The Bachelor’s Programme in Dance explores how dance and dancing generate collectivity, skill, choreography, expression, knowledge, solidarity and care. Over the course of the 3-year programme, you will nurture making, feeling, and thinking in ways that actively examine the histories, capacities, limitations, and potentials of ‘contemporary’ dance.
Becoming aware of conditions — where, when, how and with whom we dance — is as much a part of the education as the techniques and ideas you will study. As a student in this programme you will be supported in embracing, questioning and sweating with various materials: physical, textual, discursive and artistic. You will explore practicing how your positionality (an ongoing social and historical identity) informs and relates to others’, leading to change, development and transformation. With a history of educating through and about ‘contemporary’ dance, this programme attempts to make explicit the contexts it inherits and to support time and space to dream and build other contexts. Using the histories and genealogies of dance present in the institution, the city, and the country, the programme invites you into a relationship with dance that is connected to several scales of body - your own to itself, to its neighbour, to its community, to its stranger.
You will work together in small and large groups and independently, at times led by teachers and at other times exploring ’participatory pedagogies’: experimenting leadership yourself and being led by your peers. The programme is suitable for people who are curious and excited to explore formats of collective learning in dance, making, and organizing. Regardless of the style of your dance and performance, you are welcome to apply. However, it is important that you, as an applicant, know that the programme is originally based on expertise arising from the European and North American contemporary dance scene. There is active work in the programme to expand this expertise, notably: to include teachers that care for work with Indigenous practices, consent frameworks, decolonial perspectives, social and street dance forms and/or include non-traditional relations to performance and spectatorship. This work is ongoing and unfinished. The combined content of the programme prepares people for work with dance, capable of moving between various roles in a range of contexts.
The programme runs every other year. You will study your first year alongside a cohort studying their 3rd year. You will be the only cohort during your 2nd year of studies.
During the 3 years, working with a range of movement and dance practices, styles and aesthetics, you will lean into your multi-faceted creative process as dancers. You will nurture your own and your peers’ dancing while studying and practicing moving, speaking, writing, performing, reading, choreographing and collaborating. You will engage in, and be engaged by, both older and newer working methods and creative processes through your peers, your teachers and guest artists. Your learning will, at times, manifest in various performative and choreographic frameworks. Additionally, you will collaborate and study alongside other subjects and students at SKH.
The programme syllabus continuously works with three perspectives that integrate theory and practice: movement and dance practices, the performative, and choreographic process.
Movement and dance practices: In daily training, you will study various movement and dance practices supporting the development of the awareness of your body and the other bodies in the room, finding range, specificity and articulation through movement and contributing to knowledge about specific dance cultures.
The performative: Working in a range of relational frameworks (proscenium stage, site-specific, exhibition space and so forth) you will explore how different materials, energies and relationships emerge in performance.
Choreographic process: You will continuously be engaged in creative processes, exploring making by taking on a range of different roles, individually and in groups. You will practice taking initiatives as well as receiving impulses from others and learning in the space between leading and following, playing different roles.
In addition to these three continuous perspectives, the programme offers: elective courses as an opportunity to encounter other artistic forms and expressions present at SKH, project organization and production, and other content that emerges in our collective lived moment.
If you have any questions regarding the programme, please contact Zoë Poluch, Head of the Programme at zoe.poluch@uniarts.se
If you have questions regarding the entry requirements, tuition fees, or the application process, please contact the Education Administration Offices at studieinfo@uniarts.se
General entry requirements for studies on the first-cycle level in higher education, with an exemption from Swedish 1, 2 and 3 and English 6, or the equivalent.
Swedish language skills are not required.
Specific requirements: passed qualifications test
Read more about the assessment and qualification test here.
If you don’t fulfil the formal entry requirements for the programme you may apply for recognition of prior learning, in other words that the knowledge and competence you have acquired through other activities are assessed as the equivalent of the formal merits that are required. Submit your application for recognition of prior learning with your application for the programme. Submit at universityadmissions.se under My pages/Documents/Documents/Provide educational documents.
You may also apply for an exemption/a waiver, that allows you to proceed to the selection process even though you don’t meet the general admission requirements. Submit your application for an exemption/a waiver together with your application.
Don’t delay in submitting your application! You may run into trouble if you wait until the last day and your internet connection happens to be down, or you find that your files are in the wrong format. You will not be able to apply once the last date for applications has passed. Keep in mind that your application has to be turned in by 23:59 (Swedish time).
Apply to the programme via universityadmissions.se, upload work samples via Varbi
You apply to the programme in two steps
1. Apply to the programme via universityadmissions.se
Last day for application: 15 January 2026
Please note! Choose “Autumn 2026” when you search for the programme at universityadmissions.se
Please note that you need to submit supporting documents showing that you meet the entry requirements via universityadmissions.se under My pages/Documents/Documents/Provide educational documents.
Last day to submit supporting documentation: 2 February 2026. Please note that this does not apply to any work samples that may be used as qualification test, see below.
2. Submit your work sample via Varbi (accordning to instructions below)
Last day to submit work sample via Varbi: 15 January 2026
Note: If you have used AI tools/AI techniques to produce or process video, images, audio, or text in any of your artistic works or submitted work samples, we expect you to explain and describe your use and production process.
Instructions for work samples
You need to upload the work samples below via Varbi to prove the special entry requirement ‘Passed qualification test’ and to participate in the selection process. Only files uploaded in the current admission round are valid for the qualification test and the selection process.
