Dance Department

The Hunter College Dance Departments offers a BA in Dance, 5 year BA/MA and an MA in Dance Education with New York State K-12 certification. Our curriculum provides students with a strong foundation that can lead to professional careers for performers, creators, scholars, educators, and arts advocates. Hunter Dance alumni have worked with artists and companies such as Bill T. Jones, Doug Varone, Pilobolus, Liz Lerman, Trisha Brown, Vicky Shick, Heidi Latsky, Pilobolus, director Peter Sellers, NY Baroque Dance Company, Phantom Limb, Camille A. Brown, Christal Brown, BodyCartography Project, SYTYCD, in various Broadway productions, and as independent choreographers. From a campus in the heart of New York City, the Dance Department faculty and guest artists/scholars are active leaders in the field. The cultural diversity of the student population, the active, professional faculty, and the wide range of program opportunities make the Hunter College Dance Program a dynamic place to study Dance.

Mission & Philosophy of the Hunter College Dance Program

The mission of the Dance Department is to provide a rigorous, challenging, humanistic dance education, housed in a liberal arts environment. The Department encourages curiosity and passion, developing expansive definitions of what it is to be a dance artist, educator and citizen of the world. Courses are designed to support students in becoming articulate movers, speakers, and writers. We provide an array of curricular and co-curricular research opportunities that are integral to the student experience. The Dance Department actively reflects and participates in the cultural and artistic diversity of New York City.

Learning Outcomes

At completion of the degree, a dance major will be able to:

• Recognize, analyze, and critique ideas in dance from multiple perspectives and through physical, spoken, and written media.
• Demonstrate an increased capacity to meet challenges in a range of dance environments.
• Appreciate and investigate dance and movement as culturally and historically encoded.
• Approach artistic physical practice with informed intention, respect, and commitment.
• Integrate personal responsibility and reflective practice in a range of creative contexts.
• Demonstrate capacity to take a complex process to completion.
• Interact with and contribute meaningfully to New York City arts and education communities

Dance, a live artistic practice, is essential to a humanistic, liberal arts education.

• Dance integrates many aspects of human experience, including perception, imagination, action, expression, and relationship to others. The Hunter dance curriculum builds students’ capacities to observe, reflect, and better understand their place in the world.

 A diverse community is made up of unique individuals.

• While encouraging cooperative effort and collaboration, the Hunter College Dance Program recognizes the uniqueness of each individual and strives to support the healthy development of every voice. In so doing, we invite and celebrate different points of view as we cultivate the art of discussion.

Artistry is not limited by field of endeavor.

• Through artistic pursuit, students build rich inner lives and deepen their capacities to observe and think critically. The curriculum’s focus on dance artistry—including choreographing, dancing, performing, producing, writing, and exploring—reflects our belief that the development of artistry helps students to succeed on any career path and instills the courage to persist.

Lifelong learning requires that individuals find and pursue meaningful challenges for themselves.

• Intrinsic motivation feeds the desire to continue learning and is key to building strong values and work habits. Both faculty and students in the program are expected to ask challenging questions of themselves and others and to contribute to the larger NYC and Hunter communities in productive and enduring ways.