Arkansas Will Soon Be Without a Dance Program

Would-be dance majors are missing the dance degree program at University of Arkansas at Little Rock, which was recently eliminated, the Arkansas Democrat Gazette reported.

The bachelor of fine arts in dance had been the only dance program in the state of Arkansas, and a state without any dance programs is rare, Karen Schupp, an associate professor of dance at Arizona State University, told the Gazette. Without a dance program in the state, prospective dance students must either change majors or pay out-of-state tuition for another program. It’s possible another state university could create a dance major, though none have publicly committed to doing so.

After struggling with declining enrollment and increasing debt, the university cut the program as part of an institutionwide restructuring effort. The dance program stopped accepting new majors in May 2020.

“The fact that there’s no place for people to study dance, that’s going to change who has access to dance in the whole state,” Schupp told the Gazette. “You go to college, maybe you want to perform. When you get there, you figure out you want to teach. [Then] you give that knowledge back to your community.”