The Department of Theatre & Dance provides a unique liberal arts experience where students thrive by engaging across difference and critically investigating the world through creative processes.
As artist-scholars from very different disciplines, we engage with students in solving complex problems through high-impact learning experiences that develop critical thinking, an appreciation for complexity and context, and the ability to communicate clearly in a variety of languages (verbal, visual, aural, spatial, behavioral, kinesthetic). While many of our students go on to pursue a life in the performing arts, our fundamental mission is for all our students to develop as well-rounded individuals with a broad spectrum of knowledge and skills to think and act creatively in an ever-changing and increasingly challenging local and global reality.
Friday, Feb. 28 - Saturday, Mar. 1, 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, Mar. 2, 2 p.m.
Alice Jepson Theatre, Modlin Center for the Arts
Tickets available at modlin.richmond.edu.
Saturday, Mar. 1, immediately following the concert
Artistic director and department faculty, Anne Van Gelder will moderate a Q&A including faculty and guest artists, designers, and students involved in the production of the University Dancers 40th Anniversary Concert.
The University of Richmond Department of Theatre & Dance believes in the power of theatre and dance to build community through art, and that access to the arts should not be limited in any way. In partnership with the School of Arts & Sciences, we have created the UR Free Theatre & Dance initiative in order to remove economic barriers and make theatre and dance accessible to everyone.
University Dancers/DANC 306 is an auditioned student dance company of the University of Richmond in the Department Theatre & Dance. Students receive academic credit for participating in University Dancers/DANC 306. Founded in 1985 by Myra Daleng, the company’s current artistic director is Anne Van Gelder.
Auditions are held at the beginning of the fall semester, and students study a variety of dance and movement techniques such as African, ballet, contemporary, hip-hop, jazz, modern, and non-traditional partnering in company classes (three per week), master classes, and rehearsals.
A member of UD (Danc 306) is not required to be a dance major or minor to be in the company.
Richmond has once again been named to The Princeton Review’s list of “Best Value Colleges” for 2025. Richmond has been included on this list since 2013.
Four members of the Class of 2025 heading to Syracuse University, Penn, Oxford, and MIT are among the 100-plus recent Richmond alumni on their way to graduate school this fall.
Alicia Díaz, associate professor of dance, reflects on the MAPA dance project in “Excavando juntas en el paraíso,” in categoría cinco. The collaborative performance took place in the ruins of the Cine Paradise, a former movie theater in downtown Río Piedras, Puerto Rico.
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Anne Norman Van Gelder was promoted to senior teaching faculty of theatre & dance. Her specialties include dance history, choreography, and ballet and pointe technique.
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Patricia Herrera, professor of theatre and dance, was elected president of the American Society for Theatre Research (ASTR) for a three-year term.
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Patricia Herrera, professor of theatre and dance, and Mariela Méndez, associate professor of Latin American, Latino, and Iberian Studies, published the chapter “Cuir/Queer Afro-Cuban and Xicanx Transnational Encounters: Debora Kuetzpal Vasquez's Dualidad: Todas las partes de mi ser" in the volume Bodies on the Front Line: Performance, Gender, and Sexuality in Latin America and the Caribbean.
View BioMailing address:
Department of Theatre and Dance
Modlin Center for the Arts
453 Westhampton Way
University of Richmond, VA 23173
Phone: (804) 289-8592
Fax: (804) 287-1841
Box office: (804) 289-8980
Interim Department Chair: Dr. Olivier Delers
Administrative Coordinator: Rhonda Jackson