Certificate in Dance

The Southern University Dance Certificate in Teaching program is designed to offer a comprehensive teacher training program for dance teachers, K–12 teachers, and dance studios with multiple disciplines seeking to learn new content areas, strengthen teaching competencies, and remain knowledgeable about innovative changes in dance education.

The certificate in teaching program develops students’ aesthetic, artistic, critical, and cultural understandings of dance in historical and contemporary contexts. Exploring dance in relationships with other art forms, the certificate is an immersion into dance and performance as a way of knowing, understanding, and experiencing culture, emphasizing cultural traditions, community outreach, and inclusivity.

The Dance Certificate program offers dance education courses, including dance history, culturally relevant pedagogy and teaching methods, curriculum instruction, and anatomy for dancers, including prevention of injury and proper cross-training and body conditioning. The program engages students with an emphasis on the creative processes of dance as a collaborative discipline and socially relevant practice.

The Dance Certificate curriculum consists of the following course distribution for a minimum of 18 credits.

Total hours required for the certificate:

18 credit hours with the following breakdown:

Dance Technique and Theory

Select 6 credits from the following: (These classes must be recommended to a student by an Advisor for appropriate class placement.)

Dance Education/Pedagogy

Select 6 credits from the following: (These classes must be recommended to a student by an Advisor for appropriate class placement.)

Theory and History Classes

Select 6 credits from the following: