First-year course work focuses on learning to dance in the most efficient and healthy way. Technique classes emphasize placement and alignment principles that lead to the most efficient use of the body. Other courses include dance composition, kinesthetics of anatomy, and music theory. The second year further develops these principles and adds courses in dance history, acting, improvisation, music literature, and advanced dance composition where the basic tools acquired in music and composition classes in the first year are now integrated in a course involving phrase manipulation as it applies to choreography. The third year focuses on integrating the information that has been acquired with an emphasis on performance and choreography.
Optional courses are available to the student who has developed a specific area of interest.
In addition to departmental work, students are expected to take required academic courses throughout their stay in the program. The M.F.A. is a two-year training program exclusively designed for the student who has had prior professional training and experience. In the first year of the program, all candidates take dance composition, graduate seminar, acting, graduate kinesthetics of anatomy, and music courses that continue to build the student's musical knowledge, in addition to daily technique classes. In the second year, each student, with a faculty adviser, plans a course of study designed to define the student's area of specialization.