<p>My D has been dancing since she was 3 and picks up choreography easily. Of the three MT skills - acting, singing, dancing -- we feel this is her strongest with acting second. She has been taking voice lessons now for the past several months and her voice has improved dramatically. It was good enough to get her good roles in local and school productions (Audrey in Little Shop, Marcy in Spelling Bee) but she didn't have proper technique to protect her belting voice for long term use. </p>
<p>In looking at the schools she is interested in, most do NOT even do a dance call/audition at their Unifieds audition. So I was thinking it best to travel to those schools that emphasize dance.</p>
<p>Anyone aware of Unifieds auditions that included a dance call? In all of the research I've been doing, it is quite possible I missed a school that includes dance at Unifieds. (because my eyeballs are falling out of my head....oy)</p>
<p>Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>When my daughter did Unifieds, Penn State had a dance audition but it was only after you were called back from the acting/singing audition. So basically, you had to have the acting/singing skills first. (heard that dance is first when you audition on campus). She said she knew her dance skills surpassed what she saw in the room as she too has been dancing since she was about 4. Ohio Northern and Long Island University had no dance call. I know there were other schools with dance calls but she didn’t apply to those schools. Aside from Unifieds, word is that schools like Syracuse and Florida State are dance heavy in their auditions for their programs. Since she just started voice, she should definitely choose a song that shows the prettiest part of her voice-don’t try to do a lot of vocal gymnastics. I would have her to scales every day because she will be competing with kids all across the nation. I do believe in MT, voice is looked at first.</p>
<p>In addition to Penn State, my son had dance auditions for Point Park and CCM at the NYC Unifieds. That was for admission in the 2011-2012 cycle so I am not sure if that changed last year.</p>
<p>Point Park had a huge room for their dance auditions at NY Unifieds this past February. I’m thinking U of Miami also had dance auditions there but not 100% sure.</p>
<p>At Chicago Unifieds these programs had dance auditions for MT: BoCo, Ball State, Point Park, University of Michigan, CMU, NYU Tisch, RCS, Roosevelt (My friends and I auditioned for these schools.) </p>
<p>From my understanding, most MT college/conservatory programs have some form of dance component in their auditions and it is unusual not to factor that skill in. I know there are programs out there that focus on acting/vocals only, but more often than not there is a dance audition. Also, sometimes everyone dances and sometimes it is reserved for call-backs.</p>
<p>Ithaca is one program where there is NO dance audition. Great program, though…</p>
<p>Otterbein has a MT major with a concentration in dance, and of course Pace has the Commercial Dance major.</p>
<p>My S had dance calls at all of his auditions at LA Unifieds this year. The schools he auditioned at were:
CCM
Pace - close to 2 hour call
CMU
BoCo - nearly 3 hour call
NYU</p>
<p>I have also read on this board that Ball State has a long dance call at Unifieds.</p>
<p>Whether or not a specific school has a dance audition at unifieds or not, it might make sense for you to try to get a read on how much weight is actually put on dance in the context of the overall admission decision before you decide to do the audition on campus vs. at Unifides with all of the additional expense and travel. At some schools, the dance audition is really basic and would really only distinguish between a student that has absolutely no training and those that have at least some. I would wonder if the fact that a school isn’t testing dance at Unifieds would indicate that they place less emphasis on it. (I don’t know if that is true, I’m just speculating.)</p>
<p>My dd was also a strong dancer, and chose to do the majority of her auditions on campus for the advantage (to her thinking) of getting to do a dance call in the school’s own studio, and likely to be seen by more of the school’s dance faculty. In addition, she felt she was “auditioning the school”…could see the facilities, take her time to see what the campus was about so she could weigh this, among other factors, in her decisions as acceptances arrived. It was additional expense and travel (and days of senior year missed), but it really helped her when she did have hard choices to make. (Also, she ended up really sick the weekend of Unifieds…did the auditions she had planned to do, with positive results, but was very glad to have spread them out over several weekends!)</p>
<p>Otterbein only has a possible dance call, individual,at Unifieds, but has a wonderful dance department with many levels for entering students.</p>
<p>UArts has you do an individually arranged dance you bring to Unifieds, but be aware, it may be in a very small room with a low hanging chandelier. Uarts is well known for its strong dance department.</p>
<p>My daughter got admitted to U Arts as a result of a regional audition I “think” without dancing for them (could be wrong but I think so). However they did put her through additional voice and acting hoops. </p>
<p>She also had dance auditions for several schools where they would first test skills. Sometimes simple sometimes more advanced and certainly the ability to follow the choreography was tested and the highly trained dancers absolutely kicked butt in those moments. But in at least two examples the dance audition included something along the lines of: “OK, you’re an astronaut, or a cowboy or a lottery winner” show me in dance what that would look like. Only one of these is an actual example that did happen from what I"m remembering off of the top of my head but instead of setting future auditioners up to preparing for being the one I’m actually talking about my point is really to say: if you are an amazing trained dancer that can execute all of the moves that are asked of you brilliantly but you cannot connect to the character that you are playing, you could be at an unexpected disadvantage in the dance portion of an MT audition.</p>