Dance Spaces
1306 S. Michigan Ave.
Columbia’s School of Theatre and Dance has plenty of space for you to move—including a professional theater. We also have a dedicated sound and technology lab so you can create your own work.
Our building houses a buzzing dance community. In addition to studio space, we have a sound lab, locker rooms, and student lounges where you’ll hang out with your fellow dancers. And, we’re home to the Dance Center, one of the city’s leading professional dance theaters, where companies from around the world perform and workshop with students. It’s not unusual to see a professional choreographer, a faculty member, and a group of students stretching together in the halls.
The Dance Center Stage
As a vital hub of the School of Theatre and Dance, presents companies from around the world each year. All of our students also take courses, do workshops, and perform in this state-of-the-art space. It’s a 268-seat theater with full projection capabilities, LED lighting systems, and excellent sound. There’s not a bad seat in the house—and you’ll have access to discounted tickets year-round.
Studios
All eight of our studios are used for classes, but they’re also offered through reservation so you can rehearse and create your own work. We use professional musician accompanists in our classes—think live piano and drums—but many of our studios are also outfitted with a computer and sound board so you can bring in your own music. Our biggest space has a light grid as well. Most of the studios have large windows that bring in tons of natural light, and they all have sprung wood flooring with marley. Our smallest studio—Studio 102—has a wood floor and is primarily used for yoga and rehearsals.
Sound Lab
We have nine computer stations with all the software you’ll need (like the Adobe Creative Suite and Premiere Pro, Reaper, Qlab, Isadora, and Final Cut) to create videos of your work and your own soundscapes. You’ll also have access to equipment like computers, cameras, and audio recorders. Our Screen Dance Sound Design course uses our Virtual Desktop Interface (VDI), which gives students access to software and storage from their own laptop.
Upcoming Events:
- The Dance Center continues to spotlight Chicago dance artists who are pushing the boundaries of the form. Cosmic Docks is a dance-theater one-them-show from Nora Sharp, born from the outer space of trans dis-certainty that journeys down a choreographic and comedic rabbit hole of intertwined sci-fi futurism and personal history. Shaped by repression, resistance, and...
- This workshop considers states of dissociation and alienation felt in the body and produced in the social realm. We will use durational group improvisation and seek to consciously embody divergence and opposition. We will explore registers of disconnection, dissonance, and detachment in our movement. We will lose focus and use attention, assemble a method to make...
- The Dance Center continues to spotlight Chicago dance artists who are pushing the boundaries of the form. The 2025 Festival features world premieres: THICK: a crumbling freak show is a multimedia solo performance by Jenn Freeman | Po’Chop that confronts notions of femininity and civility and calls into question the creation of otherness. Freeman asks,...
- The Dance Center continues to spotlight Chicago dance artists who are pushing the boundaries of the form. Cosmic Docks is a dance-theater one-them-show from Nora Sharp, born from the outer space of trans dis-certainty that journeys down a choreographic and comedic rabbit hole of intertwined sci-fi futurism and personal history. Shaped by repression, resistance, and...
- The Dance Center continues to spotlight Chicago dance artists who are pushing the boundaries of the form. The 2025 Festival features world premieres: THICK: a crumbling freak show is a multimedia solo performance by Jenn Freeman | Po’Chop that confronts notions of femininity and civility and calls into question the creation of otherness. Freeman asks,...
- Oftentimes when we think of a ballet class - we accept that we will be expected to go through the standard/traditional ballet barre, center, and across-the-floor combinations. This class encourages a pause for inquiry and conversation to check in with what we are doing and why we are doing it. While this class will incorporate...
- The spring edition of original, brand new, short works by student choreographers selected by faculty from an open application process. Some chosen artists are sharing pieces on the Dance Center’s stage for the first time, others offer works informed by years’ immersed in the DC’s the pluralistic curriculum. Lit by Theatre’s rising lighting designers, these...
- Red Clay Dance Company makes its highly anticipated return to the Dance Center in a program exploring emotional depth, technical prowess, and thought-provoking themes. The concert features a world premiere by legendary, award-winning choreographer Bebe Miller alongside Artistic Director and inaugural Walder Platform Awardee Vershawn Sanders-Ward's re-staging of Written on the Flesh. 16 is p......
- Red Clay Dance Company makes its highly anticipated return to the Dance Center in a program exploring emotional depth, technical prowess, and thought-provoking themes. The concert features a world premiere by legendary, award-winning choreographer Bebe Miller alongside Artistic Director and inaugural Walder Platform Awardee Vershawn Sanders-Ward's re-staging of Written on the Flesh. 16 is p......
- Red Clay Dance Company makes its highly anticipated return to the Dance Center in a program exploring emotional depth, technical prowess, and thought-provoking themes. The concert features a world premiere by legendary, award-winning choreographer Bebe Miller alongside Artistic Director and inaugural Walder Platform Awardee Vershawn Sanders-Ward's re-staging of Written on the Flesh. 16 is p......
