Dance Careers and Learning Outcomes

After Pacific | Pacific University dance students go on to work in a variety of fields, including performance and production, teaching, arts management, law, and other fields that value communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity. The dance program provides students with a well-rounded liberal arts education that can lead to highly collaborative, creative careers.

Our graduates are professional dancers, dance teachers, researchers and graduate students.

Student Learning Outcomes

The dance program offers a holistic approach to educating our students while preparing them with the diverse skills to have successful careers in dance and other professions.

  • Students will demonstrate technical and artistic proficiency in dance technique, performance, and creative inquiry. 
  • Students will demonstrate collaborative skills by working together as a company throughout the creative process and performance in various roles such as a director, leader, and dancer– while developing peer review skills on own and peers’ work. 
  • Students will demonstrate knowledge of holistic anatomical approaches synthesized through the creative process and safe dance practices.
  • Students will effectively interpret, analyze, constructively critique topics and issues of dance globally while relating them to our world today and communicating them through multiple modes including choreography, performance, research and presentation, and community outreach.
  • Through fulfillment of a dance capstone, students will demonstrate the ability to conceptualize, design, develop, make artistic choices relating to the standards of the profession, and revise a large-scale creative research project that is publicly presented.  In addition, students will demonstrate proficiency in the following skills: creative inquiry, critical thinking, organizational skills, and written/oral defense of artistic choices made in relation to dance standards on given topics at an advanced undergraduate level. 

Program Purpose

Through rigorous work in academic, studio, and community settings, the Dance program develops engaged performing artists and active learners. Faculty and students work together to learn, create, and communicate in a spirit of exploration and collaboration.