Dance as "lead card" in the development of SFU’s fine and performing arts

by Alana Gerecke

The history of dance at Simon Fraser University (SFU)—a mid-sized institution on the top of Burnaby Mountain in Burnaby, British Columbia, just outside Vancouver—is long and turbulent, reaching back to 1965, the same year the university opened its doors. Throughout the late sixties and early seventies, even before it became the first university in western Canada to offer a for-credit dance program, SFU was home to an active dance community. Non-credit pursuits in the fine and performing arts, including dance, were organized under the umbrella of the interdisciplinary Centre for Communication and the Arts, commonly referred to as "the centre". The seventies brought vibrant changes to the dance community at SFU: during the first half of the decade, the groundwork was laid in anticipation of a for-credit program; the second half saw a cluster of courses mature into a carefully structured program.