Enter College. Exit an Artist.

What degrees do for dancers

By Lea Marshall


Some young dancers think of school as something that gets in the way of dancing. After high school, many who have spent years polishing their expressive instruments want to put them to use right away. They skip college, or postpone it, and head off to audition for professional companies. More and more dancers, however, are deciding that college, far from being an impediment to a professional career, might just be the best next step in becoming dance artists who think for themselves.

Free Your Mind
If you’ve seen Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company perform in recent years, you remember Leah Cox—pale skin, white-blonde hair shaved close, and stunning stage presence. Cox graduated from Texas Christian University in 1998 with a major in philosophy, minor in religion, and concentration in dance. After spending her last year of high school at North Carolina School of the Arts, she took a year off and went to New York to take classes, “because I thought I was going to be a ballet dancer.” Becoming rapidly disenchanted with that idea, however, she felt modern dance might be a more creative outlet and decided on college as the best way to investigate it. When her parents asked her to stay in-state (Texas), she chanced upon TCU.
“I had so much anxiety that I wouldn’t find a job because I wasn’t a good enough dancer,” says Cox. “But there’s a real benefit to being in a university where you cultivate your own mind, because that’s what separates you from someone who’s just taken five million dance classes.” Coming out of intensive dance training in high school, she says, “I felt a little bit thin and one-sided, like a dish that only has salt.”
At TCU, Cox originally enrolled in the dance program, but one of her teachers, Susan Haigler-Robles, now head of Towson University’s dance department, told her how important it is to have something to dance about. “That really struck me and I thought, ‘Well, if I’m going to go to school I can take as many dance classes as I want in the dance department, but this is my one chance to really learn about something else.’ ”
Little did Cox know how handy her philosophy degree would be in getting her a dance job. Upon graduation she moved to San Diego where she was hired by Nancy McCaleb. “She wanted people who were able to work, not just on a physical level but on a conceptual level as well,” says Cox. “So my degree created an in and got me hired.”
Moving from college into the “real” dance world, says Cox, felt worlds apart from the attempt she made during her gap year. “By the end I did have a voice, I did have ideas, especially in terms of collaborating with choreographers or making my own work. I came out with a lot more self-confidence.”

Get Your Feet Wet
Merce Cunningham Dance Company’s Rashaun Mitchell graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 2000. “I started dancing late, at 15, so by the time I was applying to colleges I was still a new dancer. I didn’t have the confidence to just jump into the dance world in New York City,” says Mitchell. “Also, my parents really wanted me to go to school; they said it’s better to have a foundation, in case dancing doesn’t work out for you.”
Mitchell chose Sarah Lawrence because it was close to New York City and he could familiarize himself with the dance scene. Although it wasn’t a highly technical program, he says, he was able to get what he needed to grow as a dancer. He could study with high-profile choreographers like Viola Farber and Sara Rudner, and enjoy a more creative approach to learning than what he felt a conservatory might give. Aside from straight technique, classes in improvisation and dance history helped him learn about his own way of moving and his place in the dance world.
“College gives you time to grow up.” says Mitchell. “Also, you learn how to problem-solve. When I approach technically challenging movement now with the company, I’m not able to achieve it necessarily right away. So I have to take a step back, look at it, and assess it like a science experiment, problem-solving it.”
Would he recommend college to other dancers? “There are a lot of really good dance programs in colleges, so it’s not a far-fetched thing to go to college and study dance. When we tour, we’re always going to colleges to perform. That’s where artists meet each other. One of the greatest things about Sarah Lawrence was that I met so many different artists whom I still collaborate with, and talk to, and who inspire me.”

Discipline Is Freedom
Annique Roberts always planned to go to college. “All my dance teachers went to college, so I had those examples,” she says. “I wasn’t worried about a late start.” Roberts graduated from Howard University in 2004 and now performs with Garth Fagan Dance.
At Howard she studied everything from ballet, to traditional Senegalese, to Dunham technique, Graham technique, and Horton technique. She also learned capoeira and some jazz and worked with choreographers from all over the country. “I got to try out different styles, and it helped me figure out how I liked to move.” When she saw performances on campus, “I got to see dancers onstage who looked like me. It validated for me that this is something I could do as a career. And it did help me find my own voice.”
The program required dancers to participate in summer internships and to attend auditions. She interned with Ronald K. Brown/Evidence during the summers, and in the fall of her senior year she auditioned for Garth Fagan and was accepted. Going from school to professional life, she says, “I felt really prepared, especially for this company, which prides itself on the idea that ‘Discipline is freedom.’ And at Howard, discipline was everything. That’s also, I think, what college prepares you for: how to discipline yourself, how to do your assignments, get them in on time, how to manage your time properly.”

One Course at a Time
Tall and willowy New York City Ballet soloist Teresa Reichlen has become an expert at time-management. Since joining the company right out of high school in 2001, she has also been enrolled as a student at Columbia University’s Barnard College. “My parents were pretty adamant about it,” she says. “I fought them at the time, but I appreciate it now.” Because of her busy schedule with NYCB, Reichlen can only focus on one course at a time. “It’s kind of impossible for me to have a timeline, because you can’t really plan out your dance career. Eventually, of course, I want to get my degree, but I see this as more of a head start for when I’m done with dance, so I won’t have to start from scratch.”
Working academic classes into her dancing schedule, Reichlen sometimes has to take what she can get. She’s most interested in the sciences—biology and chemistry— but she has taken a couple of dance-related courses. “They’ve been really interesting and eye-opening. I took a dance criticism course, and a Performing the Political course. I remember one night I was doing my makeup before performing The Four Temperaments, and I had an hour to kill so I started to read an article for my Performing the Political class. One of the first paragraphs mentioned The Four Temperaments, that it had lots of black influence in it. And I had never thought of it like that. I went downstairs and I was talking to all the other dancers, asking, Do you agree with this? And it actually led me to write a paper about it just because I was appalled that I didn’t know the origins of something I was dancing in.”

Practicing Professionalism
Celeste Platt grew up in Athens, Ohio—a college town. She knew she would go to college; it was just a question of where. “I wanted the technical training and also to develop my artistic abilities. But I also wanted to dig deep into the history, theory, anatomy, and analysis of dance, because I felt like that was the next level I needed to get to. That’s what I saw in Ohio State University’s curriculum, and eventually decided to go there.”
Like all the dancers we spoke to, Platt chose a liberal arts program over a conservatory to keep her options open. “You never know what’s going to happen in your life, and I wanted that academic background,” she says, even though she has now found steady work with Andary Dance, a contemporary company in Providence, Rhode Island. “When I came out of OSU in 2004, I felt like I was very prepared for the dance world,” she says. “They always treated us like we were professionals, so we were always practicing that.” She also notes, “At every audition I’ve been to, the choreographers have asked what your college background is. They want their dancers to be intellectuals, to be trained that way as well. A B.F.A. is a wonderful thing to have under your belt,” says Platt. “Who knows what it will bring you?” n

—Lea Marshall teaches dance at Virginia Commonwealth University and directs Ground Zero Dance Company in VA.
[This article first appeared in Dance Magazine, August, 2008.]