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The 2026–27 academic year marks a milestone for the Department of Drama as we celebrate the 20th anniversary of UVA's Dance Minor Program and the artistry, innovation, and community that have shaped it. As we look ahead to this landmark year, the Dance Program has been awarded two major grants that will expand opportunities for student learning, creative collaboration, and interdisciplinary exploration.
For twenty years, the UVA Dance Program has invited students to engage with movement as a mode of creative inquiry, embodied research, and collaboration. Through somatic practice and dance-making, students cultivate awareness, deepen their capacity for listening, explore interconnectedness, and discover new ways of understanding themselves and the world around them.
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In support of this milestone celebration, the program was awarded a $10,000 UVA Arts Council Grant entitled Minor Movements – 20 Years of the Dance Minor Program at UVA that will support the anniversary performance season by bringing returning guest artists, former faculty, and alumni back to Grounds to create new works with our students. Complementing that effort, a $15,000 UVA Arts Endowment Grant, sponsored through UVA Arts and the Office of the Provost and the Vice Provost for the Arts, will fund Body as Method: Dance & Interdisciplinary Research, a week-long residency featuring nationally recognized interdisciplinary dance artists. Together, these initiatives commemorate the Dance Program's first twenty years while investing in its future.
This fall, we launch dance's 20th anniversary season with a Dance Alumni Panel Event, on October 9th; Guest Artist in Residence Anichi Moon (Ching-I Chang) October 12-17; and our Fall Dance Concert in the Culbreth Theatre November 19-21. Spring 2027 will bring additional guest artists to grounds, and a special Spring Dance Concert: Sensing Back / Shifting Forward to include new pieces by former faculty, alumni, and other members of the Dance Program community.
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Over these past two decades, the program has grown into a vibrant academic minor that recognizes dance as both an art form and a way of generating knowledge. As we celebrate this milestone and reconnect with alumni, we honor the many students, faculty, guest artists, and supporters who have shaped this community. Inspired by the curiosity of our current students and the stories our alumni continue to carry forward, we look ahead with excitement to the next twenty years of creativity, inquiry, and movement.