Graduate Degrees
Fully Funded Assistantships Available
2-Year Program
Full Tuition Waiver
$20,800+ Annual Stipend
Subsidized Health Insurance Options
University-level Teaching Experience
Dance is a way of knowing.
Dance is an embodied and energetic way of experiencing and understanding oneself in real time and space. As a performing art, kinesthetic experience, creative process and cultural representation, dance is a source, and interpretation, of artistic, personal, theoretical, social, cultural, and historical ideas.
The School of Dance is an empowering educational community that thrives on a spirit of investigation. Anchored in a vibrant Research 1 context, students and faculty investigate a range of creative and scholarly pursuits in areas including performance, choreography, Screendance, improvisation, pedagogy, history and theory, media arts, and community-engaged projects.
Our MFA Degrees:
are 2-year, 60 credit hour degrees, accredited by the National Association of Schools of Dance (NASD)
develop dynamic contributors to the ever-changing field of dance, as evidenced by our vast network of successful alumni
offer curricula organized around physical, creative, scholarly, and pedagogical practices
grant each student flexibility to pursue individual creative and scholarly interests and professional development opportunities
foster a community of artist-educators comprised of faculty, guest artists, and students from around the globe
are highly competitive, admitting a limited number of graduate students each year
The Ballet MFA is designed to deepen one’s knowledge of ballet pedagogy, choreography, history, and theory. MFA candidates may elect to conduct either scholarly or creative thesis projects.
The Modern Dance MFA is a practice-based program focused on physical, creative, and theoretically informed artmaking and pedagogy. Thesis projects are creative in nature, typically culminating in a choreographic project.
The Screendance Certificate is an interdisciplinary collaboration between the School of Dance and the Department of Film & Media Arts. The certificate requires a 15-credit, on-site commitment and can be completed as an additional credential while pursuing an MFA degree in the School of Dance or Department of Film & Media Arts.
Ballet MFA
Ballet is a lifelong pursuit.
Our Ballet MFA is a path to deepen your knowledge of pedagogy, choreography, and history. We offer a flexible structure that gives each student a strong foundation in Ballet Studies and options to pursue their specializations.
Students in the program can choose between a written or choreographic thesis and topics of study have spanned from creating a contemporary ballet and screendance to a paper that analyzes representations in La Bayadère to lesson plans in choreography for elementary school students.
Our faculty members take an expansive and inclusive approach to teaching and view ballet as an art form as well as a source of cultural, social, and historical meaning. We seek applicants who have established themselves as performers, teachers, administrators, researchers, and/or choreographers and who are now looking to delve more deeply into the histories and theories of ballet. We give preference to applicants who can identify the focus of their studies during our intensive, 2-year program.
Our graduates describe the Ballet MFA as the perfect preparation for careers as choreographers, university professors, and studio directors.
Curricular Philosophy
The Ballet MFA curriculum is designed so that students may tailor their studies according to individual interests. Theory courses are foundational, and students take additional coursework in the areas of Pedagogy, Choreography, and Scholarly Inquiry before selecting an area of focus. Graduate projects and elective coursework support the selected area of focus, and the self-designed thesis project serves as a culmination of each student’s research.
Modern Dance MFA
The Modern Dance MFA produces dynamic contributors to an ever-changing field. The Modern Dance MFA is an empowering educational community that thrives through diversity, rigor and a spirit of investigation. Within this vibrant context students and faculty research performance, improvisation, choreography, theory, dance technology, as well as other creative and theoretical pursuits.
The Modern Dance MFA is a flexible curriculum, designed to be tailored toward individual interests as well as develop a community of graduate students. MFA candidates conduct a creative and theoretical thesis research project of their own design, while accruing credits in four modules of overlapping study: Physical Practice, Creative Practice, Theoretical Practice and Pedagogical Practice. The goal of the curriculum is professional, creative and intellectual adaptability to develop the candidate’s physical, artistic, theoretical and pedagogical points of view while enhancing their collegial network.
The Modern Dance MFA currently accepts a limited number of candidates into the program per year. Successful applicants may be eligible to receive fully funded Teaching Assistantships for two years. As such, applicants must be prepared to teach in our undergraduate and non-major programs almost immediately. Successful applicants must already possess significant experience with modern dance, choreography, and improvisation, as well as some familiarity with ballet and an awareness of the current field of contemporary dance. The small cohorts of graduate students means that each will have a large number of teaching opportunities/responsibilities. Therefore, priority will be given to those who have prior teaching experience. Please make your teaching experience evident in your statement of purpose and on your CV.
Screendance Certificate
Explore the relationship between the moving body and moving image
The University of Utah’s School of Dance has played a leading role in contributing to the field of Screendance, also known as dance for camera, dance filmmaking, videodance, and embodied filmmaking. The School has offered courses in the theory, history, and practice of Screendance since 1998, in addition to founding the International Screendance Festival and Screendance Cultural Tour in collaboration with the Salt Lake Film Society.
The Graduate Certificate in Screendance at the University of Utah is an interdisciplinary collaboration between the School of Dance and the Department of Film & Media Arts. The Certificate offers dancers, choreographers, filmmakers and artists an interdisciplinary portfolio and critical lens to their embodied studio and screen practices. Recent Certificate graduates have screened internationally at Wicklow Screendance Laboratory (Ireland), Moving Images Videodance Festival (Cyprus), Women in Dance International Film Festival (Japan), and US-based festivals including Dance Camera West, Capitol Dance Festival, Cascada Dance Festival, CineVox Dance Film Festival, among many others.
The Certificate requires a two-semester, on-site commitment and can also be completed while pursuing an MFA Degree in Modern Dance, Ballet, or Film & Media Arts and/or as a non-matriculated student. The Dance for Camera Student Group and Screendance Filmmakers Association, two graduate-led student organizations, offer students the opportunity to produce projects across departments and within the community, including collaborations with Salt Lake City-based production company, TWIG Media Lab. The on-campus screening series, Experimental Series - Salt Lake City, brings international films and guest artists to engage with screendance students on campus.
To apply for admission into the Screendance Certificate program, current College of Fine Arts Graduate students can apply below. Along with their application, students will need to submit a current Curriculum Vitae, three links to creative works, and two letters of recommendation. In addition to MFA students in the School of Dance or Department Film & Media Arts, students enrolled in other graduate programs at the U are also eligible to apply. For students not currently enrolled at the University of Utah, you must be accepted into the university either as a matriculated or non-matriculated student. For matriculated students, the Screendance Certificate will appear on transcripts; for non-matriculated students, they will receive a Certificate of Completion.
To see current Screendance Certificate projects, visit our Vimeo page and our Instagram
Applications are accepted throughout the year.