Dance Program :: Swarthmore College

Images from the Spring 2018 Dance Concert

Swarthmore’s Dance program brings together a talented group of students to perform a global repertoire of dance styles and simultaneously engage in critical thinking and writing. Our vibrant and diverse community of artists and scholars pursue dance as a field of academic inquiry, artistic creation, and civic engagement. We offer special scholarships for our majors and minors to study specific styles with some of the finest master teachers and choreographers in Philadelphia or develop as art activists through immersion in an international or local community. Our students are often double majors or special majors in fields such as Anthropology, Classics, Art History, English, Education, as well as Biology and Psychology.

We welcome all students to join our dance community regardless of whether they are majors or minors in the program or have prior formal training in dance. The state of the art Lang Performing Arts Center and our spacious dance studios are always buzzing with concerts and rehearsals. The intimate Underhill library, dedicated only to the Department of Music and Dance, filled with books, articles, and DVDs, is the ideal nook to rest the dancing feet and discover the world of dance scholarship. Come join the journey!

Music & Dance Summer Funding Opportunity

The Music and Dance Faculty invites applications every January for funding to support summer study in music and dance. Junior Music and Dance Majors and Minors, and prospective Majors and Minors in the Sophomore class interested in attending a summer program or pursuing private lessons during the summer, submit a proposal to identify the program or outline of their plan of study. The proposal must include a detailed budget, including transportation, lodging, and any alternate sources of funding that they have received, requested, or intend to request for summer study; it should also indicate what portion they are able to contribute, if any.

Proposals are due to
Bernadette Dunning or Susan Grossi by
Wednesday February 6, 2019 by 4:00PM.

Mindful that some summer programs do not send out acceptance notices until later in the spring, we invite them to include alternative plans in your proposal to cover more than one possibility.

Note: Sophomores are eligible for summer funding only if they apply to and are accepted into the major or minor.

The Department of Music and Dance Welcomes New Dance Faculty Members

Stephanie Liapis and Joseph Small

We are delighted to announce two new faculty members joining us this fall, Stephanie Liapis and Joseph Small '05.

Stephanie received a B.F.A. from NYU Tisch School of the Arts and an M.F.A. from the University of Washington. She will be teaching Dance Technique courses Modern I and Modern III and Dance Repertory: Modern this fall semester. Read more about Stephanie here.

Joe is a 2005 graduate of Swarthmore College (BA, Dance) and a 2015 graduate of UCLA's Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance (MFA, Dance). This fall he will be teaching a new Dance Technique course Japanese Dance I and co-teaching Dance Repertory: Taiko with Kim Arrow. Read more about Joe here.