The Bachelor’s Programme in Dance experiments through practice and reflection with what “contemporary dance” could be today. Over the course of the 3 year program, you will nurture your dancing and thinking in a context that actively examines the genre – its histories, capacities and limitations.
Please note! The BA in Dance Performance begins every other year and is planned to begin next time autumn 2024.
During the programme you will develop your dance practice by working with a wide range of movement and dance practices, aesthetic styles and forms of expression. Through practice and reflection, you will be encouraged to embrace, question and sweat with these styles, aesthetics and discourses. You will practice dancing in relation to various working methods and creative processes in a range of performative and choreographic frameworks. Additionally, you will study practical anatomy, project organization and production, theory, regularly perform and watch performances and collaborate with other disciplines at SKH.
You will be required to work independently and in groups. The programme welcomes students who are curious about what dance and dancing can be. Regardless of the style of your dance and performance, you are welcome to apply. Practice is interwoven with theory in the form of analysis, discussion and practical reflection. The combined content of the programme prepares students for work as dance artists in a range of contexts.
During the programme you will work primarily with three perspectives that integrate theory and practice: movement and dance practices, the performative, and choreographic process.
Movement and dance practices: In daily training, you will study various movement and dance practices supporting the development of the awareness of your body and the other bodies in the room, finding range, specificity and articulation through movement.
The performative: Working in a range of spatial frameworks (proscenium stage, site-specific, exhibition space and so forth) you will explore how different materials, energies and relationships appear in performance.
The choreographic process: You will continuously be engaged in creative processes, exploring making by taking on a range of different roles, individually and in groups. You will practice taking initiatives as well as receiving impulses from others and learning in the space between leading and following, playing with the roles of dancer and choreographer.
In addition to these three continuous perspectives, the programme offers: elective courses as an opportunity to encounter other artistic forms and expressions present at the university, practical anatomy, project organization and production, field studies and other content that emerges in our collective lived moment.
If you have any questions regarding the programme, please contact Zoë Poluch, Head of the Programme at zoe.poluch@uniarts.se
If you have questions regarding the entry requirements, tuition fees, or the application process, please contact the Education Administration Offices at studieinfo@uniarts.se
General entry requirements for studies on the first-cycle level in higher education, with an exemption from Swedish 1, 2 and 3 and English 6, or the equivalent.
Swedish language skills are not required.
If you don’t fulfil the formal entry requirements for the programme you may apply for recognition of prior learning, in other words that the knowledge and competence you have acquired through other activities are assessed as the equivalent of the formal merits that are required. Submit your application for recognition of prior learning with your application for the programme.
You may also apply for an exemption/a waiver, that allows you to proceed to the selection process even though you don’t meet the general admission requirements. Submit your application for an exemption/a waiver together with your application.
Don’t delay in submitting your application! You may run into trouble if you wait until the last day and your internet connection happens to be down, or you find that your files are in the wrong format. You will not be able to apply once the last date for applications has passed. Keep in mind that your application has to be turned in by 23:59 (Swedish time).
You apply to the programme in two steps
Apply to the programme via universityadmissions.se
Last day for application: 17 January 2022
Please note! Choose “Autumn 2022” for your search!
Submit your work sample via Varbi (accordning to instructions below):
Last day to submit work sample via Varbi: 17 January 2022
Other important dates for your application
Supporting documentation deadline: 1 February 2022 *
Admission results: Published on My pages on universityadmissions.se 6 May 2022
* 21 June is deadline for submitting your final grades for you who are currently studying the last term of your Upper Secondary Education in Sweden.
5 July is deadline for submitting your final grades for you who are currently studying the last term of your Upper Secondary Education in another country or IB- education.
5 July is deadline for you who need to submit proficiency test in English or Swedish.
Instructions on how to submit your work samples* via Varbi
* Please read below which type of documentation and/or files that is required for the programme you have applied to.
When you have entered Varbi:
Register by stating your name and e-mail address.
Fill in your personal data (including your Swedish civic registration number if you have one).
Fill in the application form and upload the required documents.
Before uploading your documents, they must be prepared as follows:
You must scan your original documents. If the document is in colour, scan it in colour.
All documents must be in PDF-format.
Please name the document/file with content and your name for example: CV_ first name_ family name
Send in the following via Varbi:
1. Selection of experience
Upload a document that selects and describes 5 relevant dance experiences from your life in chronological order.
2. Letter of Motivation
Upload a letter of motivation. Write maximum one page (English only). Please mark the document with your name.
Answer the following questions:
Why are you applying to the programme?
Describe an experience with dance that has inspired and/or affected you. What inspired you and why?
How do you see artistic practice make a positive difference for you, others, society?
3. A video
Upload a video where you complete the 2 tasks/exercises described below.
Follow the instructions for both tasks/exercises carefully and practice before as much as you need to.
Use any camera you want.
It is important that the entire body is visible throughout the whole film.
The tasks/exercises are preferably filmed in a dance studio, without lighting or other arrangements.
Use music if you want to, otherwise you can film in silence.
Again, maximum length is 4 minutes and 150 Mbit.
Task 1: Learn and dance a phrase
Please watch the instruction video below instructed by Ulrika Berg. Ulrika first shows the dance phrase in full, followed by more detailed descriptions of the dance phrase you will show in your video.
Time frame: 1 minute
Task 2.
Instructions for task 2 is written by Zoë Poluch and describes what you are going to do in your video.
General principle: The front is everywhere (360 degrees around you), meaning that you do not need to treat the camera as your front.
Time Frame: 3 minutes.
Dance a dance*, any dance, and explain why you chose to dance that dance. Duration: Dance for 2 minutes. Explain/contextualize for 1 minute
*Dance: this could be a style or a technique, a dance you are familiar with that comes from your personal archive, a dance that you have learned from somewhere else, for example, the internet or from a library, it could be a historical dance or a contemporary dance.
Please note that you might have to reduce/compress your video size before uploading it. Read more about reducing video size and what Bitrate is.
Confirmation that you have submitted your work samples via Varbi
When you've submitted your work samples you will receive a confirmation to the e-mail address that you’ve stated. If you don’t receive a confirmation e-mail, you should first check your spam filter. If the confirmation e-mail is not there, contact Varbi's technical support.
The assessment of eligibility and the selection take place in several stages. The assessment of formal merits/grades is carried out by the Swedish Council for Higher Education. The assessment of artistic merits is carried out by an admission group from SKH consisting of teachers and professionals from the field. A student representative can also participate in the admissions group, but will not take part in the assessment.
After each stage of the process there will be a decision on who will proceed to the next step. Everyone is informed of whether they will proceed or not.
If you are a Swedish citizen or a citizen of another EU or EEA country you are not required to pay application or tuition fees. Some other groups are also exempt from the requirement to pay application and study fees.
A few years ago Sweden introduced application and tuition fees for higher education. The level of the study fees depends on which course/programme they are for, and the level is set in order to cover the actual costs of the course/programme in question. SKH has some possibilities of offering scholarships that cover the whole study fee or that subsidise it.
If you are required to pay an application fee, the Swedish Council for Higher Education needs to receive your payment by the last date for paying the application fee. The application fee is SEK 900. If you are required to pay the application fee and the Swedish Council for Higher Education has not received your payment by the last date for paying the tuition fee, they will not process your application. Read more here.
Tuition fee for the Bachelor Programme in Dance Performance starting autumn term 2022: 181 000 SEK per term or 1 086 000 SEK for the whole programme.
