DANC365West African Dance III0.5

Project Based Courses

Includes dance making courses, such as:

DANC249Making Dances I: Solo Work1
DANC250Dance Composition: Choreography Workshop1
DANC371Site-Specific Choreography1

and hybrid courses such as:

DANC103Dancing Bodies1
DANC237Performance Art1
DANC244Delicious Movement: Time Is Not Even, Space Is Not Empty1
DANC364Media for Performance1
DANC375Dance History: Why Dance Matters1
DANC377Perspectives in Arts as Culture: Ukrainian Arts and Language as Resistance1
DANC378Repertory and Performance: The Jewel Thief: A Ballet of the Mind1
DANC3811.5

Other elective options

In addition to the courses listed above, elective options include: 

DANC104FIntroduction to Contemporary Dance from Global Perspectives (FYS)1
DANC107Writing Is Dancing, Dancing Is Writing1
DANC111Introduction to Dance1
DANC301Anatomy and Kinesiology1
DANC447
DANC378
Dance Teaching Practicum
and Repertory and Performance: The Jewel Thief: A Ballet of the Mind
0.5