Dance
BACHELOR OF ARTS | MINOR
Stretch the boundaries of your performance
In the Dance Bachelor of Arts program at the Corcoran School, we train students to tell their own stories through movement. If you are ready to grow as a dancer and as an artist, to be mentored by internationally acclaimed instructors and to cultivate your artistic voice, the Corcoran is for you. The strength of the program is the intimate relationship and mentorship by the dance faculty.
We are dedicated to educating dancers and choreographers of the future through our global, interdisciplinary community located in the heart of Washington, D.C. Working with national and internationally known guest artists through classes and rehearsals, our students establish professional connections to a variety of geographies and heritages with countless performative opportunities both in and out of the studio.
Our program prepares you for a professional career in the multifaceted field of dance as artist, entrepreneur, manager or dance specialist. We focus on modern, postmodern and contemporary dance techniques, emphasizing experimentation through creative process, and our courses are allied with the body of knowledge found in somatic theories. Modern technique classes are offered at four levels, and students take additional classes in dance history, production and career strategies.
If you’re looking for a dance program that emphasizes art and creative problem solving, where you’ll engage with diverse peers and innovative faculty, there is no better place than at the Corcoran School.
PROSPECTIVE STUDENTS
INFORMATION SESSIONS
Date: Wednesday, September 4, 2024
Time: 7:00-8:00 p.m. ET
Location: Online
Date: Monday, November 18, 2024
Time: 6:00-7:00 p.m. ET
Location: Online
Minor in dance
GW’s Dance program trains students to tell their own stories through movement. Our program is designed to make it easy for students to double minor which affords exciting cross discipline studies and provides well-rounded graduates the tools to achieve their goals. Our graduates are prepared for a variety of professional careers including performer, director, set designer, production assistant or teachers.
If you are ready to grow as a dancer and as an artist, to be mentored by internationally acclaimed instructors, and to cultivate your artistic voice, our minor program is for you. With an emphasis on technique, our curriculum simultaneously develops the physical strength of our dancers while building their confidence as choreographers. We focus on modern, postmodern and contemporary dance techniques, emphasizing experimentation through creative process, and our courses are allied with the body of knowledge found in somatic theories. Through our global, interdisciplinary community located in the heart of Washington, D.C., we work with national and internationally known guest artists through classes and rehearsals. You will establish professional connections to a variety of geographies and heritages with countless performative opportunities both in and out of the studio.
The following requirements must be fulfilled: 18 credits, including a 3-credit required course and 15 credits in elective courses.
Program of Study
With an emphasis on technique, our curriculum simultaneously develops the physical strength of our dancers while building their confidence as choreographers. Through classes in technique, choreography and theory, students gain a strong foundation for understanding movement. In addition, required coursework in lighting and costuming expands production skills within the broader context of the theatrical environment.
You will also study somatic theories, improvisation, composition, performance art and dance history, work with guest artists from around the world and engage with professional organizations through internships.
The culmination of the program of study is a thesis project that showcases students' creativity, allowing them to demonstrate their skills in all areas of performance and production. From choreography to costume and audio design and more, the thesis is an opportunity for our dancers to exhibit their experience in all components of a dance performance.
CAREER SERVICES
Whether you are a major or minor, our students prepare for a variety of professional careers including performer, director, set designer, production assistant or teachers.
AUDITIONS (FOR CURRENT STUDENTS)
All GW students are invited to take dance, music and theatre classes and audition for music ensembles, plays and performances. Check out dates and more information about auditions.
333 by Alexia Papatsa (Dance BA, ‘24)
Alexia Papatsa (Dance BA, ‘24) is an Athenian choreographer with roots in Thessaloniki, Greece. Her work revolves around the exploration of self through memory and trauma. Alexia’s research explores how the perception of the self changes with grief and how physical tension can be expressed through the body. Through her studies, she aims to build a bridge between visual arts, dance, and therapy.
Alexia’s thesis project for NEXT, 333, inspects the perception of self through memory and trauma by exploring the multidimensional impacts of grief, memory, religion, and transgenerational trauma. Here, each dancer dissects a life-changing experience through their own embodied interpretation and uses movement to capture their feelings.
Alexia’s piece asks "What have you grieved?", "Where do you feel pain and physical tension when stressed?", "What do you need the most when you are healing?" 333 invites viewers to acknowledge the performance for the stories it presents, the people and places it eulogizes, and to reflect on the self-shaping and deep meanings that life contains.
Pictured above: Dancers in "333" by student choreographer Alexia Papatsa in the NEXT Extravaganza 2024. Photos by Maria Luz Bravo (New Media Photojournalism '18).
Born and raised in the coastal town of Murrells Inlet, South Carolina, Berkley Lane (B.A. ‘20) has always admired the ocean and all of its systems. As a dancer, she is inspired by the environment as she gravitates towards movement styles that are free-flowing and grounded, with large sweeping movements that use her entire body at once. Throughout Berkley’s time at GW, she has choreographed dances inspired by how water molecules move together, how trees grow slowly in a large forest and how waves interact with one another and with other organisms in the ocean.
Berkley's senior thesis Moving Through the Bloom combines her passion for both Environmental Science and Dance as she explores research on the Chesapeake Bay and its dead zones. Her work was part of the 2020 NEXT Exhibition; see more here.
Hana Springer, double major in Dance and International Affairs, was one of a pair of students that traveled to Taiwan. The trip included participation in an international arts festival, rehearsals with world-famous choreographers and sharing tips and Ta-a noodles with fellow dancers from around the globe. “Dancing in Taiwan showed me firsthand how art can be a tool for uniting people, no matter who they are or where they come from. We all are more connected than we often realize, and dancing is a powerful way to express those connections.”
Corcoran music and dance students were invited to perform “Modulating Movements: Sonic and Kinesthetic Interpretations of Sculptural Works" at the National Gallery as part of the new collaboration between the Corcoran and the Gallery. This unique event showcased students of electronic music composition and dance choreography, led by Corcoran faculty members Heather Stebbins and Anna Kimmel.
DANCE FILM SHORTS 2020
Artistic Director, Maida Withers and New Media/Film Makers, Guest Artists, Robin Bell and Ludovic Jolivet joined with GW dance faculty and choreography students to create dance on camera shorts to broadcast to the public online. Projects feature film shorts by Faculty Choreographers Dana Tai Soon Burgess and Giselle Ruzany, along with Student Choreographers Katherine Auerswald, Jillian Canning, Julia Chodyla, Chloe Davis, Hannah Jacobson, Alison Janega, Kinaya Mceady, and Madelyn Sell. Dancers, who are also filming themselves dancing “on location,” collaborate remotely with choreographers from national and international locations in the creation of the dance film shorts.
Upcoming Events
Dance News
Time to Shine: CCAS Showcase Highlights Student Research
April 9, 2025
Art History Majors MC Daubendiek and Sandra Koretz--both Luther Rice Undergraduate Research Fellowship recipients, and senior Dance major Ana Arledge–participated in the third annual CCAS Research Showcase April 2.
Jessica Denson (Adjunct Professor of Dance) quoted by Dance Magazine
April 2, 2025
Behind “The Nelken Line” Dance Protest in DC—and the Organizers’ Hope to Take It National.
Student dancers waltz through dress rehearsal ahead of fall concert
November 21, 2024
Updated: Nov. 18, 2024, at 4:55 p.m.
