Dance careers typically don’t final endlessly—many dancers even transition into second careers throughout or after their years onstage. As a result of Level Park College acknowledges this actuality, it’s getting ready its college students for the numerous chapters of their dance journeys, beginning with the primary day they step on campus in Pittsburgh.
To that finish, Level Park is now providing a bevy of superior levels that Conservatory of Performing Arts college students can pursue whereas concurrently finishing their levels in dance:
For undergraduate dancers with a ardour for schooling, Level Park is now additionally providing a BA in Dance Schooling Certification for preK by way of twelfth grade. All the grasp’s packages supply an accelerated schedule, permitting college students to graduate with two levels in simply 4 and a half years.
“These packages are proof that our dancers are desperate to translate their information throughout completely different mediums, and to be a part of several types of skilled communities,” says Colleen Hooper, affiliate professor of dance and coordinator of dance schooling. “It should create extra alternatives for them.”
Be taught extra about how these three areas of examine can profit dance college students, and the way Level Park’s college is popping the perfect of what the college has to supply into bespoke alternatives that may additional dancers’ careers—now and sooner or later.
Dance + Enterprise
Greater than 20 years in the past, Level Park created a program inside its MBA focus in Sports activities, Arts, and Leisure Administration to deliver Conservatory alumni again to campus to finish an MBA following their efficiency careers. “What we discovered could be very few college students, if any, really got here again,” says Stephen Tanzilli, the dean of Level Park’s Rowland Faculty of Enterprise. “They go on, they begin their lives, they usually transfer on. Realizing what we all know, we thought one of the best ways to go about it was to supply the alternatives up entrance.”
That is the genesis of the brand new BFA + MBA. After expressing curiosity of their sophomore 12 months, college students begin taking MBA lessons in between their junior and senior years, with each on-line and in-person choices. After graduating with their BFA, college students can transfer out of Pittsburgh and full their remaining MBA semester remotely—a perfect selection for dancers keen to leap into performing alternatives.
Whereas Tanzilli hopes that some graduates of the joint program will go on to work in arts administration, he says that the talents they’ll study of their MBA programs will serve them irrespective of the place their careers take them. “I need them to go observe their goals, however allow us to give them that enterprise talent set, as a result of they’re going to be their very own enterprise. They’re going to have to know insurance coverage and mental property and the way to shield themselves and pay their payments.” At a current open home for potential dance college students, Tanzilli met two households all for Level Park due to the brand new MBA possibility. “That is the primary program of its type within the nation,” he says. “And that’s what we’re making an attempt to do right here: to be modern and dynamic in all that we do.”
Dance + Public Relations, Promoting, and Social Media
Given the explosion of dance on social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram, and the rise in dancers utilizing these platforms to advertise themselves, it looks like a pure match for Level Park to supply its dance college students the possibility to pursue an MA in Public Relations, Promoting, and Social Media. Says Jenna Lo Castro, an affiliate professor and the director of Level Park’s Faculty of Communication graduate packages: “The programs appeared like one thing that college students had been simply naturally all for. From knowledgeable perspective, but in addition college students had been all for the way you construct and maintain a private model within the dance area.”
College students within the MA program select between two concentrations: Public Relations and Promoting, or Social Media. As with the MBA, they begin their graduate coursework between their junior and senior years and might full this system—which is totally digital—after ending their undergraduate levels.
“It prepares college students to work on each company and model sides, and in content material creation or influencer content material,” says Lo Castro. “Graduating college students have gone on to work in something from a standard company setting to company communications, disaster administration, and occasion planning and promotion.” Lo Castro hopes that the diploma will acquire traction with dance college students as a result of it’s dynamic, responding to the trade in actual time. “Individuals who go into dance, their trajectory shouldn’t be linear,” she says. “That is offering these college students with extra instruments to assist them succeed of their careers.”
Dance + Schooling
Dance and instructing usually go hand in hand, and numerous dancers train sooner or later throughout their careers, whether or not they’ve deliberate to or not. “I believe it’s actually giving weight to the truth that instructing is a big a part of the dance area,” says Hooper of Level Park’s new instructional diploma pairings. Throughout the Grasp of Schooling (MEd), there are two choices: A certification to show preK by way of fourth grade in all topics, and a dance-education–particular certification to show preK by way of twelfth grade. The latter possibility is made attainable by Pennsylvania’s new dance-education certification, which Hooper says has been many a long time within the making.
Each grasp’s packages might be accomplished absolutely on-line beginning the summer time after sophomore 12 months. The one in-person part is a student-teaching requirement, half of which must be accomplished in Pennsylvania and half of which might be completed in one other state. Hooper says that many college students choose to do the primary half in Could and June, instantly following their April BFA commencement, earlier than transferring out of state.
After creating the MEd in Dance Schooling certification, Level Park added a 3rd possibility for dancers all for instructing, sans a complicated diploma: the undergraduate BA in Dance Schooling with certification for preK by way of twelfth grade. “We realized that some college students might wish to pursue careers as dance educators, they usually might already know that coming into their time on the conservatory,” says Hooper. “This may enable them to finish the complete program inside 4 years, get their instructing certification, and likewise proceed coaching at a extremely excessive stage.” Like BFA dancers, BA college students nonetheless must audition for this system, and are eligible for a similar efficiency alternatives as their friends.
Hooper believes that every one of those degree-pairing choices—in schooling; enterprise; and public relations, promoting, and social media—will give dancers a leg up after commencement. “It makes me really feel nice that we are able to supply dancers completely different choices for his or her careers that may assist them at a variety of junctures,” she says. “It’s not simply concerning the day you graduate, but in addition the years after. How will you have a profession in dance your whole life?”
For extra data on Level Park College’s degree-pairing packages for dancers, click on right here.
