Arnhold Graduate Dance
Education Program
Dance Department, Hunter College
The Graduate Dance Education Program is part of the Dance Department at Hunter College. This program offers graduate degrees in Dance Education as well as New York State pre-K-12 dance teacher certification. The concept for this renovation is to create a suite of spaces to function as a graduate “dance laboratory” for the rehearsal, performance, instruction and study of modern dance.
A new 2,400sf dance studio is built with sprung floors and custom acoustic wall panels. Suspended acoustic tile ceilings have been demolished to maximize ceiling heights and reveal existing 13’-0” tall collegiate-gothic arched windows providing an abundance of light and views on the south, east and west walls. South, east and west walls are also lined with ballet barres, while the north wall of the dance studio is lined with mirror. The center panels of this mirrored wall are a custom laminated sandwich of one-way mirror with clear fire-rated glazing and a film of electrified liquid crystal privacy film. The switchable liquid crystal film gives dancers the ability to either conceal or reveal their activity to the department’s corridor outside without interrupting the reflective quality of the mirror from inside the dance studio.
Adjacent to the new dance studio are offices for the program director and a flexible graduate seminar space for the group study of dance videos, or videos of dance instruction. Dance teacher certification includes evaluation of video recording of dance classes led by each instructor to be certified. The dance studio is wired to facilitate these recordings.
Walls of the graduate seminar space are lined with environmental graphics based on the symbols of Labanotation. Labanotation is a notation system for recording and analyzing human movement that was derived from the work of Rudolf Laban and frequently used in dance education.
This project, completed in March 2018, is an initial phase of the multiple phases of renovation planned for the Dance Department at Hunter College.
client
The Arnhold Graduate Dance Education Program; Hunter College of the City University of New York
project budget
$800,000-
project square footage
3,500sf
scope of services
• planning and programming
• pre-design and fundraising
• design, graphic design and construction administration
see also: