What is a Dance Degree?

Liz Lerman (2011) neatly encapsulates what many of us often acknowledge and repeat; just

… how much dancers know and how little we share it with the rest of the world: in how much dancers know and how little the rest of the world knows we know it; (Lerman, 2011, xiv).

  • Dance has been a discipline in higher education in the UK for over forty years.
  • The breadth of features that have come to characterise dance in the academy during this time have been enriched by a permeability between the varied concepts, attitudes and manners of engagement that have become part of its maturing identity as an ‘interdiscipline’.
  • Dance knowledge is comprised of a range of complex experiences that are sensory, imaginative, critical and social, that when grouped together offer access to a range of transformative competences.
  • Dance is not simply about the mastery of technical skills, instead realize that technical skills are a gateway into non-linguistic thinking.

Lerman, L. (2011) Hiking the Horizontal Field Notes from a Choreographer. Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan Press.

Quality Assurance

All degree programmes in dance available for study in the UK, have to meet the Quality Assurance Agency standards in order to gain validation. Each programme will offer a distinct range of experience, often informed by the specialist work of staff involved or the location in which the programme is set. To find out more you can visit the Subject Benchmarks for Dance, Drama and Performing Arts .