The four-year bachelor’s degree program in dance is divided into three stages:

Year 1

The first year is an introductory year that allows students to enter the body through a wide range of techniques and different approaches to developing and refining their abilities. Students study classical and contemporary technique, floor work and standing work in front of the mirror, moving from sensation to form and from form to sensation. They are introduced to the worlds of choreography, improvisation, somatic movement, and the repertoire of the teachers who lead Israeli and international dance.

Years 2 + 3

During these two years, students study within a “Focus” — a professional specialization track chosen from four possible directions:

Performance Focus

Training the dancer of our time through repertoire workshops, creative processes, encounters with choreographers from Israel and abroad, and performances in Israel and overseas.

Movement Focus

This focus centers on the study of improvisation, somatic dance, emotion, and consciousness. It grows out of movement traditions and is renewed through asking questions about what it means to be an artist, teacher, or researcher today, through a holistic understanding of being body-based practitioners.

Choreography Focus

Expansion and specialization in the diverse fields of art and creative practice. This focus develops personal movement expression and compositional abilities. It includes guidance, encounters, and familiarity with the working methods of active choreographers in the field of dance in Israel and around the world, as well as collaborations with artists from other media.

Multicultural Focus

A fusion of technique, repertoire, and creation rooted in rich cultural knowledge and ancient practices interpreted through a contemporary lens.

Year 4

The fourth year is a year of integration and conclusion. It is dedicated to refining the knowledge accumulated during the previous years and translating it into sustainable work within the dance field in Israel and abroad. This is based on familiarity with the field and on the faculty’s connections, which support students’ integration into practical dance activity, such as apprenticeships with dance companies, artist residency programs in cultural institutions and dance centers, community projects, dance entrepreneurship programs, dance studies abroad through student exchange programs, and more.

This year is devoted to refining each student’s knowledge and abilities through a personal final project, accompanied by individual mentoring, in collaboration with students from other focuses, other faculties, and a variety of partners outside the Academy and abroad.

Technique classes: African dance, classical ballet, contact improvisation, Horton, Cunningham, contemporary dance, Axis Syllabus, release technique, Portal to the Pelvis, jazz and hip hop, Feldenkrais.

Content-based classes: composition, improvisation with musicians, improvisation, movement notation, methodology, repertoire, stage space, Judson, Butoh.

Theoretical courses: music, multidisciplinary art, The Compass and the Map, history of dance, anatomy, center and periphery in Israeli dance.

The degree awarded upon completion of studies at the Faculty is a Bachelor’s degree in Dance: B.Dance, or a Master’s degree: M.Dance. These degrees are recognized by the Council for Higher Education, as well as by academies around the world.

Alongside the Bachelor’s degree studies, there is a separate program in dance education. The Teaching Certificate program takes place on Tuesdays, with mandatory courses beginning in the second year of studies at the Faculty.

The program offers studies in education and arts education, methodology courses, practical training and personal mentoring, engaging elective courses, and, above all, hands-on teaching experience with a variety of ages, communities, and populations.

The duration of the program is four years. Shortened study programs are available for applicants with extensive background and a high level of performance, as determined in the entrance examinations. The Faculty may recognize prior studies completed in professional dancer-training programs.

Tuition is set according to the rate determined by the Ministry of Education for subsidized institutions of higher education.

In the first year, classes take place from Sunday to Thursday, between 9:00 a.m. and 4:15 p.m., except for days that start later than 9:00 a.m. or end later than 4:15 p.m.

In years two through four, classes take place on Sundays, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, between 9:00 a.m. and 4:15 p.m. This excludes studies for the Teaching Certificate, which also take place on Tuesdays, as well as days that start later than 9:00 a.m. or end later than 4:15 p.m.

The Faculty places great importance on effective, focused study days — days that allow students, alongside the learning process, to choose time for personal initiatives, work and earning a living, physical rest, and meaningful personal life.

