News to Dance About

New Concentrations in Theatre & Dance and Journalism & Strategic Media

by Phillip Tutor

NEW ACADEMIC CONCENTRATIONS THAT BEGAN IN 2019 offer College of Communication and Fine Arts students a pair of modern options.

In the Department of Theatre & Dance, chair Holly Lau has welcomed the first students pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Theatre with a concentration in Dance Science. Meanwhile, the Department of Journalism and Strategic Media has added a Creative Mass Media concentration that will prepare students to become media innovators who can create content in a variety of formats.

Dance Science is an interdisciplinary concentration at the University of Memphis that expands the possibilities for students. With classes divided between Lau’s department and the School of Health Studies’ Exercise, Sport and Movement Sciences, students seeking this concentration will receive dance training and skills in areas such as nutrition, biomechanics, exercise physiology and kinesiology.

The goal, Lau said, is to train graduates for careers in a variety of related fields, including health and wellness advisors for dance companies and trainers in fitness clubs. The concentration will also allow students who take additional classes and degrees to pursue careers in physical therapy or dance medicine. “We have had students in the past cobble this together on their own very successfully,” Lau said. “It creates a dancer who really is best aware of their own body and how to take care of their own self. Every single one of our dancers teach. People who dance teach dance. They are now really very skilled, careful, healthy teachers. So no matter what else they do in their life, they have this.”

In the Creative Mass Media concentration, students will take classes in journalism, advertising, public relations, media design and photojournalism. With several classes cross-listed with the UofM’s Department of Art, students learn how to apply creativity to media production. Graduates could work as an art director for an advertising agency, a content

creator for a news organization as a web content producer, a media designer or a photojournalist, according to Dr. Matt Haught, associate professor of journalism and strategic media.

“These classes aren’t new,” Haught said. “These classes have been on the books, some of them for 50 years. And these aren’t new concepts to media, but they’re newly organized for 21st century media.

“We did this because we saw a lot of students wanting to go into media-based creative careers, and we saw that we already had the classes in place and we already had the resources in place. It just made sense.”

The addition of a Dance Science concentration positions the Department of Theatre & Dance among a small

collection of U.S. colleges and universities that feature Dance Science. Some offer it as a Bachelor of Science degree; others list it as a BFA in Dance with a concentration in Health Science. The UofM opted to offer it as a concentration to offer a broader range of options for Theatre & Dance students.

“Some of the people we’re thinking it might attract are returning professionals, especially people who may have been in the dance world,” Lau said. “They can come in and get a lot of experience-for-life credit for the dance portion for what they’ve done, and then they’ll fill that in with the science classes. We think this might have a unique appeal to a lot of people.”

The idea of importing Dance Science at the UofM gained steam when Dr. Anne Hogan became dean of the College of Communication and Fine Arts in 2017. Hogan had previously been the director of education at the Royal Academy of Dance, based in London, and its senior advisor for International Partnerships, based in the United States.

“The dean was absolutely for it,” Lau said, “and the professor I was working with primarily (in the School of Health Studies) was for it.”

The BFA in Theatre, with a concentration in Dance Science, will require 120 undergraduate hours, including 41 in general education classes, nine in Theatre, three for an internship in Exercise, Sport and Movement Sciences and 10 in electives. In the concentration, students will take 24 hours in Exercise, Sport and Movement Sciences and 33 in Dance.

“I spoke to someone out of Florida who runs a program,” Lau said, “and he said The thing that’s different about a person who comes out of dance science and becomes a physical therapist is they understand dancers, and they’re different from athletes. The bodies are different and the goals are different.”

Creative Mass Media students will be required to take 45 hours in the Department of Journalism and Strategic Media, including 24 in the Creative Mass Media concentration. Students will take Creative Strategy in Advertising, Multimedia Storytelling, Web Publishing I and Creative Media Lab, three additional classes in either journalism or advertising (such as Publication Design, Advertising Campaigns, Advanced Photojournalism) and a Journalism and Strategic Media elective.

“The coolest thing is that this is a subject that focuses on being that media person who can innovate,” Haught said. “The dean gave a great example when she was talking about this.

“If you’re a startup, you need a lot of things: you need a logo. You need social media accounts. You need brand standards. You need someone who can write about it. You need someone who can take pictures of it. You need someone who can build your whole identity, and that is what a Creative Mass Media student can do because they have that journalistic writing training, they have that photojournalism training, they have that advertising, design and branding (training), and they have that strategic piece that comes from interacting from all of these disparate disciplines.”