Beijing Dance Academy

Beijing Dance Academy is an exclusive dance institution of higher education in China established in 1954. It has grown from a secondary educational institution named Beijing Dance School to a leading dance institution of higher learning in 1978. Degree-granting programs for MA and MFA in dance studies began in 1999 and 2005 respectively, followed by a joint program for Ph.D students initiated in 2010 through cooperation with Peking University. Being one of the most prestigious and largest dance schools worldwide, the Academy offers programs at secondary, undergraduate and graduate levels with rigorous and well-round curriculum. Known as “cradle of dancers”, where numerous dance students are blossoming and harvesting, Beijing Dance Academy has currently about 600 full-time faculty members and 3500 full-time students, neighboring the picturesque Zizhu Park and National Library. Beijing Dance Academy comprises sixteen major academic components: the Department of Chinese Classical Dance, the Department of Chinese Ethnic and Folk Dance, the Ballet Department, the Choreography Department, the Department of Dance Studies, the Department of Social Dance, the Department of Musical Theatre, the Department of Art Communication, the Department of Art Design, the Education and Research Center for Modern Dance, the Department of Liberal Arts, the Teaching and Research Department for Ideological and Political Theory, the Graduate Faculty, the Affiliated Secondary School of Beijing Dance Academy, the School of Continuing Education, the School of Dance Grade Examination and Education, and the BDA Youth Dance Company. A unique system of dance education with Chinese characteristics has been established concerning academic subjects such as dance performance, choreography, dance history and theory, art design, art management, new media, and somatic science of dance. In the past 60 years, the Academy has been guided by the Party’s policies of education and arts, operating on principles of ideals, cultures, laws and harmonious development, promoting brilliant tradition of Chinese culture as well as assimilating excellent cultures from abroad. With school motto as “Morality and Harmony, Nature and Human, Culture and Dance, Virtue and Art”, the academy endeavors to sustain its tradition of “patriotism and love of school and dance”, stress the development of high cultures, brilliant artists and quality popularization of art education, and contribute to build up a world top dance school of higher education aiming at renaissance of Chinese culture and development of dance.