Dance Education for Contemporary Dance
Dance Education Program – officially approved – 3 years
Are you passionate about dancing? Do you dream of turning your love of dance into a fulfilling and rewarding profession? At our Academy in Berlin, Germany, we offer a 3-year dance education program for Contemporary Dance that will prepare you for a career in the dance industry.
Our mission is to give aspiring dancers the opportunity to turn their passion into a career attending our dance program. The dance education covers a wide range of dance styles ensuring that you have a well-rounded foundation at the end of your training. It is our aim to qualify you professionally as a dancer. Technically, theoretically and creatively.
As a future professional dancer, you will get the know-how you need for the ever-increasing and diverse international requirements in the dance world. We believe that dance is not only an art form, but also a powerful means of self-expression and communication.
Our modernized facilities in Berlin, the supportive community and performance opportunities will empower you to develop professionally and build a successful career as a dancer. Join us on your challenging, fulfilling, ecxiting, but also strenuous journey completing your training at Balance 1 in Berlin.
Note: The 3-year full-time dance training at the academy was officially approved as a vocational school in Germany by the Berlin Senate in 1996.
Contemporary Dance Education
We believe that versatility is the key in today’s dance world, and our contemporary dance education reflects this. Our curriculum exposes you to a variety of techniques and movement vocabularies. During your training, it is important for you to build strong dance technique in addition to physical fitness.
Developing your individual and holistic movement language becomes 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 dance education – all of them have been on stage or are on stage themselves, some of them also work as choreographers.
Thus we guarantee you a dynamically stimulating learning at the highest level.
Classes
During your education, daily training in ballet is an important foundation for you to build a solid classical technique. In addition to ballet, the tuition of modern dance techniques focuses on Graham and Horton. A solid knowledge of these techniques will prepare you for the main focus of the education: learning the many different contemporary dance styles and movement concepts that characterize contemporary dance today. Your daily classes will include:
- Classical Ballet
Contemporary and Modern-Dance
In addition, we complement the dance education with many other classes, such as:
- Improvisation
- Contact Improvisation
- Partnering
- Jazz dance
- Commercial HipHop
Our training concept also emphasizes the importance of conditioning and injury prevention. We offer complementary classes in Pilates and Yoga to improve your physical fitness and minimize the risk of injury. You will deepen your knowledge of dance as an art form through further studies:
- Applied anatomy
- Dance Methodology
- History of Dance
- Composition
- Choreography
Students arrive from many countries to attend the dance education. Classes therefore are mostly held in english.
Study Structure
The Contemporary Dance Education at the Academy 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 semester.
Training takes place all day from Monday to Friday. The training-free periods are six weeks in summer, two weeks in autumn, three weeks at Christmas, and two weeks at Easter. Regular attendance at classes is a prerequisite for successful education at our Academy of Dance.
The first semester begins each year at the beginning of October.
Dance Degree
At the end of the training program, you will receive a dance diploma. The professional title is: state-approved stage dancer.
Note: We are an approved vocational academy of dance, but not a private college. The degree is therefore not a Bachelor of Arts (BA), which is only awarded by higher education institutions of arts only. However, the education content is comparable to an undergraduate European Bachelor program. Therefore, many higher education institutions accept the degree of our academy as an equivalent to the Bachelor of Arts. Thus, after successful graduation, with an equivalent of 180 ECTS credit points, it is possible for our graduates to apply for advanced dance or choreography specific Master of Arts programs at certain dance departments of higher education institutions.
Opportunities for performances
Performances are an essential part of a dancer’s studies. They allow dancers to share their art with the world, connect with audiences, and gain valuable stage experience. At our Academy, we provide important performance opportunities for our prospective dancers. Our students have the chance to showcase their talent and shine in the spotlight. These performance opportunities not only allow you to apply and showcase the skills you have learned, but also help you grow as an artist. You will learn to adapt to different performance situations, work as part of a team, and handle the pressures of live performances.
Our academy also invites guest choreographers to create original pieces for our dancers to experience different choreographic styles and approaches. Through performances, you’ll gain confidence, stage presence, and a deeper understanding of the art of performance.
By the third semester, you’ll be creating your own first creative work in the form of a solo. You can also get a taste of the stage air in the theater: at the end of your fourth semester you will paticipate in the final projects of the third year of training and are directly involved in the development of their choreographies.
In the fifth semester, you will work together with your choreographers on your first professional dance performance: our Admission to Dance is performed publicly in Berlin every year in March. There you can finally demonstrate the full range of your dance skills and dance in many different choreographies.
Thanks to the cooperation of our academy with the renowned Ernst Busch Hochschule in Berlin, you will also have the exciting opportunity to work with future choreographers during your fifth semster: the students of the master choreography program.
Your final project as a dancer and choreographer
At the end of your 3rd year of training, you must of course first pass your final exam. But then you will come to the most exciting part of your education: in the sixth semester you will develop and rehearse your own choreography with your fellow students from the 2nd and 3rd year of training! Likewise, you will dance in choreographies of your graduate class.
The Graduate Students Choreographies, the official stage dance final projects, are the absolute highlight at the end of your dance education program and will be publicly performed as a full-length dance performance in the theater at the end of September in Berlin.
