<p>Hello!
I've heard that Barnard/ Columbia's dance department is supposed to be excellent. I'm going to go view a class over the summer, but I was just wondering if anyone who has been a part of it could tell me about it?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>I don’t have any first hand knowledge of the Barnard dance department, so definitely check them out. That said, I did see a performance by dancers from Barnard at Dance Theater Workshop. A resident choreographer was using them for a piece she was presenting. The good news is there are performance oportunities like this, the bad is the Barnard girls were not very good. Maybe I was just expecting too much given the venue.</p>
<p>I remember a poster (either on this or a different board) who indicated that her daughter, who had had performing success, had received excellent instruction at Barnard. On the other hand, my d refused to take the college tour after taking a dance class there when visiting. The class she tried was not at Barnard’s highest level, and the students in the class she took were very casual about their approach, even mentioning that they were dancing to stay in shape. The attitude of the faculty member we met with alluded to developing art donors (rather than performers). I couldn’t convince my d to return to try or observe the highest level technique class. So, if you are a serious dancer, be sure to observe their most advanced class!</p>
<p>Their most advanced level ballet classes are excellent. My daughter took a technique & pointe class while visiting there and their ballet faculty are excellent (and why shouldn’t it be since Barnard is in NYC, a major center for dance?). Plus, they offer w/ Columbia a ballet company, which features former ballet company members who returned to college. I believe there was an article about this in the NY Times.</p>
<p>My daughter graduated from Barnard last year. She had planned for years to major in either dance or musical theatre (she did some professional work), and actually “found” Barnard while attending a summer dance intensive at NYU before her senior year of HS. She had searched long and hard for a college which would offer strong dance as well as strong academics. She actually ended up a Neuroscience major and is currently working on her PhD.</p>
<p>Barnard’s dance department does indeed offer excellent ballet and modern instruction at the top levels. There is significant difference, though, in what you will see in the top level classes as opposed to lower level ones (even one or two levels from the top), so those students mentioned above who observed lower classes that were NOT at the top are doing themselves (and Barnard’s dance program) a serious disservice in assuming that Barnard’s dance instruction is “beneath” them. As was mentioned above, the Columbia Ballet Collective (I believe that is the name…) actually includes professional ballet dancers who have returned to school. </p>
<p>The beauty of Barnard, though, is that students who have danced seriously all their lives but who decide that their career objectives lie elsewhere can continue dancing at a very high level all the while pursuing other academics. There are indeed various opportunities to perform in different venues. The Dance Theatre Workshop collaboration began during my daughter’s first year there. I assume it will continue. Each semester, several choreographers hold auditions for spots in their work and these are presented at performances later on. Anyone can audition for these…and at times, it’s just not possible for a student to participate in a given piece due to schedule conflicts with rehearsals, etc. Many of the top dancers at Barnard are NOT dance majors…some may be pre-med, or studying astro-physics at Columbia, for example. So the students that are chosen for a particular DTW piece may or may not actually be the “cream of the crop”, if that makes any sense.</p>
<p>ccm & im, You actually confirmed what I suspected, that the levels are not exactly incremental in the same way they would be in a pre-pro program (that students in LAC take dance for a variety of reasons). My daughter didn’t assume the classes were “beneath” her, just that the philosophy of the program didn’t gel with her goals (and unfortunately, the faculty member’s statements seemed to confirm that). I wanted her to give things a second look, but alas, at that stage of the game, she was looking for any reason to cull her lengthy list.
My point was not to cast aspersions on Barnard’s fine program, just to warn others that if they have the same experience as my d, they might prematurely cross this program off their lists.</p>
<p>Sorry if my wording was inappropriate. The point I was trying to make is that a serious dancer who wants to work professionally and yet also have the opportunity to explore and take rigorous academic classes, can certainly do that at Barnard by taking the highest level dance classes available. One does not have to have a BFA in order to be a professional dancer.</p>
Hello! Would you say there dance program is ballet based? How are the pointe classes?