August 6, 2024

This unprecedented union, executed in just six weeks, means that former UArts dance students will be able to continue their studies without interruption. Altogether a total of 38 former UArts BFA dance students and 28 Low-Residency MFA students are enrolled at Bennington College. 

The speed and dexterity with which Bennington was able to respond to the crisis is due in part to the immediate and generous donation of $1 million from Barbara and Sebastian Scripps, $250,000 from the Ford Foundation, and additional funds from the Transformational Partnerships Fund. The immediate funding has also allowed the former UArts students to continue in the Low-Residency MFA in dance summer program in Montpellier, France, which was already in progress before the announcement of the UArts’s closure.  

Bennington College has a rich and storied dance program and currently dance is a popular focus for many Bachelor of Arts students at Bennington. This new BFA program, formed under the direction of the UArts former Dean of Dance Donna Faye Burchfield, will exist separately from the current Bennington BA dance program. The Bennington BA dance program will continue its focus on the creativity of the individual student and the creation of new work. The BFA program will remain focused on reimagining conservatory training while weaving practices and theory with critical thinking. 

While plans are underway to move the BFA and the former UArts Low-Residency MFA dance programs to Philadelphia in 2025, the undergraduate and graduate programs will remain under the auspices of Bennington College, and graduates will receive Bennington degrees. 

“Bennington has always centered creativity and the arts. Dance has been a vibrant part of our curriculum since we were founded when Martha Graham and Martha Hill taught here,” said Laura Walker, President of Bennington College. “From the first phone call I had with Donna Faye, I knew we had to respond swiftly and nimbly in order that this extraordinary program can continue and the students will have a home. Our own dance faculty are enthusiastic about welcoming and collaborating with these students and faculty.”

“Bennington has been a true lifesaver,” said Burchfield, who was Dean of the School of Dance at UArts, which included both BFA and MFA dance programs, for the past 10 years. “The acrobatic speed with which Laura Walker, her team, and the Bennington dance faculty responded has been astounding. I am relieved and thrilled to see our students and faculty on the Bennington campus. Remarkably, dance was the only art form taught at UArts that was presented with such an offer. The immediacy, creativity, and generosity are extraordinary.”  

Prior to UArts, Burchfield had been Dean of the School at the American Dance Festival (ADF), where she developed and directed the Hollins University (HU)/ADF MFA program (the first of its kind), as well as the HU Post-Baccalaureate and combined HU BA/BFA degree programs in collaboration with the ADF.  

Many former UArts dance faculty members will be guest artists, with Sidra Bell, Ronald K. Brown, and Ismael Houston-Jones joining as visiting artists. 

The making of original work remains the center of dance at Bennington, as it has been since the founding of the College in 1932. The college was the setting for the historic and pioneering Bennington Summer School of the Dance, and the visionary spirit represented there has been integral to Bennington’s history and present philosophy. 

The Bennington campus was the scene of world premieres of classic modern works by some of the greatest dance artists of the time, including Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, Charles Weidman, and Hanya Holm, who not only spent summers there but returned as teachers. Among the many classic dances created at Bennington are Martha Graham’s Letter to the World, El Penitente, American Document, and Panorama; Doris Humphrey’s With My Red Fires, New Dance, and Passacaglia in C minor. Hanya Holm created Trend, José Limón premiered Danza de la Muerta and Danzas Mexicanas, and Charles Weidman created Quest while at Bennington.

In every decade since then, the Bennington College Dance Program has been in motion. 

Throughout, dance faculty, guest artists, and graduates have made major contributions to the field of dance. With innovative and collaborative spirit, they have been pushing the boundaries in choreography, performance, the art of improvisation, somatic studies, interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary art making, design, writing for dance, and arts administration. Some have forged connections with and/or have become writers, musicians, visual artists, architects, and scientists. Others have made a significant impact in public action, conflict resolution, and educational innovation.

Choreographer, performer, and visual artist Dana Reitz, who has taught at Bennington for 30 years, states “Bringing in a second dance program to work side by side with the existing program is likely a first for a college dance program; it embodies the ongoing pioneering spirit of Bennington. We are eager to discover ways these programs can complement and enrich each other. I have been able to work here and sustain a professional life, to take what is important to me as an artist and work with students who need to find out what is important to them. We make things to find out something we don’t know and we watch to notice what we haven’t yet seen. I am deeply grateful for the cohesive and collaborative nature of our dance program, and I honor the remarkable dance artists and designers who have taught here before and those who are teaching currently. I have no doubt that our partnership with the former UArts Dance Program will prove to be a complex, vibrant, and intriguing adventure.”  

The University of the Arts, with its emphasis on professional training, boasts a record number of dance graduates who now populate dance companies such as Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Philadanco, Mark Morris Dance Company, Pilobolus, Ballet X, France’s Angeline Prejocal, Sidra Bell Dance New York, Tere O’Connor Dance, Trisha Brown Dance Company, Kyle Abraham’s Abraham in Motion, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Stephen Petronio Dance Company, Donald Byrd/Spectrum Dance, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, and Ballet BC. Many others have gone onto Broadway and appear in such Tony-winning shows as Hell’s Kitchen and dance with pop musical greats like Beyoncé and Megan Thee Stallion. 

The Transformational Partnerships Fund provides support for institutions of higher education to explore student-centric partnerships