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A recent addition to the list of OHIO College of Fine Arts graduate programs is the Master of Arts in Community Dance. The first program of its kind in the country, the MA in Community Dance began in 2020 and offers students the opportunity to prepare for careers in dance that will involve both professionals and non-professionals working together, often in community focused contexts.

The first few cohorts of Community Dance alumni are now entering or resuming their careers in a number of different disciplines. One of the program’s recent graduates is Maggie Kersten, the creative director of Factory Street Studio in Athens. Before her time in the Community Dance program, Kersten worked for the Pickaway County Family YMCA where she rediscovered her love for dance.

“I was doing before and after schoolwork with children and when we would have days where we were stuck inside I would try to incorporate dance a little bit and I realized just how much I loved it and how little dance exposure children get,” Kersten said. 

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Another recent alum of the program, Megan Tedrick, also pursued the Community Dance program in part because of how it applied to her work with education.

“Dance is just as valuable an education tool as anything else we do in school, and for a lot of students it can be a pathway to understanding the world in ways that traditional teaching methods fall short with, and it can be a wonderful way to reinforce a lot of what’s happening in a ‘gen-ed’ classroom,” she said.

Tedrick is the current Education Programs coordinator for Ballet Met in Columbus. In addition to its applicability to her interests, Tedrick chose the Community Dance program at OHIO because it allowed her to continue living in Columbus with her family while furthering her aspirations in the field.

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“You’re watching people (guest lecturers) who are taking all these experiences, they’re stabilizing themselves once they figured out what they want to do or where they want to hone their skills, and so this degree program was really helpful in showing that a lot of dance artists follow that trajectory and then also how to pull that off yourself,” she said.

Ashley Osborne, the founder of WellnessMovement Solutions in Los Angeles, came into the Community Dance program with a set of goals that would allow her to help those pursuing dance outside of a traditional dance trajectory.

“I really just wanted to be a person who is confident and informed and educa