Masters in Dance in USA

Dance/movement therapy is a powerful, creative, and effective method of mental health treatment. At Lesley, investigate the power of dance and movement as a therapeutic outlet for individuals, groups, and communities. As you train to qualify as both a dance/movement therapist and licensed mental health counselor, be mentored by faculty who innovate in the field. From them, learn proven strategies for opening channels of expression and nonverbal communication.

Here, you’ll learn to address the emotional, cognitive, physical, and spiritual health of individuals using dance as a lens for observation, research, and intervention. Throughout your studies, you’ll increase your awareness of socio-cultural dynamics in yourself and others, and become skilled in intrapersonal reflections, integrating theory and practice, making connections with different populations, and building community.

The Department of Theatre and Dance seeks dance artists with diverse interests and backgrounds to apply for our new practice-based, creative research oriented MFA. Students will focus on embodied inquiry through choreographic creation and performance, while engaging with a comprehensive core curriculum of practice and theory courses that emphasize the development of the whole artist, body and mind. With close faculty mentorship and numerous opportunities to create and present work, students will cultivate the knowledge and skills necessary to become the next generation of innovative dance makers, leaders, teaching-artists, and artist-scholars

The Dance MFA program at University of the Arts aims to rethink inherited practices and consider differently the very idea of study. The program extends the context of learning from the studio and classroom to cities and communities as spaces for learning.

In the Department of Dance at Sam Houston State University, you’ll experience a dynamic, challenging education that integrates creativity, performance, and scholarly pursuits designed to prepare you for a 21st-century career in dance.  In addition to an intensive studio experience with substantive choreographic and performance opportunities, you’ll receive broad exposure to the philosophical, theoretical, and creative process context of dance as an art form.

The innovative Dance MFA program is designed to encourage your exploration of interests beyond dance, areas that will inform and facilitate your future artistic and scholarly investigations. Graduates of the Department of Dance are successfully employed around the nation in a variety of careers including performing artists, artistic directors of dance companies, dance educators at all levels and various health care professionals such as physicians, chiropractors, physiotherapists and dance therapists.

The MFA Curriculum is designed to promote a candidate’s progress through our stated objectives: Choreography, Communication, Moving, Teaching, and Career Planning. Included in these are courses in dance studies, somatics, pedagogy, and two semesters devoted to an innovative lab team taught by our faculty and designed in collaboration with students.  The final year of study is devoted to synthesizing the above objectives evidenced by the production of the candidate’s choreography, their written thesis document, oral presentation, and plans for propelling students' career into the professional sphere.

Community Dance is a rapidly growing professional and academic field, in which dance professionals engage with community participants through collaborative, inclusive practices. Our M.A. program is the first in the United States in this hybrid, dynamic field. Our curriculum develops knowledgeable, effective, creative advocates for dance as form of research and an adaptable, socially relevant practice. Graduates will be prepared to explain the value of dance participation, and to lead dance experiences that foster community and enhance civic responsibility.

The Dance Department offers programs of study leading to the Master of Arts, Master of Fine Arts, and Doctor of Philosophy degrees. All students are expected to develop a command of the discipline of dance, as a performing art and as both subject and medium of inquiry. The department's mission places high value on the role of dance in a pluralistic, multicultural society.

The Master's of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in Dance at the University of Alabama will develop students’ creative, performance, and scholarly work and prepare them for multiple professional destinations as dance artists, scholars, and teachers. The Dance (MFA) degree program will support the development of diverse skills in classical and contemporary dance techniques, dance pedagogy, historical perspectives and critical theory, as well as technical and artistic integration of dance-specific technologies. 

The Master of Fine Arts program in dance offers two emphasis areas in choreography or performance. Students must first complete the online application and then be selected to interview and audition to be considered for admission.