Bennington to Revive Dance Program of Philadelphia Arts School

Two months after the University of the Arts in Philadelphia closed, the school’s dance program will be revived at Bennington College in Vermont, which will absorb the dance school, three staff members and nearly 50 students, the college announced on Thursday.

“What they are doing is the future of dance,” said Laura Walker, the president of Bennington College, who helped raise nearly $1.3 million from philanthropists to make it happen. The money included a donation of $1 million from Barbara and Sebastian Scripps, who run a nonprofit focused on arts education.

“It’s a tough time, and we hope this will be a model for others,” Walker said.

Nearly 1,150 students and 700 employees were left adrift after the University of the Arts president, Kerry Walk, abruptly closed the school in June, citing financial woes, and then resigned. Soon after, Pennsylvania officials opened an inquiry into the unexpected collapse. Some faculty and students have joined class-action lawsuits accusing the school of fraud and breach of contract; a union representing workers also filed an unfair labor practices complaint against the university in July.

Several universities have offered spots to incoming freshmen who had committed to the University of the Arts. Temple University in Philadelphia has also welcomed returning fine arts and drama students, some of whom were near graduation.

But the agreement with Bennington College goes further: All incoming and returning students were invited to attend. Donna Faye Burchfield, the former dean of the University of the Arts School of Dance, will oversee the bachelor and masters of fine arts programs, with about 50 students. The program will also include a number of visiting dance artists who previously taught in Philadelphia.

“On a Friday evening, we learned about the school closing,” Burchfield said. “On Saturday morning, I started making calls.”

She eventually reached Walker and secured funding to ensure that nearly 30 students in the M.F.A. dance program on their way to a summer session in France would be able to proceed as scheduled. “We have now graduated 14 of those students,” Burchfield said.

The dance program imported from the University of the Arts will be separate from Bennington’s existing B.A. dance program, which was founded in 1934 by pioneers of modern dance, including the choreographers Martha Graham and Doris Humphrey.

Burchfield and Walker intend for the dance program’s residence in Vermont to be temporary. After a year, they would like to return the program to Philadelphia, to a satellite campus affiliated with Bennington that would support around 60 to 75 students — roughly half the size of the old University of the Arts dance school. The college has set a fund-raising goal of $2 million to re-establish the dance program in its hometown, though plans are not set for where the school would be.

“Who would have thought this is where we would land?” Burchfield said. “I have that anticipation of seeing the students and realizing that we get to dream together.”

The Ford Foundation provided $250,000 to help save the dance program; the nonprofit has been a supporter of dance since the 1960s, funding initiatives by dancers like George Balanchine and Alvin Ailey.

“There is a profound and systemic crisis in the arts,” said Darren Walker, the foundation’s outgoing president (who is of no relation to Laura Walker). “It is regrettable what happened at the University of the Arts, but Bennington is an ideal place to help ensure that what was started — and Donna’s work there — continues.”