Contemporary Dance Education

Contemporary Dance Education in Berlin Germany

Our teaching concept at the Dance Academy Balance 1 aims to qualify you as a dancer. Technically, theoretically and creatively.
The full-time training is officially approved and lasts three years.
As a future professional dancer, we will provide you with the know-how you need to meet the ever-increasing international and diverse professional requirements.

As a dancer in training it is important for you to build up a strong dance technique.
Developing your individual and holistic movement language is equally important.
In your development, our international faculty of lecturers will always be at your side. As professionals they have many years of experience in the field of educational training. All of them have been on stage or are on stage themselves, some of them also work as choreographers. Thus, they guarantee you a dynamically stimulating learning at the highest level.

Due to the versatility of the training, our graduates can choose from a variety of career prospects and further education.

Training Content

Fields of study

practice and theory

During the three years of professional training, daily ballet classes are an important foundation for you to build a solid classical dance technique.

The focus of modern dance techniques is Graham and Horton. A solid knowledge of these techniques will prepare you for the main focus of the training: learning the many different dance styles and movement concepts that characterize Contemporary Dance.
Therefore, we complement the practical classes with many other subjects such as improvisation, contact improvisation, partnering, jazz dance as well as commercial hip hop, yoga and Pilates.

You will deepen your knowledge of the art form of dance through further studies such as applied anatomy, dance theory, dance methodology, dance history and composition / choreography.

Stage

stage experience

As a performer in the dance field, you naturally need more than just technical know-how. In order for you to develop creatively as well, we consider stage experience during your training to be essential.
In the second year of your studies you will already create your first own creative work in the form of a solo. You can also get a first taste of stage air in the theater: you make yourself available as a dancer for the final works of the third year of training and are directly involved in the development of their choreographies.

In the third year of training, you will work with your choreographers to create your first full-length dance performance: our Admission to Dance is performed annually in March. There you can show the whole range of your dancing skills.

We cooperate with the renowned Ernst Busch Hochschule: this gives you the additional exciting opportunity to work with future choreographers from the master’s program in choreography in your third year.

You as an artist: dancer and choreographer

At the end of your 3rd year of training, you must of course first pass your final exam. But then you come to the most exciting part of your training: you work out and rehearse your own choreography with your fellow students and dancers from the 2nd year of training!
You will also participate as a dancer in the choreographies of your graduating class.
The Graduate Students Choreographies, the official final projects, are the absolute highlight at the end of your training and will be performed publicly as a full-length dance performance in the theater at the end of September.

Study structure

The dance education lasts three years, divided into six consecutive semesters with a final examination in the practical and theoretical subjects. Prerequisite for participation in the final examination are the successfully passed intermediate examinations at the end of the second and fourth semesters.
Classes are held all day from Monday to Friday. The training-free periods are six weeks in summer, two weeks in fall, three weeks at Christmas, and two weeks at Easter.
Regular attendance of classes is an absolute prerequisite for a successful course at Dance Academy Balance 1.
The first semester begins each year at the beginning of October.

Degree in Dance

After finishing your three year degree course as a dance artist, you will be issued a dance diploma.
We are an approved vocational academy of dance, but not a private university.
So the final certificate is not a Bachelor of Arts (BA), which is awarded by universities only.
However, the educational content is comparable to an undergraduate European Bachelor program.
Therefore, many institutions and universities accept our diploma as an equivalent to the Bachelor of Arts. Thus, our graduates can apply for further dance or choreography specific Master of Arts programs at universities.

“As choreographers, we demand technique and virtuosity from the dancers, but also intelligence and culture, and above all we demand protagonists for the creative process. That is the challenge of the new dance.”
Rui Horta, choreograph of SOAP

Read about our entry requirements and apply to one of our auditions.