College of Charleston

[david from nc]

Is anyone familair with the dance minor and classes at the College of Charleston? We meet the theater department head and he said they are hoping to have a dance major in another year or two. How are the chasses? Are there decent performance opportunities? Do most of the dance students work with Robert Ivey Ballet?

[Momof3darlings]

I am not familiar with the dance classes at CofC, however, there are several youtube videos of performances of both school productions and Ivey Ballet and I do know that many students do work with Robert Ivey Ballet. Charleston Ballet Theatre is the professional company in the area and you might check with them also to see if they will allow you to take classes if your schedule fits. You do have to be careful in looking at youtube because while Charleston Ballet Theatre should be easy to find, some of the listings for Robert Ivey Ballet have in their bio Charleston Ballet and the way they pop up is pretty strange.

[calamitous]

We visited College of CHarleston last year (or maybe 2 years ago) and DD did apply and was accepted there. She took a dance class when she was there and enjoyed it, but the level was very mixed. I believe it was a modern class. She had the opportunity to talk with the instructor after the class, who was very kind and appreciated DD's technique and experiences - they had both been at Ailey. We also spoke to the head of the theatre department, who talked about the plan for a dance major. We went by and visited the Robert Ivey studio but it was a just a walk by as it wasn't open. DD loved the campus, the theatre head, and at the time was comfortable with the dance level.

 

The reason we were looking at CoC was their arts administration program, which DD really liked. She sat in on classes for taht and talked with the head of that department. As she headed through her senior year this past year, she determined that maintaining and improving in dance were important to her and the CoC would not be the right program for her (plus that out of state tuition issue). What DH and I liked was that she would be getting a strong liberal arts education.

 

I can't say much else about the dance program, as that was not her primary reason for considernig the school.

[dancingmeghan]

I do not know specificaly about the CoC program but I did dance with Robert Ivey Ballet for a few months last year. As I recall students of the college went over to the studio for classes and paid a small portion of tuition. They were also included in the performances that Mr. Ivey put on. The school is on a bus line but I strongly do not suggest relying on the areas public transportation. It's about a 15 minute drive from Rutledge, sans traffic, so you would need a car or car pool (which many of the dancers did) to get back downtown. As for the classes, I loved Mr. Ivey's. Creative, caring and pushed the class.

As for CBT the morning class was at 9. There were no outside the company dancers taking class with us, unless they were visiting professionals. CBT's school has some very talented teachers (company dancers) so that could always be an option.

[DCMomof2]

Does anyone have any more recent information about the dance program at the College of Charleston? I saw on their website that they now offer a dance major and a dance minor. It looks like ballet classes for non-majors are limited to beginning and intermediate level classes and you can only take classical ballet technique if you are a dance major. We are trying to decide if it is worth a visit.