1. Selection of experience
Upload a text written in English in which you guide us through three significant experiences you have had with dance. Describe how they influence your current interest in dance. Maximum 1 A4 page (approx. 2500 characters including spaces), use PDF format. Label the document with your name.
2. Motivational letter
Upload a motivation letter written in English. Maximum 1 A4 page (approx. 2500 characters including spaces), use PDF format. Label the document with your name.
Answer the following questions:
• Why have you chosen to study dance at SKH and what are your expectations?
• Which dance forms, choreographers, or dance cultures are you excited about now, and why?
• Are there any other artistic disciplines at SKH that you are particularly interested in and curious to engage with during your education?
• Describe an artistic practice or creative process you experienced as having an impact on society.
3. A video (maximum length 7 min and 150 MB)
Upload a video where you complete the tasks described below.
Follow the instructions for all 3 tasks carefully and practice before as much as you need to.
Use any camera you want, but film from a fixed and stable camera position.
It is important that the entire body is visible throughout the whole film.
We are keen to really be able to see you do the tasks, therefore, please choose a location that supports visibility.
Use music if you want to, otherwise you can film in silence.
Tasks for your video: Task 1: Learn and dance a phrase
Time frame: 2 minutes
Please watch the instruction video below instructed by Eleanor Bauer. Eleanor first shows the dance phrase in full, followed by more detailed description of the dance phrase you will learn. Learn the phrase and film yourself dancing the phrase twice in a row — once on each side (right/left) — without a cut in the recording.
General principle: The front is everywhere (360 degrees around you), meaning that you do not need to treat the camera as your front.
Task 2: A dance familiar to you
Time Frame: 3 minutes in two parts
a) Dance a specific dance that is familiar to you. Duration: 2 minutes.
b) Explain where this dance comes from and why you chose it. Duration: 1 minute.
Task 3: A dance less familiar to you
Time Frame: 2 minutes in two parts
a) Dance a specific dance that is relatively unfamiliar to you, a dance that you are not very experienced in but that peaks your interest. Duration: 1 minute.
b) Explain why you chose this dance, where it comes from and how you found and learned it. Duration: 1 minute.
Please note that you might have to reduce/compress your video size before uploading it. Read more about How to convert your film.
Proceed as follows to upload work samples via Varbi:
• Register by providing name and e-mail address.
• Fill in you contact information.
• Please note! Fill in the application number you received when submitting your application to the course via universityadmissions.se.
• Submit the requested documents/files.
• Please name the document/file with content and your name for example: CV_ first name_ family name.
Confirmation that you have submitted your work samples via Varbi
When you've submitted your work samples you will receive a confirmation to the e-mail address that you’ve stated. If you don’t receive a confirmation e-mail, you should first check your spam filter. If the confirmation e-mail is not there, contact Varbi's technical support.
• Last day for applications: 15 January 2026.
Please note! Choose “Autumn 2026” when you search for the programme at universityadmissions.se.
• Last day to submit supporting documentation for entry requirements: 2 February 2026. * Please note that this does not apply to any work samples that may be used as qualification test.
• Last day to pay the application fee or prove that you are not required to pay the fees: 2 February 2026 (read more under Application and tuition fees below). Submit passport/identification card on universityadmissions.se under My Pages/Documents/Provide identity documents.
• Admission results: Published on My pages on universityadmissions.se 31 March 2026.
• Last day to reply to possible programme offer: 13 April 2026.)
* 18 June 2026 is deadline for submitting your final grades for you who are currently studying the last term of your Upper Secondary Education in Sweden.
5 July 2026 is deadline for submitting your final grades for you who are currently studying the last term of your Upper Secondary Education in another country or IB- education.
5 July 2026 is deadline for you who need to submit proficiency test in English or Swedish.
Checklist of materials to send in:
1) A copy of your valid passport or valid national identity card (if applicable for you)
2) School grades from upper secondary school/high school
3) Certificate from upper secondary school about current studies (if you have not yet completed upper secondary school/high school)
4) Application of recognition of prior learning/exemption from entry requirements (if applicable for you)
5) Documentation that shows that you meet the English language requirement (English 5, or the equivalent)
6) Selection of experience
7) Letter of Motivation
8) Video (maximum length 7 min and 150 MB)
The assessment of formal merits/grades is carried out by the Swedish Council for Higher Education. The assessment of artistic merits and the qualification tests, including selections are carried out by an admission group from SKH consisting of teachers and professionals from the field. A student representative can also participate in the admissions group, but will not take part in the assessment.
After each stage of the process there will be a decision on who will proceed to the next step. Everyone is informed of whether they will proceed or not.
If you are a citizen of Sweden, another EU or EEA country or or Switzerland you are not required to pay application or tuition fees. Some other groups are also exempt from the requirement to pay application and study fees.
If you are not a citizen of Sweden, another EU or EEA country or or Switzerland you are required to pay application and tuition fees. The level of the study fees depends on which course/programme they are for, and the level is set in order to cover the actual costs of the course/programme in question. SKH has some possibilities of offering scholarships that cover the study fees for programmes.
If you are required to pay an application fee, the Swedish Council for Higher Education needs to receive your payment by the last date for paying the application fee. The application fee is SEK 900. If you are required to pay the application fee and the Swedish Council for Higher Education has not received your payment by the last date for paying the tuition fee, they will not process your application. Read more here.
Tuition fee for the Bachelor Programme in Dance Performance starting autumn term 2026: 200 000 SEK per term or 1 200 000 SEK for the whole programme.
