Dance Your Way to a Bachelor’s Degree
There’s no one way to achieve an education, even at the tertiary level. Every person’s journey is unique, and schools should be able to adapt to the diversity of students’ needs. With inclusion and innovation at its core, De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde’s School of Arts, Culture and Performance has opened the Expanded Tertiary Education Equivalency and Accreditation (ETEEAP) Program for Dance. This assists seasoned practitioners seeking a Bachelor of Performing Arts Major in Dance degree for formal recognition of their prior learning.
An education path only a few know is available, the ETEEAP Program for Dance provides an alternative for adult dance practitioners with wide-ranging work commitments and real-life family responsibilities. This initiative allows such individuals to acquire tertiary-level education credentials at a third of the cost and time it usually takes to complete.
Benilde’s Expanded Tertiary Education Equivalency and Accreditation Program (ETEEAP) for Dance allows dance artists to be part of the most extensive dance program in the country and the only dance school with a specialization in street dance at various stages in their careers. It is now possible to finish a bachelor’s degree while continuing to work full-time in performing arts, choreography, pedagogy, dance criticism, somatic practice, dance history, arts administration, and production management.
The dance practitioner may instantly earn credits for demonstrated learning in certain courses and credit for specific courses by taking comprehensive examinations. ETEEAP also allows Benilde to innovate the distance learning paradigm in the country, as no other dance program in the country has delved into this new frontier of learning.
Benilde’s online learning platform, BigSky, as well as the other digital forms of communication such as the ubiquitous Zoom conferencing application, video calls, discussion boards, and other interactive technology, are utilized to develop and recalibrate problem-solving, reasoning, critical thinking, decision making, and evaluation skills.
Professional dancers are eligible to enroll in the ETEEAP Program for Dance if they have at least five years of relevant industry work experience with a reputable dance establishment, two years on a supervisory level, and have participated in or conducted dance seminars or training programs. Other minimum requirements include Filipino citizenship, 23 years of age or older, and a high school diploma.
Furthermore, they will work closely with an assigned mentor, who will be knowledgeable in their areas of competency. Mentors arrange competency exams for select performance and studio-based courses to assess and accredit advanced knowledge gained outside the classroom if actual, written evidence of competencies is unavailable. The dance practitioner and mentor will follow a specific timetable to earn a Bachelor of Performing Arts Major in Dance degree.
With a faculty dance pool consisting of practitioners and industry experts, each with an area of focus in technique, music, composition, dramaturgy, research, and filmmaking, interested applicants need only a portfolio and willingness to go through this specialized accreditation process to join a community of artist-practitioners who believe in the power of dance as a medium of self-expression, a tool to improve and empower the lives of others, and to promote a culture of collaboration and inclusion.
To start your Benildean journey in tertiary dance education, you may call Benilde ETEEAP at (+63) 8230-5100 local 1206, (+63) 908 865 6704 or email eteeap@benilde.edu.ph. You may also visit www.benilde.edu.ph/eteeap for more information.
