Learn about our history!

Over 23 years ago, the dance program was just a few classes and professor dedicate to teaching her students and the community about unleashing their creative side through dance. Now the program is comprised of about 30 students, sharing their passion for dance through both performing in company concerts and continuing their learning in dance classes.

The dance program started off as a singular class taught to students through the theatre program in fall of 1996. The class, known to students as Theatre 202 (THE 202), featured lectures and dance performances to elementary school children. The class would perform a variety of dance types to young children as part of an education series on dance. Through the help of a variety of grants, the class was able to perform to children in the Ford Auditorium. By spring 1997, the class was traveling to 5 elementary schools in Rome and 4 elementary schools in Douglasville as well as the Berry College Development Center and the Montessori School of Rome.

By the spring of 1998, interest in the dance troupe was growing. Two new classes started to be taught, Children’s Theatre (known as THE 220) and Survey of Dance (known as HPE 306). Both classes connected students with elementary school children, instructing the college students in how to teach creative movement and explore what it was like to teach younger age students and connect with them to their creative sides through dance.

From these classes, the first Berry College Dance Troupe was created. Their first concert premiered in the spring of 1998. As part of the curriculum of the classes, the performance was shown to both the students of the college and wide variety of elementary school children. Dr. Jeanne Schul, the founder of the Berry College Dance Troupe, believed it was important to connect the dancers with the community through teaching these children how to unleash their creative potential through dance. For two full years, the Berry College Dance Troupe was comprised of just these 2 classes and focused entirely on helping the community through educating children on the importance of dance.

Until the Berry College Dance Troupe became a full program, Dr. Schul continued to stay involved on campus by getting students from all across campus involved in dance. She choreographed multiple productions for the Berry College Theatre program and taught multiple CE credit events that featured learning about dance from other cultures to teaching students swing dance and various ballroom styles. She also taught a few dance classes including the ones mentioned above as well as Social Dance, Ballroom Dance, Modern Dance, and Folk and Country Western Dancing.

In 1998, the campus was pushing for a dance minor program to support all the dance students wanting to take classes. Multiple Campus Carrier news articles and opinion pieces during the 1998-1999 school year featured articles in support of creating a dance minor program that supported the students who were willing to grow their dance skills. Finally, by 2000, the Dance Minor was created. Originally 23 credit-hours, the minor program included classes similar to what students in the program take now: choreography and technique classes. But because it was taught as an extension of the theatre program, the requirements featured lots of theatre classes as well.

Today the dance program functions as its own entity. No longer associated underneath the theatre program, the dance program now has a partnership with the theatre program and stands within the Fine Arts Department. Its main focus is to teach dance classes focused on enriching a student’s education about what makes dance and dancers unique. The minor program is now only 19 credit hours, redesigned to include a variety of classes that focus entirely on the dancer and their education.

In 2019, Professor Sarah Pecina, visiting assistant professor of dance and director of the dance program, joined the dance program after Dr. Schul retired. By the spring of 2020, Professor Pecina renamed the Berry College Dance Troupe to the Berry College Dance Company. The program presents two company concerts a year, one in the fall and one in the spring. These concerts feature both student and faculty choreographed pieces.

While vastly different from the original department, the dance program today still believes in the same mission as the original department: enriching students’ lives through dance by growing their understanding and passion for dance.