UArts program that moved to Bennington is coming to Philly, but not as soon as planned
The former UArts undergraduate dance program landed at Bennington College in Vermont, where classes started last fall.
Philadelphia will have to wait a little longer to be reunited with a small but artistically significant remnant of the University of the Arts.
The former UArts undergraduate dance program, that landed at Bennington College in Vermont, had planned to return to Philadelphia for the 2025-26 school year. But leaders now say the return has been delayed as the program awaits Pennsylvania Dept. of Education’s authorization to award degrees.
“We are working across the college with the Dept. of Education to get things lined up as soon as we can,” said Donna Faye Burchfield, the former dean of the UArts dance school who is director of the BFA and low-residency MFA programs at Bennington.
Burchfield now expects the program will return for the 2026-27 school year.
“That is our desire, to get back to Philadelphia by the following fall.”
The University of the Arts, whose roots went back a century and a half, closed abruptly June 7. Its numerous buildings on and near S. Broad Street have been sold off as part of the bankruptcy process. But Burchfield and others worked quickly to move the dance program to Bennington, where it began anew last fall.
“The students were so happy to be studying together again, to be doing that thing that dance does — learn in community,” Burchfield said. “The community found itself together again, so it was euphoric.”
Bennington has been “a welcoming place,” she said. But a return to Philadelphia has always been the plan since the city was and continues to be woven into the curriculum. The faculty is made up of former UArts dance faculty — dance professionals like Amy Aldridge and Meredith Rainey, formerly of Philadelphia Ballet, and Tommie-Waheed Evans, who has worked with Philadanco and BalletX. They and other dance teachers have periodically commuted to the college from Philadelphia.
A site for the program’s studios and offices in Philadelphia has not been finalized.
Burchfield said the program has 37 bachelor of fine arts students this semester, and aims to grow it to 60 over time. “We want to keep it intimate, about 15 students per class,” she said.
“We built this program in Philadelphia and it really was about Philadelphia and its artists. We want to get dancers back into that vibrancy and studying alongside those faculty again.”