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Dance Studies · Encyclopedia

Dance studies as an applied-and-academic humanities discipline at human-root level covers the systematic study and practice of dance — as performing art, as cultural-and-social practice, as bodily-and-kinaesthetic discipline, as historical-and-theoretical field, and as professional career path. The discipline operates institutionally through dedicated dance departments at universities and conservatoires, plus the substantial professional-dance-company-and-academy ecosystem that operates partially-separately from academic credentialing. Dance studies as an academic field consolidated through the 1970s-1990s with the emergence of dedicated PhD programs at Surrey, NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, Temple, UC-Riverside, plus the substantial international expansion since.\n\nThe global dance-studies institutional landscape includes both academic and professional-conservatoire institutions. In the US: NYU Tisch Department of Dance, the Juilliard School Dance Division, the Boston Conservatory at Berklee, SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Dance, the University of Utah Department of Modern Dance, the substantial liberal-arts-college dance programs (Bennington, Mills, Bates), the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater's Ailey/Fordham BFA program. In the UK: the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, the Royal Academy of Dance, the Northern School of Contemporary Dance Leeds, the Rambert School, the Central School of Ballet, plus the dance programs at Surrey, Roehampton, Edge Hill, Coventry. In Continental Europe: the substantial European national-conservatoire tradition through the Paris Opera Ballet School, the Royal Ballet School London, the Bolshoi Academy Moscow, the Vaganova Academy St Petersburg, the Codarts Rotterdam Dance Department, the Folkwang University of the Arts Essen (the Pina Bausch home institution).\n\nIndia's dance-studies-and-practice infrastructure has structural distinctness given the country's eight classical-dance traditions recognised by the Sangeet Natak Akademi — Bharatanatyam (Tamil Nadu, the largest globally by practitioner count), Kathak (north Indian Mughal-court tradition), Odissi (Odisha), Kuchipudi (Andhra Pradesh), Mohiniyattam (Kerala), Kathakali (Kerala), Manipuri (Manipur), and Sattriya (Assam) — plus the broader folk-dance traditions across all Indian states. The Sangeet Natak Akademi (the National Academy of Music Dance and Drama, founded 1953) is the apex government cultural body. The major Indian dance-training institutions: Kalakshetra Foundation Chennai (founded 1936 by Rukmini Devi Arundale, the principal Bharatanatyam institution), Kerala Kalamandalam (the principal Kathakali-and-Mohiniyattam institution), the Imphal Cultural Complex Manipur, the Sangeet Natak Akademi-affiliated regional centres. The substantial Indian-classical-dance diaspora globally — the major US, UK, Australian, Singapore, UAE Indian-classical-dance schools and the substantial number of professional dancers maintaining careers at the intersection of Indian-classical-and-contemporary dance.\n\nThe applied dance professional practice covers performance-company-membership at major ballet and modern-dance companies (American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet, Royal Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, Mariinsky Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet, plus the major contemporary-dance companies — Pina Bausch Tanztheater Wuppertal, Nederlands Dans Theater, Cunningham Trust, Cedar Lake, Hofesh Shechter, Akram Khan Company, the substantial Indian classical-and-contemporary dance-company ecosystem), choreography work, dance education at all levels from community-class through conservatoire, dance-therapy and somatic-practice work, dance-criticism and journalism, the substantial musical-theatre-dance career track (Broadway, West End, the major touring productions), the increasingly substantial commercial-dance work (music videos, film choreography, advertising), and the rapidly-growing dance-on-screen and dance-and-technology specialties.\n\nFor a globally-mobile dancer, professional careers are structurally cross-border with most major dance companies recruiting internationally. Indian classical-dance practitioners have built substantial international careers through diaspora teaching plus the international-festival circuit.\n\nCross-references: dance intersects with academy-arts-design, the lifestyle-culture vertical, human-root-theatre (the performing-arts overlap), neglect-root-music (the dance-music interdependence), and the broader performance-and-cultural economy.