“I felt it was important to pursue my academic interests as well,” she says. “[Dance at Harvard] is kind of a hidden gem. I don’t think people understand the depth of the dance community.”
Harvard choreographers have competed on a national level—last year, Yamaguchi and Tanhehco qualified for the American College Dance Festival. Tanhehco’s piece made it to the national gala performance and was nominated for the best choreography award.
Minster calls the double-nominations “virtually unheard of for any college dance program.”
Many students say Bergmann, who has directed OFA’s dance programs for the last two and a half years, deserves credit for reinvigorating the program.
“In the past three years the dance community went from literally just students to having a nearly professional program,” Minster says. “[Bergmann] has brought the level up to a lot of conservatory programs.”
Her rebuilt program offers 15 extracurricular courses in ballet, modern, jazz, tap and West African dance.
According to Bergmann, over 600 Harvard affiliates—including graduate students and faculty—enroll in these courses each semester, which Braxton-Brooks describes as high caliber, widely accessible, inexpensive and “pretty low-stress.”
But Bergmann says students often can’t take these classes as seriously as they would an academic course.
“It’s hard on the kids,” she says. “When the crunch is down for midterms, if [the class] was for credit they’d keep coming.”
But the Faculty of Arts and Sciences course catalog offers only two courses in the practice of movement—compared to dozens in Visual and Environmental Studies, Dramatic Arts and Music.
Bergmann says she thinks Harvard is reluctant to significantly increase the number of dance classes because dance is viewed as “experiential” instead of “theoretical.”
Bergmann says she would most like to see dance courses added to the Core Curriculum’s Literature and Arts B classes.
“That would make a big difference,” she says. “Being literate in the arts is not just giving you a visual or musical experience.”
—Staff writer J. Hale Russell can be reached at jrussell@fas.harvard.edu.