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Assessing your Dance Training and Talent

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The most competitive dance departments require an audition and/or a recent DVD of your dancing to assess your ability and your potential. (Some departments will allow you to take dance classes your freshman year and then decide if you may become a major.) The reality is that in your Senior year you are competing with other dancers for a spot in their program. It is not easy to get exact statistics on dance admissions from year-to-year, however I always inquire when talking with department chairs to get an estimate of the audition/acceptance/yield ratio-it is one factor in assessing the caliber of the department on the basis of demand and selectivity.

In researching and preparing your list of dance departments, how do you know if you are competitive and at their level? (Remember you need to be accepted academically-some departments will not allow you to audition until you have submitted an application to the college). The following are the resources you may consider using; the earlier you start this process, preferably in your sophomore year, the more they may help you prepare in the year or so prior to the actual audition:

Your current teacher: If he or she attended and/or is familiar with the college departments you want to audition for, ask him or her for a candid assessment of your ability.

Videotape: Have a videotape of yourself in class or performance made and then watch it. Self-assessment is difficult but it is a start and will give you some idea, though subjective, in comparing yourself to other dancers. Then use this in the following two ways:

Watch any videotapes on the department website and on the internet. Try to compare yourself to them in terms of technique, physical facility and performance quality.

Visit the department prior to auditioning (in your Sophomore or Junior year) and ask if you may watch classes and rehearsals. If possible, visit when they have performances you may attend-this will not only give you a gauge for the level of the dancers, but will give you an opportunity to decide if you like their repertoire and how their dancers dance!

Ask for a professional assessment – seek out a professional dancer, a dancer in that department or a college counselor specializing in dance and find out what they think of your potential to succeed at those auditions and what you need to be working on before those auditions.

Seek out a current dance major at each school to speak with and ask for their information and advice as well as to look at your videotape. Find out what their audition was like and what advice they might offer.

All of this will help you become more familiar with each department and assessing your current competitiveness and how you might spend the remaining time before the auditions to improve and prepare.

–Diane Coburn Bruning
Choreographer
Dance and Performing Arts Consultant, College Match

Diane is a nationally-recognized choreographer working with professional dance, opera and theatre companies throughout the U.S. and abroad. She has been a guest artist at over 25 universities, conservatories and professional schools. She is a graduate of Butler University and NYU in Dance with post-graduate study at Yale School of Drama. If you have questions, you may write her at [email protected]

Serious Ballet Dancers in College: Consider Graduating Early

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college dance major

Despite some decrease in the “age-anxiety” in the ballet world, companies still want to hire their dancers young to help finish their training and mold them into versatile professionals in their repertoire.

That combined with the fact that the majority of auditions for pre-professional programs, summer programs, second companies and ballet companies in the U.S. occur in the January – March time period, it is wise to consider graduating in 3 ½ years and spending the spring of your Senior year traveling to audition everywhere possible. There is no way to attend many auditions if you are still in school; if you wait for the following spring, you have lost an entire year.

Strategies to do this:

1. Take APs your junior and senior years and pass the exams with a 4 or 5.

Schools vary on how many credits they will accept but many will give credit for up to 9 credit hours for a 4 or 5 on the exam. These may count toward your core curriculum or general studies programs.

2. If your department offers summer school, attend after your freshman or sophomore years to complete some of the required courses in dance moving you forward in the progressive curriculum.

3. On the alternate summer, take one or two required academic courses at a local community college for transfer credit.

If you do two of the above successfully, you should be a semester ahead by Fall of your junior year.

When I attended Butler, several dance majors each year finished an entire year or a semester early as I did – most to dance professionally. I only missed an optional Senior Production my last semester – ironic as I was to go on to be a professional choreographer. This idea is not one dance departments will advertise (colleges need and depend upon tuition). They often say it is possible though “not encouraged.” After being accepted to the dance department, discuss this goal in advance of choosing that dance program. If they will somehow not allow it, consider your other options.

This has financial advantages as well: Summer school is usually shorter and less expensive and community college decidedly less expensive, so you will be saving much of what you would spend on tuition and housing for that Spring semester. This can help to fund your audition trips and increase the likelihood that you will be dancing in a second company or main company by the time you are 20.

– Diane Coburn Bruning
Choreographer, and Director Performing Arts Division, College Match

Four Questions to Begin Your Search for a College Dance Program

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Four Questions to Begin Your Search for a College Dance Program:

1. What is the focus of the department? While most departments offer a wide spectrum of techniques and courses, they generally have a stronger focus in one area such as ballet, modern, ethnic or choreography. Identify which ones are strongest in the area of greatest interest to you.

2. Who are on the faculty and what is the curriculum they teach? Reading faculty bios and course offerings will give you a good indication as to whether your interests and goals may be met by this department.

3. What are the performing and creative possibilities to majors? If you want to perform, find out how many opportunities you will have and what the repertoire is.

If you want to choreograph, what are the possibilities for this?

4. How competitive is it to gain admittance? This indicates to a degree the relative success of the department in attracting and training the most talented students and fulfilling their expectations.

– Diane Coburn Bruning, performing arts consultant.

p.s. – Let them know you dance…

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p.s. – Let them know you dance….by Diane Coburn Bruning

I have noticed in the last 5-6 years that more and more colleges and universities where I am a guest artist have extra-curricular dance clubs, teams and performing groups. These are at schools such as Elon, Bucknell and Richmond where there is a dance department with majors. But these are run by the non-major students who danced before they came to college and want to continue while pursuing another major. They rehearse, they perform, they contribute to campus life.

They contribute to campus life! Admissions wants to know what you will contribute to campus life! So, let them know you dance. Provide a short, professionally-produced dvd of your dancing and add a section on your dance experience to your resume. You may be an engineer student by day but dance by night. They just may like that combination…

-Diane Coburn Bruning, Performing Arts Consultant