Loyola Marymount University’s Dance Program is committed to the belief that all people can dance and that each person can dance many dances.

Dancing educates and enlivens the body. Movement experience, which is designed to purposefully integrate the physical act of dancing with the working of the mind and the flow of life energy and spirit, has potential to educate the whole person. Through studying dance as art and dance as cultural and personal experience, the life of a human being can be lived with integrity and vitality. Students come to know themselves so that they may better communicate with and understand people who not only travel similar paths but also those who come from widely diverse backgrounds.

The Dance Program at LMU is committed to the application of rigorous and excellent physical training; ongoing authentic personal reflection; and thoughtful, critical analysis of aesthetic, scientific, historic, cultural, and pedagogical issues as they relate to dance and movement studies. The Dance Program is, likewise, committed to the power found in celebration, imagination, joy, and practiced discernment.

Dance majors earn a B.A. degree and are well prepared for advanced study in graduate school as well as careers in performing, teaching, and related work in the fields of business and health care.

The Dance Program is housed in the Department of Theatre Arts and Dance and offers coursework for the Dance major (in a general track or performance track), the Dance minor, and for the student who wishes to pursue dance as an elective or general education. The program is accredited by the National Association of Schools of Dance.

DOING:

        • Dance with an articulate, centered, expressive, and skilled body

        • Perform modern dance, ballet, jazz, and world dance—at least two of these at the intermediate-advanced level

        • Connect the work and play of the body with the life of the mind and the spirit

        • Discern the difference between an uninformed, unconscious reaction and the spark of impulse that can be generated from informed intuition

        • Use informed intuition and imagination to address issues in art and life

        • Maintain health through a practice of integration of body, mind, and spirit and a balance between activity and stillness, work, and rest

        • Understand and communicate with people from diverse backgrounds using appropriate listening and observing skills along with appropriate oral, written, and dancemovement skills and sensibilities

        • Interactively use knowledge of dance and dancing along with knowledge of the other arts, humanities, business, and 
        the sciences to ask questions and solve life and art problems

        • Employ media and technology to learn about dance, make dances, and navigate the world in many other ways

        • Write cogently and speak thoughtfully about dance, dancers, and dancing

        • Seek, lead, and participate in one’s community

        • Seek solitary time for reflection and study.

KNOWING:

        • Understand the critical importance of diversity in dance, dancers, and dancing as well as in the life of culture at large

        • Recognize similarities and differences between and among diverse peoples and phenomena and acknowledge the 
        potential opportunities and challenges therein

        • Understand the workings of the physical and emotional body as described through the study of somatics, the sciences, and psychology

        • Analyze the interactive stages of the creative process and employ critical analysis when uncovering questions and 
        building “answers”

        • Comprehend the process and craft of dance composition and understand aesthetic valuing in dance

        • Know historical and cultural traditions in dance

        • Know fundamental principles of teaching dance to others

        • Understand and appreciate the role of music, theatre, and mediatechnology in the making and presentation of dance.

VALUING:

        • Identify personal values as a center from which to depart and return as one is tested through life experience

        • Respect life in its diverse expressions

        • Acknowledge the power of, and seek continued development of, interactive and integrated physicalspiritual- emotional consciousness

        • Appreciate the voices of intuition and imagination

        • Tolerate chaos, confusion, and uncertainty long enough to arrive at invention and transformation when making art and live life in all its expression

        • Know oneself in order to have the strength, freedom, and will to give to others

        • Appreciate that knowledge is cognitive, emotional, and sensory

        • Appreciate that knowledge is a critical companion to intuition

        • Recognize how being “truthful,” “heartful,” and “mindful” ultimately leads to transformation and connection to one’s
         life purpose

        • Appreciate the importance of working as a community of dancers, colleagues, work associates, friends, and family and understand that this kind of work does not replace the need for solitary reflection and creation

        • Appreciate that inviting more people to the “table of dance” could augment physical health of American people and 
        enhance intrapersonal and interpersonal compassion and empathy.