Our Mission
The UMass Amherst Dance Program aims to be at the forefront of educating the contemporary dance major through physical, creative, and theoretical scholarship. The program supports this by creating an environment that embraces inquiry, rigor, and risk; providing a robust and relevant curriculum; engaging the wider, diverse regional community; and supporting a faculty that brings to the classroom/studio the benefits of national and international creative and scholarly research.
Consequently, goals for the Dance Program include providing majors with a comprehensive academic and technical course of study that will facilitate their work as artists or prepare them for further graduate study. Other goals include providing opportunities for diverse performance and choreography, exploring connections to disciplines outside the field of dance, and developing the skills that can help support the often tenuous life of a professional dance artist.
We are committed to:
- The highest aesthetic standards
- Being of service to our diverse campus and local community
- Excellence in creative and scholarly research
- Exemplary, experientially based teaching
We strive to:
- Offer a diverse range of movement techniques
- Instill a deep and factual understanding of anatomical information in order to be more articulate in the body
- Engage our students in artistic traditions and current trends in dance-making
- Foster critical thinking and emphasize the ability to express oneself through language and movement
- Raise social and cultural awareness
- Provide a methodology for creation, editing, and presentation of one’s work in order to move from conceptual idea to performance
- Facilitate a high level of craft alongside a distinctive artistic voice
Dance Director's Statement
Welcome! As the new Director of the UMass Amherst Dance Program, I am honored to lead our department through an exciting and necessary paradigm shift. This will celebrate the dancer as a vital force in interdisciplinary artmaking, cultural dialogue, and academic innovation.
With the support and brilliance of our faculty, our mission is to cultivate a dynamic and inclusive community that illuminates the natural cathartic function of interdisciplinary arts through the lens of the dancer. At the heart of this evolution is our commitment to honoring and activating intergenerational knowledge, while amplifying voices, perspectives, and practices that have too often been marginalized.
We center our curriculum, mentorship, and creative work around a foundational methodology we call The 3 C’s:
- Context (the history),
- Content (the embodied practice or philosophy), and
- Citation (the source).
This framework is more than a pedagogical tool; it is a form of cultural diplomacy. It cultivates a deeper understanding of lineage, legacy, and innovation in dance, empowering students to create with intention, speak with fluency, and move with purpose. It builds continuity across disciplines, across generations, and across borders.
To realize this vision, we are implementing new systems that support the full spectrum of interdisciplinary exploration. This includes:
- Curriculum reform that invites collaboration across the arts, sciences, and humanities
- Guest artists, lectures, and master classes that spark intergenerational and intercultural exchange
- Research opportunities and rigorous training environments that celebrate process, experimentation, and excellence
- Expansive performance platforms that highlight hybrid, site-specific, and multimedia work
Our goal is to produce artists who are not only technically proficient but conceptually expansive, capable of shaping the future of dance in concert with global and local communities. Whether our graduates pursue choreography, scholarship, performance, activism, or technology, they will leave UMass with a clear understanding of how dance can function as a tool for inquiry, healing, communication, and transformation.
Together, we are not just building a program—we are cultivating an ecosystem for bold, interdisciplinary dance artists who are ready to move the world.
Duane Lee Holland Jr.
Dance Program Director