Overview
The Department of Dance offers a non-major, elective course of study at Vassar. The faculty consists of three full-time and two part-time teachers. Dance’s Resident Lighting Designer, David Ferri, lights all dance department productions and oversees our technical crew in the Frances Daly Fergusson Dance Theater. We have three Adjunct Artists who serve as accompanists and who compose, direct and sometimes perform with the student company. Courses for academic credit are offered in modern dance technique from beginner through advanced, classical ballet technique from beginner through intermediate IV including pointe and adagio when suitable, and jazz at the beginner through intermediate II level. In addition, we offer intermediate Graham technique/repertory, and two lower level survey/technique courses that include the history of dance in western civilization. Academic credit is also offered to students who successfully audition for Vassar Repertory Dance Theatre (VRDT). VRDT annually performs repertoire, which includes modern dance reconstructions, classical ballet divertissements, faculty pieces, and original student choreography. Additional courses for credit offered biennially are Dance Improvisation and Dance Comp/Craft of Choreography, and on an annual basis Movement Analysis. These three courses are open to all students. Please check the catalogue for those courses that are taken for a letter grade and those that are ungraded.
VRDT has a series of Works in Progress showings in the fall, winter galas at the 1869 Bardavon Opera House, and two All-Parents Weekend performances in the spring. A few off campus events occur each year, as well as end of semester informal showings, and an all student production in late spring.
Our Master Class program annually invites at least one ballet and one modern expert to campus in addition to two people in other areas of dance. This program attempts to broaden the dancers‘ experience in technique (master classes), choreography and improvisation (workshops), as well as their objective knowledge of dance history, dance criticism, physics and/or anatomy of dance (lectures). Some of our Guest Artists have been: Irina Kolpokova, Arthur Mitchell, Helene Alexopoulos, Gregory Hines, Anna Kisselgoff, Donald Byrd, Edward Villella, Ronald K. Brown, Irene Dowd, Allegra Kent, Gelsey Kirkland, Pilobolus w/Adam Battlestein, Suzanne Farrell, Mummenschantz, John Meehan, Eldar Aliev, Deborah Jowitt, Bill T. Jones, Pascal Rioult (4/06), Clinton Luckett of ABT (2/07), Bill Irwin (11/06), and Donald McKayle (12/06).
Vassar prospective students are welcome and encouraged to arrange consultations with our faculty in advance of visits and, more importantly, to participate in the classes offered during a stay. This is extremely important to us because we want to be certain that future Vassar students are as familiar as possible with our program.
In the spring of 2006 we moved into our renovated facility in Kenyon Hall on the north side of the campus. Kenyon’s south wing houses Dance including three technique studios and our new 236 seat theater for dance, The Frances Daly Fergusson Dance Theater, designed by Gluckman Mayner Architects of NYC. The five dance spaces including the green room have special Harlequin dance surfaces and 2 have sprung floors.
A dancer interested in Vassar would also want to know that the Kaatsbaan International Dance Center, for which we often arrange block tickets and transport, is located only 45 minutes north of us in Tivoli, New York. Its goal is to foster new choreography as well as to further the training of dancers in ballet and modern. They present a comprehensive season including everything from classical ballet to cutting edge modern dance.
Please consult the catalogue for further information or feel free to contact me, or any of our faculty, in order to discuss in more detail dance at Vassar.
Jeanne Periolat Czula
Professor of Dance and Chair of Dance
