Opinions on Various Dance Programs

College Majors Dance Major
1

<p>Hi everyone!</p>

<p>I was wondering if anyone had any opinions or information about any of these dance programs. I am primarily interested in ballet, but also enjoy other styles of dance.</p>

<p>University of Richmond
Wake Forest University
Elon University
University of Alabama
Indiana University Bloomington</p>

<p>How vigorous are these programs? What are the performance opportunities like? I know Indiana has an excellent ballet program, but I am not sure about the others. Thanks :) </p>

2

<p>I can tell you about richmond’s. There are not very many performance opportunities (if at all), unless you join university dancers, which is a huge time commitment (12+ hours a week depending on the time of year) and competitive to make. <a href=“http://theatredance.richmond.edu/program/dance-major.html”>http://theatredance.richmond.edu/program/dance-major.html&lt;/a&gt; You are required to take styles outside of ballet and don’t even have to take ballet at all if you choose another style. Not every style is offered every semester (for example, there is no pointe this semester) and typically only 1-2 levels exist each semester of each style (level 1 being intro, you dont necessarily need dance experience). I am currently auditing the jazz 2 course, which is hard for me since I have done jazz in a while. The class meets tuesdays and thursdays for 75 minutes. As part of most courses, you have to watch performances and write critiques. Most also have a research paper. The way its structured, you only take each class once, so you may have ballet and jazz one semester and then modern and tap another. If you want to do every style every semester, you can’t. The program isn’t very intense. There also aren’t very many students in the dance department.</p>

3

<p>@guineagirl96 Thanks for the info! That helps a lot :)</p>

4

<p>My DD’s friend looked into Indiana and they are very much ballet focused.</p>

5

<p>Anyone have any information about Elon?</p>

6

<p>@zebrarunner I emailed someone from the Dance Department at Elon. Their program is more modern focused than ballet. You are required to take both ballet and modern, but they don’t perform classical ballet pieces. :slight_smile: That’s about all I know. Hope that helps somewhat :slight_smile: </p>

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<p>Thanks jellers29 that is very good to know! S has sent in a prescreen to Elon but is waiting to hear if he will get an audition.</p>

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<p>@zebrarunner Glad it helped! Good luck to your son! </p>