9:00 a.m.–12:15 p.m. — Morning block:
Most classes during this block are technique classes chosen by the students according to each student’s level of ability and personal interests. Each technique class offers a unique approach to developing and refining skills, and is usually held at least twice a week.

12:15–1:00 p.m. — Lunch break:
A good time for a healthy meal, physical rest, and meeting the Academy’s student community — not only dancers, but also musicians from the various faculties. This is a valuable opportunity to create new, surprising, and diverse collaborations and connections.

1:00–4:15 p.m. — Afternoon block:
First-year students deepen their work in choreography, somatic practices, improvisation classes, collaborations with musicians, repertoire, and theoretical courses such as art, music, anatomy, and more. Second- and third-year students engage in focused research within each focus area, as detailed above. Fourth-year students dedicate this time to each student’s personal project, including independent and group rehearsal work and mentoring.

The Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance awards scholarships each year on a socio-economic basis. In addition, scholarships are awarded to students who demonstrate excellence in performance and creation, as well as in social and organizational involvement in Academy life.

Each year, around 800 students study at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, across faculties, departments, programs, ensembles, creative and research bodies in various fields of music and dance, long-standing and new projects, extended productions and rapid-response productions, both within the Academy building and beyond it.

All the programs and initiatives provide a home and foundation for curiosity, research into boundary-breaking artistic language, and refined skills that lead to innovative creation in music and dance. They support artists and performers with diverse abilities, a deep education in culture and education, a distinctive artistic signature, and a rich cultural discourse that will help lead the worlds of music and dance, in Israel and abroad.

The Faculty of Dance is part of the Academy’s ecosystem, which is itself essentially part of the city of Jerusalem — and Jerusalem is Israel in its most concentrated and exaggerated form. The Faculty of Dance is a meeting point: you are invited not only to study there, but also to see it as a breeding ground that invites multicultural encounters, artistic and human dialogue, an encounter with yourself and with the worlds of others, beyond imagination, in a multifaceted, ever-changing, playful adventure.

Studies at the Faculty are intensive and require dedication to a study program of change and formation. As in any long and meaningful process, there are also challenging stages.

The Academy invests significant resources in supporting this meaningful process: the Faculty’s teaching staff is available to you in every matter, offering guidance from a teacher, the Head of Department, or the Dean of the Faculty. This includes personal feedback and support to help with challenges and ensure that, alongside them, there is satisfactory progress and development.

The teaching staff expects you to take responsibility for the process and to make the most of the diverse opportunities the Academy offers you — within the curriculum, through solutions to personal difficulties, psychological counseling and support, the Student Support Unit, the Student Union, the Faculty Coordinator, and additional systems, people, and frameworks whose entire purpose is to create the best possible foundation for you: for a meaningful process, a deep experience, and shared responsibility between the staff and you.

The Faculty conducts entrance examinations in order to ensure that everyone who begins studying at the Faculty feels they are in the right place — meaning that their prior experience is suited to the level required at the start of the program, that the pace of progress in the studio matches their abilities, and that there is a good fit.

Responses are sent to applicants approximately one to two weeks after the entrance examinations.

Applicants who are accepted will be invited to an introductory and preparatory meeting before the start of the academic year.

Applicants who are not accepted are invited to speak with the Head of Department or the Dean in order to receive feedback and a recommendation for an alternative framework for their development in dance — and possibly also an invitation to take the entrance examinations again the following year.

Yes. The Faculty of Dance is an academic and holistic system. Like working with the body in the studio, it involves movement in multiple directions: it requires a passion for research as well as mandatory attendance; devotion and a sense of sacredness toward creation as well as the fulfillment of academic requirements; movement-based impulsiveness as well as entering the studio exactly on time; discipline as well as individualism.

We are open to dialogue about this gap. Students who choose to study at the Faculty of Dance will encounter movement in opposing directions from the very beginning of the first semester. We invite you to move with curiosity and playfulness within that gap as well.