Dance
Engaged Dance
Engaged Dance takes what you’re learning in your courses and puts it into practice through internships, research, study away, winter term, career exploration, and beyond.
Here’s a sampling of recent projects, field experiences, and post-graduate destinations for dance majors.
RISE at Oberlin
Research. Internships. Study Away. Experiential Learning.
Ways Dance Majors Rise
Research
- Dance and Arts Advocacy
- Accelerated Motion: Towards a New Dance Literacy in America
- The Making of a Modern Body
- Lighting Design in Dance/Loie Fuller
- Contemporary American Dance
Internships
- Arts Management: Jacob’s Pillow, American Dance Festival, Movement Research, Dance Place
- Health and Wellness: midwifery, massage therapy, yoga, women’s health, global health and disease management, dance therapy
- Professional Dance Companies/Venues: Gibney Dance, Big Dance Theater, Contra-Tiempo, Earth Dance, Urban Bush Women, Contact Quarterly, Neos Dance Theater
Study Away
- Danish Institute for Study Abroad, Copenhagen, Denmark
- Prague Film School, Czech Republic
- Border Studies Program, Mexico and Arizona
- Nation Building, Globalization, and Decolonizing the Mind: Southern African Perspectives, South Africa/Namibia
- Trinity La MaMa Performing Arts Semester, New York City
- Laban Centre for Dance and Movement Studies, London
Experiential Learning
- Student-run organizations hold classes and produce concerts that focus on jazz, tap, hip hop, and a broad array of forms not included in the course offerings.
- Girls in Motion, hip hop, and contact improvisation classes are taught by students at Neos Dance Theatre.
- Winter term allows students the opportunity for intensive study with a guest artist on campus, to study dance off campus, or to work on a project devised by the individual student.
First Destinations of Recent Dance Majors
- Graduate Schools:
- PhD in performance studies at NYU and Northwestern University
- Master of Fine Arts at the California Institute for the Arts, Ohio State University, and UCLA
- Master’s in counseling psychology at the University of Denver
- New England Center for Circus Arts
- Positions:
- Resident artist at Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia
- AmeriCorps in Alaska
- Dance teacher in public schools
- Choreographer
- Somatic and dance therapist
- Massage therapist
- Midwife
- Development director for Trader Joe’s
- Fitness center trainer
- Library technician