Dance Department

Chair: Miriam Mahdaviani-Goldstone;

Professors: John Meehan, Stephen Rooks;

Lecturer: Miriam Mahdaviani-Goldstone;

Visiting Assistant Professor: Leslie Partridge Sachs;

Adjunct Assistant Professor: Jessie Levey;

Adjunct Instructors: Chelsea Acree, Marisa Gorst, Lisa Harvie, Julian Llanos;

Adjunct Artists: Howard Kilik, Carolyn Pallister-Kulic.

Courses for academic credit are offered in modern dance, ballet, jazz, hip hop and contemporary technique. In addition, the department offers courses geared around exploring and developing new dance works, and Vassar Repertory Dance Theatre (VRDT), which presents students with performance and choreography opportunities throughout the year. VRDT annually performs repertoire including modern dance reconstructions, classical and contemporary ballet works, faculty pieces, and original student choreography.

The Dance department offers two correlate sequences, in Dance Performance and Dance Studies, allowing students to focus on their dance studies as they major in another discipline.

Requirements for dance courses vary with the instructor and subject matter, but each technique course demands a skill level of achievement, attendance, and a demonstrable improvement at an acceptable level. Several courses involve written testing and/or research papers. Courses within a single discipline/area of study in dance, e.g., ballet, modern or jazz, may only be taken for credit in ascending numerical order, i.e, one may not register in one level and subsequently receive credit in a lower level. One may, however, with the permission of the instructor, audit classes in an any sequence. Please consult with the teacher of the course for any audit privileges.

Programs

Correlate Sequences in Dance

Courses

Dance: I. Introductory

Dance: II. Intermediate

Dance: III. Advanced