CU Boulder’s MFA in Dance

A dancer holds her hand out to the side

Choose Your Own Adventure.

Two male dancers on stage

Communicate.

Several dancers walking on stage. Each wears a face covering. The backdrop is white and black stripes

Cultivate.

A dancer moves through a structure made of string while another looks at their hands

Investigate.

A group of dancers perform on stage

Celebrate.

Our mission is to collectively create a relevant program which perpetually evolves in response to our communities and planet. The program is designed to accommodate people at various phases of artistry, from the practicing professional to the recent BA/BFA graduate. This is a 60-credit hour program which usually takes 3 years (6 semesters) to complete. Students generally take 10 credit hours per semester. These credit hours include a secondary emphasis identified and designed by each MFA candidate. The MFA is considered a terminal degree in dance and positions students to be practicing artists, teaching careers in higher education, future PhD study, and/or a variety of other careers in the evolving fields of dance.  
Through our diverse and flexible curriculum and a commitment to social justice, our program simultaneously supports individual artists and the cultivation of community.  

  Assistantships & Teaching Application

Overview

The MFA in Dance program does not have a low residency option at this time, but we do offer a modified program for currently working professionals. All enrolled students are expected to reside regionally and be present for in-person activites in accordance with COVID-19 safety guidelines.

Learning Outcomes

  • MFA students show work to their campus community every semester
  • A variety of solos, collaborations, and research experiments are shared through classes, department performances, cross-departmental projects, and community sites
  • MFA students are often busy with departmental rehearsals and productions but some do organize their schedules to make performance appearances with community ensembles, online venues, international festivals, and professional companies
  • Additional performances are encouraged and supported as long as students can keep their academic studies prioritized and vitalized 

In summary, there is no shortage of performance and choreographic opportunities. For that reason, trying to juggle more than 3 projects in a single semester is not advisable.

Those students entering our program with extensive professional backgrounds including teaching, choreography and/or performance may be able to request a modified degree plan. For such students, an interview with the Director of Dance and the Director of Graduate Studies for Dance during the application/audition process is necessary. The interview will help determine if there is a good match between the student's goals and the MFA program.
 

The goal of the modified program for professionals is to provide flexibility in the pursuit of individual goals and the fortification of specific educational gaps. In close consultation with the faculty and graduate advisor, the student will be able to propose and develop new areas of research and creative work. All modifications to the MFA program must receive the approval of program directors and the CU Boulder Graduate School. The number of required credits and semesters will be determined based on the individual’s exceptional professional experiences.

For more information about a modified MFA program, please contact us for consultation and prescreening before completing the formal application process.

The primary core MFA curriculum focuses on the development of the individual artistic voice in performance, choreography, teaching, research and writing. The presentation of new creative work is bolstered, augmented and enriched by the study of theory, history and other artists. 

  • The three-year program requires a minimum of 60 credit hours 
  • At least 50 credit hours must be completed on campus at CU Boulder 
  • Grades lower than a B- cannot be applied towards graduation 
  • A 3.0 GPA is needed to graduate
  • MFA students must complete a secondary area of emphasis 

Prerequisites & Required Courses Plan of Study

The dance program takes small cohorts to achieve full funding for all MFA candidates through a combination of teaching, teaching assistant, and graduate assistant positions. Our Grads teach movement classes across forms as well as lecture classes on dance and popular culture. Various funding to support creative research is available by application throughout the program. Funding packages for all grads include full tuition remission, insurance, and monthly stipends. 

We believe dancing is essential to the survival and evolution of our species.  We value diverse approaches to, and reason for dance making. Liberatory work, including antiracism and decoloniality, is central to our approach to dancemaking, pedagogy, and department culture. We believe that by making art, unpacking lineages, checking assumptions, and being in conversation with current geopolitical realities, dance can help unlock unexpected, healthy, and just futures. We insist the body is a site of knowledge production and a repository of ancestral knowledge. 

Goals Include:   

  • To encourage the clarification and uniqueness of one’s choreographic voice, embodied scholarship, pedagogical excellence, and awareness of one’s positionality. 
  • To prepare and support grad students in empowering themselves to fulfill their chosen path, both in their graduate studies and in the professional world. 
  • To investigate traditional and contemporary approaches to movement invention, choreography, community exchange, collaboration, and performance. 
  • To deepen somatic awareness and increase fluency in dance technique, including but not limited to Improvisation, Jazz, African Caribbean, Aerial, Hip-hop, Transcultural Fusion, North and West African dance, Ballet and Contemporary.  
  • To engage in and expand the definition of dance research, with particular attention to practice-based research and the generative relationship between scholarship and creative work.  
  • To foster inclusive pedagogical strategies including aesthetic, cultural, personal, and anatomical perspectives. 
  • To build a community of maker-thinkers committed to clear communication, collective support, and convivial research. 
  • To present choreography and creative work on a regular basis and perform in the creative work of faculty, peers, and guest artists. 
  • The MFA Application for Fall 2025 is now open
  • The deadline is January 15th for domestic applicants and January 3rd for International applicants. 
  • We do not accept applications for entry into the spring semester
  • The dance program takes small cohorts to achieve full funding for all MFA candidates through a combination of teaching, teaching assistant, and graduate assistant positions. Our Grads teach movement classes across forms as well as lecture classes on dance and popular culture. Various funding to support creative research is available by application throughout the program. Funding packages for all grads include full tuition remission, insurance, and monthly stipends. 
  • Hold a baccalaureate degree in any field
  • Have an undergraduate GPA of at least 2.75 and meet the Graduate School's Minimum Admission Requirements
  • Demonstrate proficiency in dance performance and choreography
  • Because the Dance Program uses teaching appointments as the sole form of financial aid for graduate students, all applicants should have some form of teaching experience. Please note that college/university teaching experience is not required.
  • Graduate Record Exam (GRE) scores are not required for the MFA in Dance application

Yes, we mean it!

