<p>Any thoughts on decent dance programs in the midwest. They don't need to be top tier programs. Looking at U of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Kansas, U of Iowa. What about Columbia College in Chicago--I hear mixed comments on their program.</p>
<p>What type of dance interests you?</p>
<p>It’s my son and contemporary. He is also interested in jazz.</p>
<p>Indiana has a nice contemporary program. It is not in the school of music, that’s the ballet one, this one is in the department of kinisiology. University of Missouri at Kansas City is another suggestion. You have a good list. I do know of one (male)friend of my daughter who was a relatively late starter and recently graduated from U of Illinois and is now in a touring company of West Side Story. Northern Illinois University might be a nice safety for him. It’s non audition (you audition for the dance scholarships), ballet based but they have strong modern and a wonderful jazz teacher, Autumn Eckmann. Especially if Illinois is your home state, it’s a reasonable price.</p>
<p>You should look at Butler University</p>
<p>Butler is great, but it’s pretty strictly ballet. I’m not sure that’s what the OP’s son is looking for.</p>
<p>Thank you for your input. He would not be looking for something strictly ballet.</p>
<p>I have heard good things about Ball State in Indiana. My DD did not like the campus when she toured and that was important to her.</p>
<p>You might want to look at the Peck School of the Arts at UW-Milwaukee. I have heard great things about the dance program.</p>
<p>Heard good things about Western Michigan University’s triple-emphasis program.
[Dancers</a> | Keigwin + Company](<a href=“http://keigwinandcompany.com/company/dancers/Matthew-Baker]Dancers”>http://keigwinandcompany.com/company/dancers/Matthew-Baker)</p>
<p>I don’t know if you’ll still see this after a couple of months, but we toured three schools a few weeks ago. My daughter is interested in contemporary dance. Here are the three schools we toured and our impressions. </p>
<p>Ball State- The dance program is excellent and highly competitive. But we stratched it off the list immediately because they won’t let her double major and she intends to also major in mathematics (I know… dance and math… lol). They also messed us up on the tour and made us late for our appointment with the department so we weren’t real impressed with that.</p>
<p>Wittenberg University- Small, private liberal arts college. We loved it. Beautiful campus. Although evangelical Lutheran, kids from all religious paths are welcome and do attend. They stress service to others and students must have service hours. Their dance major is only in its first year, although they’ve had the minor for a long time. Their facilities are okay but not uber nice. They perform in a black box type theatre which my daughter didn’t like as much. Yet, we really liked the school and the people. No auditions for the major (although we suspect that may change as the major grows), but auditions for scholarships.The head of the program has an MFA in Dance from Smith College and they have several adjuncts from nearby Ohio State. This one is still on her list, but she really wants a large school. (Her high school was tiny…)</p>
<p>Indiana University- Contemporary program. We live in southern Indiana so IU is “our school.” We love the basketball and all that. Love the campus. It’s beautiful. Daughter loves IU and it’s her first choice. One great thing we learned was that the contemporary dance program is moving to the college of Arts and Sciences. Next year it will be administratvely there, and in two years (fall 2014) when my daughter would matriculate they would physically be moved. The Department of Theatre and Drama is becoming the Department of Theatre and Dance. They are excited about this! Also, they will be a BFA now. They take about 20% of girls who audition, but as an aside she mentioned that if boys can lift, they pretty much get in. I’m not sure if that’s 100% right but it makes me think they have way less boys who apply.</p>
<p>We will be looking at other schools as well, but for now IU is the goal. Auditions are in November, February and another date mid spring semester.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>Collensgirl, those sound like great changes for IU’s contemporary program, both for the move and also becoming a BFA program.</p>
<p>The statement about male applicants wouldn’t be too far off for most contemporary programs. My daughter is a professional dancer and I can tell you that the dance worlds for male and female dancers are totally different: acceptances, career paths, incomes, rules and behavior expectations, etc. Keep this in mind wherever your daughter goes in dance and don’t let people merge statistics for male and female dancers when they try to make claims of prestige, company placement, etc. Female dancers can’t look to the path of a male dancer and assume they’ll have the same chances of success. The numbers are always wildly different.</p>
<p>P.S., Collensgirl: Check out the University of Michigan for a dance program that loves to boast about their students who double major in far-flung fields. I didn’t recommend UofM to TannaW because they don’t have good jazz.</p>
<p>The Ohio State University has a very good contemporary program, nice facilities, small department, and a great school spirit. Due to the small size of the department ( about 25 students per year), you get the feel of going to a small school but all the benefits of a major university</p>
<p>Most university dance programs are on the smaller side, it enables them to provide more individualized attention to the students that is necessary for dance. My DD attends Slippery Rock University in Western PA and there is about 100-125 in the program. Many of the dance majors do dbl major and they are supported by the dance faculty to do that. I know other schools are very much against any dbl majors at all. SRU is getting dancers from all over the country because of their program. There was a transfer from OSU last fall and she likes the program much better. And the out of state costs do not kill you if you keep a B average at SRU.</p>
<p>Thanks for the input. I haven’t been back on here for awhile but decided to check in. I’m feeling like we need to start getting serious. I’m going to check into the above mentioned programs!</p>