As a featured department of Zhejiang Conservatory of Music, the Dance Department aims for a top-class major of China. It sticks to the development philosophy of ‘Striving for the Best, Being Righteous and Innovative, Building Platforms to Pool Talents, and Staying United and Practical’. With such efforts, the department aims to train high-quality versatile dance professionals with sophisticated basic skills.

The department has gained an array of marked achievements during continuous exploration and in-depth reform, with programs covering performance, choreography, and dance education. In 2019, the majors of Dance Performance and Dancology were both identified as Zhejiang Provincial First-class Undergraduate Construction Majors. In 2020, the major of Dance Choreography was approved as the Zhejiang Provincial First-class Undergraduate Construction Major. The Dance Department provides both undergraduate and postgraduate programs.

The department has a full-time faculty of 32, of whom 12 have senior professional titles, 8 are postgraduate supervisors, and 1 foreign teacher. The department sets up five major focuses: 1) Dance Performance, 2) Dance Performance (Chinese Dance), 3) Dance Choreography, 4) Dance Performance (Ballet), and 5) Dancology (dance education). It also incorporates five teaching divisions, namely 1) Chinese Classical Dance, 2) Chinese Ethnic and Folk Dance, 3) Choreography, 4) Ballet, and 5) Dancology, as well as the Art Direction Teaching and Research team. The department currently houses 420 full-time undergraduate and 34 postgraduate students.

Since 2018, the faculty and students have won over 50 prizes, of which there are 14 first prizes in national dance competitions and 6 first prizes in ministerial and provincial dance competitions. The two courses Zhejiang Folk Dance Culture and Dance of Intangible Cultural Heritage and Dance Choreography were rated as Zhejiang Provincial First-Class Undergraduate Courses. Besides, Study on Practice and Theory of Chinese Contemporary Dance Creation, a major art project under the National Social Science Fund of China, brings in a breakthrough in the dance scientific research.

Over the past two decades, the department has set ‘dance as the foundation, efforts to developing major-based features and integrating music with dance’. As a result, disciplines can benefit from a coordinated growth. The department endeavors to offer high-quality dance professionals, who are moral, skilled, competent, and innovative, with the focus on top-notch dancers, choreographers, teachers, and researchers.