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