BFA Dance Lab
Our approach is different…
The ambitious Bennington BFA Dance Lab activates a physically and intellectually rigorous curriculum and amplifies a diversity of styles and ideologies. We constantly move students into immersive formations of thinking, making, and doing. Most importantly, we dance.
Connect With Your Faculty Team
You will work closely with an incredible group of accomplished faculty and mentors throughout the BFA Dance Lab program.
What is the program?
The pedagogical approach of the Bennington BFA Dance Lab calls forth new considerations of dance study by encouraging daily practice, imagination, and nimble responsiveness to a changing world. The conservatory-style curriculum, embedded within a liberal arts college setting, fosters a deep sense of vitality as students learn to thrive as agents of creative, expressive change and in contexts where difference informs and reinforces community. The program insists on a small cohort, shaping an intimate and focused collectivity within study where lifelong relationships are cultivated within a network of faculty artists, and guests. Our BFA Dance Lab aims to provide an environment for students to shape a dance practice that is personal, driven by curiosities, and deeply reflective by focusing not just on how they dance but why they dance and with whom.
The curriculum is aligned with the long-standing characteristics of Bennington College’s plans of study that emphasize student-designed flexible curricula that are responsive to the expansion of disciplinary boundaries. It is also reflective of the combination of critical pedagogies with a rigorous engagement of studio practice that is characteristic of successful dance conservatories. Faculty of the BFA Dance Lab, like the faculty of Bennington College as a whole, are teacher-practitioners active in intentionally diverse aspects of the dance field. BFA students consistently participate collaboratively in the research and creative practices of BFA Dance Lab faculty.
From their first year in the Lab, students are encouraged to make their own choices about study possibilities through discussions with and mentoring by their advisors and faculty members. In taking responsibility for their own educational pathways, emerging artists discover how they want to situate their voice in relation to the world. This sort of choice-making is crucial for advanced dance artistry and professional work in associated fields, and the curriculum expects engaged, direct participation in the learning process. Within the BFA Dance Lab curriculum, students are encouraged to discover their interests, articulate their perspectives, and situate themselves as participants capable of developing new relationships to dance and to the world.
A distinctive characteristic of the Lab is that students have the opportunity to travel to study intensively and perform works by both students and visiting choreographers. During the 2024-2025 academic year, students performed works by Sidra Bell, Rena Butler, Kyle Clark, Gary Jeter, Shayla-Vie Jenkins and Jesse Zaritt in Philadelphia and traveled to both Jacob's Pillow and The International Association of Black in Dance (IABD) for workshops and classes.
On campus, surrounded by nature, students study and perform in state-of-the-art studios and classrooms that both anchor and inspire the program.
There are four distinctive curriculum course areas
Studio Practice (SP) & Body Pathways
Students choose SP coursework from a wide range of offerings such as ballet, traditional modern dance techniques, hip hop, jazz and other contemporary forms. The Body Pathways Labs offer training and experiences in a variety of somatic approaches and exercise modalities.
Thinking, Making, Doing (TMD)
TMD courses focus on imaginative study through improvisational and choreographic methodologies. Students choose from course offerings that include how to organize, plan and present choreographic projects. Within TMD, the Practice and Process courses always include rotating, visiting artist faculty each term.
Critical Dance Processes (CDP)
CDP are a series of required courses that include history & theory alongside capstone courses across all four years that anchor a student’s study. The courses include Senior Seminar and Senior Thesis Workshop.
Performance Pedagogies of Dance (POD)
PODs create opportunities for students to have firsthand experiences in the rehearsal and performance of new works.
Practice & Process coursework consistently asks students to expand their interdisciplinary thinking. For example, with visiting artist Kayla Farrish (Spring, 2025), students developed video storytelling projects that used narrative and history as a starting point to unfold body, voice and text. Beginning in the first semester of their third year and continuing through their fourth year, each student is required to develop a series of research questions, practices, choreographic studies, and texts that ultimately culminate in a Senior Thesis Project. Within the CDP coursework, students are exposed to and experiment with sound, costume, and lighting design. In their Senior Seminar coursework, they develop their own website and begin the important processes of creating a personal artistic archive. Students who have a special interest in any aspect of production from stage management and lighting design to photography and video production can and do develop skills through faculty mentorships and internships.
In addition to the four course areas of the dance curriculum, students enroll each term in courses from among the robust course offerings from Bennington College that support the acquisition of the Bennington Capacities—to inquire, research, create, engage, and communicate.
How to Apply to the BFA Dance Lab
BFA Application
Students applying for the BFA Dance Lab are required to complete:
- The Common Application or Apply Coalition (two ways to apply, based on your preference); please select Dance as your first choice area of study
- One letter of recommendation
- Transcripts from all schools attended
- An audition on campus or at a City Lab
There is no application fee to apply to the BFA Dance Lab at Bennington College.
Application Deadlines
- Priority I: December 1
- Priority II: January 10
- Final: March 15
Admission decisions will be released on a rolling basis.
Scholarships & Financial Aid
All applicants will be considered for merit and need-based aid.
To learn more and apply for financial aid, see the undergraduate financial aid page.
Tuition & Costs
Bennington’s tuition for the 2026–2027 academic year is $71,700. To see a full breakdown of direct costs for undergraduates, see the tuition and fees page. Information on next year’s tuition will be available soon.
We invite you to take a look at our performances from our Winter & Spring Dance Series, Fall 2024 - Spring 2026.
Videographer: Daniel Madoff
Watch Here
Questions?
Email Cameron Childs, cameronchilds@bennington.edu, Coordinator of the BFA Dance Lab, with any questions about this program or the application.