Major in Dance
The Bachelor of Arts in Dance offers diverse, rigorous dance training within the context of Loyola’s Ignatian liberal arts curriculum in the service of social justice. The dance curriculum features classical, contemporary and global forms which contextualize and enrich current and emerging approaches to dance creation, dance research, and performance.
Performance-Based Pedagogy
Loyola’s performance-based pedagogy supports application and synthesis of classroom practice and theory. Dance majors perform regularly in curricular and co-curricular events. Our Annual Dance Concert in the Newhart Family Theatre features fully produced classical and contemporary repertory. Dance majors perform site-specific works at Loyola University Museum of Art, The Institute for Environmental Sustainability, Madonna della Strada Chapel, and countless other sites, in addition to performing in musical theatre productions and independent projects.
Chicago serves as extended classroom for our program. Our dancers engage extensively with the professional dance community through Loyola’s premier professional faculty, guest artists, internship opportunities, world-class performances, master classes and workshops.
Dance as Research and Social Justice
Loyola dancers participate in a host of co-curricular activities that strengthen artistic practices through undergraduate research and serve our commitment to social justice. This includes annual travel to The American College Dance Association conference, participation in Loyola’s IN/Motion International Dance Film Festival, and engagement in a wide array of interdisciplinary collaborations and international immersion activities. Our value of justice spurs multiple initiatives beyond performance including community outreach, symposium organizing, student driven service projects, and coursework in adaptive dance practices, pedagogy, composition, and fieldwork.
Leadership
The Bachelor of Arts in Dance celebrates student leadership and initiative. Central to our vision is that students graduate from Loyola prepared to work in the dance field within a variety of contexts including concert and commerical dance, education, arts activism and advocacy, choreography, graduate school and much more. Opportunities for student leadership, such as participation in the Loyola Dance Honors Society and Leadership Advisory Board, mentored research, independent choreography, and interdisciplinary projects provide students with the experience and skills needed to be future innovators.
Vision
- The study of dance is experiential and transformative, impacting student learning in affective, psychomotor, cognitive and spiritual domains.
- We preserve and contextualize classical techniques and masterworks, investigating work from the past to enrich current and emerging approaches to dance creation and performance.
- Our curricular and co-curricular structures engage students in a wide variety of dance experiences that serve as professional development, community-building, and self-discovery opportunities.
- We are committed to excellence in the building of dance professionals and artists who will be advocates for creative work and will become leaders in their fields.
Learning Outcomes
- Demonstrate an understanding of choreographic processes, aesthetic properties of style, and the ways these shape and are shaped by artistic and cultural ideas and contexts
- Apply and synthesize performance experience with a wide selection of dance repertory, the principal eras, genres, and cultural sources.
- Employ fundamental knowledge of the body/embodiment and of kinesiology as applicable to work in dance. Critically evaluate classroom technique, injury prevention, wellness, and personal development.
- Apply the ability to think, speak, and write clearly and effectively, and to communicate with precision, cogency, and rhetorical effectiveness, with the understanding that sharing our work in multiple contexts allows us to engage with the world on topics of academic and social relevance.
- Demonstrate the ability to develop and defend critical evaluations through creative inquiry and to respect, understand, and evaluate work in a variety of disciplines and scholarly, artistic, and pedagogical endeavors.
- Convey general knowledge of business and professional practices as they relate to the field of dance, recognizing that collaboration and interconnection are central to the growth and strengthening of our field.
- Demonstrate an understanding of, and experience in thinking about, moral and ethical problems. Cultivate empathy within roles as scholars and artists.
