"A bit of convincing madness": toward the development of a university dance program in Newfoundland and Labrador

Dance is a critical part of Newfoundland and Labrador’s heritage and \ncontemporary arts scene, and the lack of dance in the K-12 and postsecondary school \nsystem is incongruent with dance’s cultural importance to the province. This study uses \nthe personal narratives of individuals involved in the creation of dance programs at \nuniversities across Canada as the basis for exploring how academic dance programming \nmight be developed at Memorial University of Newfoundland. It sheds light on the \nbenefits and challenges involved in creating an academic dance program and considers \nthe significance of local context, strengths of dance as a scholarly and performative \ndiscipline, and finding allies and creating partnerships in the arts, the university, and in \ncommunity for such an endeavour. This study makes recommendations for how dance \ncould be developed at Memorial, thereby contributing to the development of the \nacademic dancespace in Canada.