2025-2026 Undergraduate Academic Catalog
Dance Science, BS
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Dance Science is an interdisciplinary major that investigates dance practice with a focus on an application of the scientific principles that contribute to an understanding of the moving body. The BS in Dance Science is designed to enable students to work in a range of health and fitness industries in addition to graduate studies with the proper prerequisites. The BS is 68 units with courses in biology, chemistry, kinesiology, choreography, movement and theory. Students will be able to combine their passion for dance with their esteem for sciences.
Learning Outcomes
At the completion of this degree, students will:
- DISTINGUISH technical terms and theories used in dance studies, influenced by aesthetics, anatomy and science, Somatics, pedagogical and performance theories; and employ this terminology appropriately when discussing and writing about specific works and/or assessing one’s practice.
- RECOGNIZE the cultural context of a work of art or style of movement in the studio and in writing. Frame creative challenges within larger historical/theoretical questions to locate one’s own place in history by recognizing the dance lineage that shape us in our search for defining the dancing identity necessary in today’s world.
- ENGAGE in critical discourse to explore how social identities are constructed, constrained, reinforced, and treated with inequality by systems of power, including within the field of performing arts by analyzing issues of access, representation, exclusion, and inclusion in the field in both creative practice and on paper.
- FORMULATE an intersectional perspective through the lenses of race, ethnicity, gender, class, sexuality, ability, age, and culture; strengthening our sense of how socially conscious bodies are able to see and take action towards social diversity in relationship to the SMC community, the Bay Area, the country and beyond when assessing one’s practice.
- DEMONSTRATE individual artistic choices and promote self-authority and agency to express individual thought and creativity outside of rigid, dominant and binary world views both experientially and in writing.
- DEMONSTRATE the biological workings of the human body and its relevance to human health through discussion, writing, and lab work.
- ANALYZE health, fitness and performance parameters in diverse populations with attention to issues of access, representation, exclusion, and inclusion in the field.
- APPLY the practice of scientific inquiry through laboratory experimentation including the logic of experimentation, data analysis and ethical implications.
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