For student who plan to pursue careers as professional dancers, colleges offer dance performance majors. These programs focus on artistic achievement and technical mastery of the discipline. Southern Utah University in Cedar City offers a dance curriculum with performance emphasis that ends with a Bachelor of Arts or Science degree. The program affords students extensive performance and choreographic opportunities combined with a variety of academic areas of study. Southern Methodist University in Dallas has a dance performance major within a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree that offers professional dance training to develop the disciplined artists. Coursework at The Meadows School of the Arts focuses on ballet, modern dance and jazz. which are utilized within various performance opportunities. Students work with faculty to become trained, professional dancers. Admission for both schools requires an audition, along with meeting other university standards.
Many dancers desire to share their love of dance with others in a teaching capacity. Dance education programs prepare students to become dance educators at a variety of levels. Kent State University in Ohio offers a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree that specially prepares students for careers in the public schools, offering classes in the practice of educational approaches and the history of education as part of its curriculum. Marymount Manhattan College in New York City offers a teaching dance arts concentration within their Bachelor of Arts program for those who desire a career in teaching techniques to children, the community and special populations.
For students who hope to use dance as part of physical therapy or other health service occupations, there are multidisciplinary curriculums. The dance program at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, produces students who have gone on to work not only in performance, but also in the fields of social services and health. Dance majors are equipped to work in areas of occupational therapy, chiropractic medicine and therapy, using dance skills to help others with barriers to movement. Acceptance to the SHSU program is by audition only and a great emphasis is placed on technique, however the curriculum is varied and includes classes pedagogy, world dance, improvisation and social forms. Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Penn., offers dual-major programs in dance medicine and dance therapy, which combine coursework in dance with biology, physiology, neuroscience or psychology. These specialized programs prepare students for careers in physical therapy, dance therapy, movement therapy and dance medicine. Muhlenberg also offers a comprehensive six-year cooperative program with Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. Through this program students receive their Bachelor of Arts degree in dance and a doctorate in physical therapy.
Other programs combine dance education with a liberal arts foundation. Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, offers Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees in dance through its Mason Gross School of the Arts in New Brunswick. This degree provides a broad experience in the liberal arts with a concentration in dance. Many graduates go into the fields of performance, education, choreography, production, management, publishing or sales. The dance department at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., offers a Bachelor of Science degree in dance that is rooted in the liberal arts. The department focuses on critical thinking, creativity, history, movement, studio development and performance which gives students a earning framework for dance as a practice and an art form. Coursework includes intense training and academic classes that prepare students to work in the performance, education, choreography and/or the arts administration fields. Dance also is offered as a minor and combined with complementary areas of study such as art history, arts administration, music, theater, museum studies or exercise.