DANCE (Minor)

Dance courses in a variety of styles, global forms and levels are offered through the Department of Visual & Performing Arts to all students. The study of dance at Curry welcomes all abilities and emphasizes the fusion of scholarship with creativity, physical expression, and social advocacy.

Students may declare a minor in dance to complement a major in any other area of study. The combination of a dance minor with a major in Public Health and Wellness, Psychology, Studio Arts, or Business Administration, for example, may lead, respectively, to graduate study and/or careers in such fields as dance/health education, expressive therapies, community arts programming, or arts administration. A minor in dance may also enhance the preparation and competitiveness of students enrolled in the educator licensure majors.

A student who decides to declare the dance minor must do so through a member of the dance faculty or the chairperson of Visual & Performing Arts.

The dance faculty works with the student to plan a sequence of courses most appropriate to individual background and goals. Some dance courses are repeatable for additional credit.

In addition to the requirements listed below, the faculty encourages dance minors to elect an inter-area field experience that applies a knowledge of dance in a field placement appropriate to the student’s major. 

Program Learning Outcomes:

1. Demonstrate mastery of basic and intermediate codified movement in two or more dance forms.

2. Practice fundamental dance principles through alignment, flexibility, strength and range of motion.

3. Articulate choreographic intent through the performance of movement.

4. Communicate using dance terminology in writing assignments and discussions.

5. Manipulate movement in order to create variations of existing thematic material and choreographic form.

6. Examine - through practice and theory - the artistic contributions of world dance forms with particular attention to origins, historical development, appropriation, and contemporary applications.