Dance education

File:Jack Delano, Tap dancing class at Iowa State College, 1942.jpg

Tap dancing class, 1942.

Dance education is the transferring of dance performance skills and knowledge of dance to students through teaching and training, or acquiring such knowledge and skills through research.

Curriculum

In general, a dance education curriculum is designed to impart dance performance skills, or knowledge of dance, or both to students. Knowledge-oriented curricula may cover any of a diverse range of topics, including dance notation, human anatomy, physics, dance history, and cultural aspects of dance.

A curriculum may involve the study of one or more dance genres, including formal genres such as ballet, ballroom, contemporary, jazz, Latin, and tap dance, and informal and social genres such as line, freestyle, and sequence dancing.

Professional dance education

Professional and vocational dance education is offered by both public and private institutions. Private institutions, which are commonly known as dance schools or dance colleges, are typically focused on dance education, whereas public institutions usually cover a broad range of topics. Examples of private institutions include the Royal Ballet School and the School of American Ballet.

Many public and private universities and colleges offer minor programs in dance, or major programs with academic degrees such as Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Fine Arts, and Master of Fine Arts in dance. Some public secondary education institutions offer comprehensive dance education curricula. For example, Jefferson High School (Portland, Oregon) offers concentrated vocational dance education in conjunction with its pre-professional dance company, The Jefferson Dancers.

See also

• Ballet training
• National Dance Education Organization