Dance Steps Up
New UC San Diego Graduate Program in Dance Theater
Will Develop ‘Next Generation of Voices’ in Choreography

September 28, 2007

By Inga Kiderra

UCSD dance student Carrie Prince in a piece by guest choreographer Kim Epifano. Photo by Manuel Rotenberg.

Twenty-odd years ago, dance at the University of California, San Diego was ancillary to physical education. Students had to make do with rehearsals in fencing studios. Instructors had to shout over the basketball games taking place downstairs. That was then.

Today, dance is a thriving undergraduate major, has its own building on campus and is an integral part of the highly ranked theatre and dance department. And it will soon feature an innovative graduate degree focused on choreography of dance theater.

The new Master of Fine Arts in Dance Theatre at UC San Diego is unusual for a U.S. program in that it “quite specifically intends to develop the next generation of voices in dance theater choreography,”  said Allyson Green, professor of dance at UC San Diego, who will co-direct the program with professor Yolande Snaith.

“Dance theater” is a hybrid of dance and theater methods. The form traces its beginnings to aesthetic innovations by European dance companies and postmodern explorations in the United States in the 1960s and ’70s. “Dance theater creates a complete world visually and thematically,” Green said. “Rather than being a number in a show or subservient to the story, dance is the show, is the story.”

The program will serve as “an intensive research lab for dance theater artists,” Green said,  and will emphasize collaboration with other disciplines.

The vision for the dance theater program at UCSD, she said, is in line with the evolution of the practice in Europe as well as developments in American postmodern dance (which include influences from around the globe). Both Snaith and Green are renowned choreographers with extensive experience abroad. They – along with Liam Clancy, Eric Geiger, Patricia Rincon and UCSD dance program founder Margaret Marshall – bring an international sensibility to the dance faculty  and the newly launched program at UCSD.

The three-year program is currently recruiting candidates. Instruction will begin in the fall of 2008.

Yolande Snaith, UCSD professor of dance, performs in one of her works. Photo by Elazar Harel.

Green said the program expects to attract “practicing choreographers who want to have the time and space to go more deeply into their work.”

The inaugural class will admit just two students, Green said – both so that they will be fully supported in their endeavors and so they will have greater opportunity to collaborate with the other graduate students in the theatre and dance department.

In their first year, the choreographers will attend a first-year collaborative seminar with graduate-student designers, directors, writers and performers, explained Charlie Oates, chair of the UCSD theatre and dance department, which is ranked among the top three in the nation for its graduate offerings by U.S. News & World Report. 

It is hoped that the seminar will help the students make connections and partnerships for future collaborative projects. Also, it is anticipated that through the department’s ties to the departments of visual arts and music and to the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) at UCSD, the students will form creative relationships with other artists across campus and, in Green’s words, create “syntheses between choreographic, theatrical, visual, technological and sound media.”

“The exciting thing,” said Oates, “is that I don't think we even know of all the possible projects that could happen when MFA choreographers come together with students from our existing programs.  So much of the artistic future of our department is going to be determined when all these crazy imaginations come together.” 

Future plans for the program include a professional repertory company that would work with the choreographers’ visions during their tenure as students and an endowed dance festival, which would not only showcase produced works to the public but also to seasoned professionals, serving as a career launching pad for graduating choreographers. 

Green notes that UCSD is a perfect place for the new program because the department is already renowned for its “very physical theater.”

Oates, who is a movement coach when he is not chairing the department, said: “Our designers have a very dynamic visual aesthetic and our directors have big, adventurous visions for their productions.  It seems only natural that the performances end up being physical. With a rigorous approach to the fleshing out of texts and bold interpretive statements being made, everything is going to be heightened. The new dance program fits right in.”

The program will also fit right in with the region, Green said.

“The dance community in San Diego is going strong,” Green said. “And there is also a fantastic dance community in Tijuana. The students will have a lot of terrific people to work with, not just at the university but off-campus as well.”

For more about new program and its faculty:

Media Contact: Inga Kiderra, (858) 822-0661