Chancellor Thorp approves dance minor

Chancellor Holden Thorp announced Tuesday that UNC will add a dance minor.

The minor will be offered within the College of Arts and Sciences and will allow student registration beginning in either fall 2013 or fall 2014, according to a press release.

Thorp announced the plans at a meeting of the Student Advisory Committee to the Chancellor.

The proposal for the minor was submitted in the fall by Lauren Friedmann, a junior and advisory committee member.

“Originally, we had heard that the earliest it would happen was 2014,” Friedmann said. “But it seems that it’s moving pretty quickly.”

Though Friedmann held meetings with students and dance groups about the minor’s curriculum, she said she’s still unsure what exactly it will offer.

“We did submit an idea to the dean of what we’d like the curriculum to look like, and we’d really like administrators to take that into account,” Friedmann said.

She said students and dancers want the minor to include various levels of classical ballet, modern dance, world dance, hip-hop and ballroom dance.

And Sarah Bird, a dancer in Inversions Modern Dance Company, said she wants to see dance classes that incorporate performance opportunities.

Amanda Ziesemer, an intern at Carolina Performing Arts and an advisory committee member, said it’s interesting to see the academic planning that goes into a minor.

“A lot of people have preconceived ideas that a dance program is just dance classes, but the whole idea of a dance minor is to incorporate the academic side of it,” she said.

The proposal Friedmann submitted in the fall followed years of lobbying for a minor.

“The dance community at Carolina has worked really tirelessly for this,” she said.

“There’s such a thirst for dance in an academic setting that the curriculum will be met with open arms.”

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