There are prerequisites, such as composition and history, that are advantaged by a degree in dance. But highly motivated students can bridge those gaps of knowledge through our current graduate program. If a high number of deficiencies would prevent completion of the MFA within three years, then we will alternately suggest augmenting your bachelors degree with a fast-track Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.

Our degree in dance does not centralize any single genre of dance or idolize a specific body type. We are imaginarians who’ve decolonized and expanded our definitions of virtuosity. 

We have a current menu of courses that reflect the faculty’s body of knowledge: Hip-hop, dances of North Africa and the Arabian Diaspora, Ballet, European-lineages of Modern dance, dances of the West African Diaspora (including the Caribbean and Americas), Mexican Folklorico, Improvisational dance, Modern dance traditions of the African Diaspora, and an inclusive/abolitionist approach to Somatic Science and embodiment. Importantly, our ideologies and methodologies in dance are not limited by our regional specialties. 

If applicants to our graduate programs do not have a conventional dance degree, we embrace the opportunity to evaluate a dancer’s capacities to move safely, problem-solve intelligently when encountering unfamiliar movements, and execute with superb emotional and physical embodiment. We welcome the opportunity to collaboratively support and guide students of all dance forms in their efforts to deepen expertise and practice in humanity’s current and emerging movement practices.

Bring it.

Points of Contact

  Request Information from the Graduate School   Video Conference Information Session Sign-Up

Dance Faculty

Department of Theatre & Dance Graduate Programs Diversity Statement

We are proud to embrace and innovate the ongoing decolonization of our field in all of our teaching, research and creative work. We acknowledge the historical harm that has been done by centuries of colonialism, slavery, and imperialism, and that academia has both reflected and been a participant in this effort. The Dance faculty in our department began the process of reparative justice in the 1990's, as we decided that our mostly homogenized demographics did not have to dictate our ideologies and practices. The Department of Theatre & Dance has since continued to work towards building an inclusive world through our teaching, research, and creative work, instead of waiting for a diverse student body to show up.

Therefore, our aim has been, and continues to be, a more representative, humane and accurate truth of human experience in the arts, informed and imaginative spaces for visioning, nourishing work environments for research and creativity, and brave analysis of the insidious ways racism, genocide, discrimination and bias have marred our fields of study and our communities.
 

We honor a global diversity of ways of making and of knowing. European colonialism and US Imperialism have long worked to diminish and eliminate knowledge that differed from a European worldview. As a US-based institution, we recognize that the only way we can truly see beyond the limitations of our own perspectives is to listen and learn from people with experiences that are different from our own throughout the world. Our diversity efforts are therefore grounded on establishing long-lasting relationships with scholars and artists who have worked and continue to work outside of the United States, and to attract graduate students that can help us continue to learn from these perspectives.

Performance arts at CU Boulder embraces many conventional and emerging modalities of presentation: proscenium stages, film, devised work, online social platforms, digital arenas, interactive installations, community collaboration, process-based work, performance activism that is both affective and effective, and new creations of bold imaginarians.

We embrace broad and inclusive practices in our approach to admissions:

  • CU Boulder THDN does not require the standardized Graduate Record Exam (GRE) scores for its graduate applications. Studies have shown that the GRE is a poor tool at selecting the most capable students, and that it severely restricts the entrance of minority students into graduate school. Instead, we argue that the consistency of students' records stands as a valid marker of their personal excellence. All of our graduate programs rank experiential learning and professional experience equally with academic preparation
  • CU Boulder THDN welcomes students of all cultural disciplines, bodily presentations and abilities, and identities with supportive mentorship and customized graduate learning curriculum
  • Dance does not enforce a specific dress code for instructional classes beyond guidelines for safety and non-harm
  • We deeply believe in the power of generous, non-hierarchical mentorship and collaboration amongst all community members regardless of title, position, life experience, and identity markers

We stand as active agents of transformation in education, and invite you to join us in revisioning our emerging global citizenship through the arts. 

The Department of Theatre & Dance acknowledges that the University sits upon land within the territories of the Ute, Cheyenne, and Arapaho peoples and are grateful to have the opportunity to be here. Further, we acknowledge the 48 contemporary tribal nations that are historically tied to lands that make up Colorado. We recognize and pay our respects to these Indigenous Peoples as traditional stewards of this land and the enduring relationship that exists between Indigenous Peoples and their traditional territories. We pay our respects to the ancestors, elders, relations past, present and emerging.
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