If you're wondering about how big a part dance plays in college and college auditions, Mtmommy wrote this summary of what has been expressed on the board about dance in various programs. This summary was revised in August of 2007.
INFORMATION ABOUT MUSICAL THEATRE PROGRAMS WITH STRONG DANCE COMPONENT
The following information has been compiled from opinions posted by various posters and how the schools present their own programs by telephone and website. The accuracy has not been established by more valid means.
The schools that have been reported to be strongest in dance include Florida State University (FSU), University of Michigan, Tisch (CAP21 studio), University of Oklahoma (OU), Syracuse (SU), Elon, Penn State (PSU), Point Park University (PPU), CCM (some disagreement about this), Cal State Fullerton, and Otterbein. Otterbein has a special track for dancers called BFA in Musical Theatre with a Concentration in Dance (they also have a dance minor available). Millikin University has a dance minor you can take in addition to the MT program. Some schools which house departments of dance, as well as musical theatre programs, may be well known for their dance programs. For example, Oklahoma City University (OCU) is very strong in both musical theatre and dance, but they exist in separate schools within the university, with different faculty and facilities. University of Arizona is well known for its dance department, but scheduling dance classes for MT majors can be difficult. Please do not assume that because a school has a strong dance program that musical theatre majors will reap the benefits from this program. In many cases, it has little or no effect on the dance training of MT majors. At the University of Oklahoma, there is reciprocity and overlap of the musical theatre and dance departments to the benefit of MT students. Students report that dance for MT majors is very strong at Elon.
Advanced dancers take note: University of the Arts, while having a dance major, does not speak of dance as an important component of their MT major. CMU and UCLA are notably lacking in the dance component. Strong dancers at CMU take classes at Point Park to keep up their skills. Ithaca's dance has been noted to be weak, also. Reports on Boston Conservatory’s dance training have been limited.
A few other points that have been made on this subject include:
- Point Park University has one of the hardest dance auditions, but for an advanced dancer it was still easy. The CMU dance audition is very easy for an advanced dancer.
- There is no dance department at CMU, which might account for the perceived weakness in dance in CMU’s MT program.
- In many of the MT programs, advanced dancers take classes alongside students who have never studied dance. Some programs, such as Western Michigan University and Wichita State University, allow students to take higher level dance classes if qualified. At Tisch, MT majors may not take dance classes with dance majors.
- Oklahoma City University’s dance audition is not part of the actual audition, but used strictly for placement.