3-Year International Dance Program in Berlin | Balance 1 Academy

State-Approved Conservatory for Contemporary Dance & Performing Arts

 

Is movement your passion and the stage your ultimate vision? The three-year, full-time program at Balance 1 Academy in Berlin-Tempelhof prepares you comprehensively, intensively, and at an international premium level for a career as a professional stage dancer.
As a state-approved vocational conservatory, our training program offers a fully recognized professional degree.
The new semester begins annually in early October.
Our full-time program at Balance 1 Academy is specifically designed to prepare international talents for a successful stage career. To ensure the highest educational standards, your education features:
  • Verified Quality: 100% full-time vocational training focusing on a versatile curriculum (from Classical Ballet to Contemporary Dance).
  • Official Qualifications: Fully approved as a recognized supplementary school under § 9a PSchG (now transitioned into § 103 of the Berlin School Act), resulting in a state-approved professional qualification.
  • Academic Progression: Recognized by state arts universities as an equivalent to 180 ECTS credits for artistic Master’s applications

🏛️ Your Creative Home: Villa Balance

The atmosphere in which you train every day shapes your artistic journey. Villa Balance, our light-flooded dance villa in the heart of Berlin, combines the historic charm of a building steeped in history with state-of-the-art dance studios (including professional sprung floors, lighting technology, and spacious common areas).

Villa Balance is not just a dance academy; it is your creative home away from home—a place where individual artistic growth, high technical standards, and a close-knit community come together.

An inspiring retreat: Plenty of natural light and a sun terrace for relaxing breaks between training sessions.
A close-knit community: A place for trusting exchanges with instructors and fellow students.
Central location: Directly connected to Berlin’s cultural life.

🔗 Learn more about the Villa Balance and Academy history  ➔

Want to meet us personally before registering for the audition? Join one of our Open Days held annually in May or November! You can watch dance classes, soak up the inspiring atmosphere at Villa Balance, and schedule a personal consultation.

dancer of international program at Balance 1 Academy in Berlin throws leg high in the air

The Curriculum: Technical Excellence & Artistic Identity

Our professional training concept is built upon two core pillars: uncompromisingly clean instruction in dance techniques and the deliberate cultivation of your deeply personal artistic expression. The daily curriculum includes:

  • Contemporary Dance: Intensive training in contemporary release and floor techniques, partnering, and contact improvisation.
  • Modern Dance: In-depth study of the major American master techniques, specifically Graham and Horton techniques.
  • Classical Ballet: The essential technical foundation for placement, strength, turning technique, and core alignment.
  • Jazz Dance & Commercial: Expanding your dynamics, isolation techniques, and versatility for the global dance scene.
  • Choreography & Improvisation: Practical composition studies and regular performance projects on professional theater stages.

Integrated Dance Pedagogy Training – Securing Your Career

The international job market demands flexibility. A unique advantage at Balance 1 Academy: a comprehensive foundational training in dance pedagogy is fully integrated into your three-year curriculum at no additional cost.
Here, you will acquire the didactic, methodical, and anatomical tools to teach dance techniques professionally and age-appropriately. Alongside your stage career, this integrated additional qualification opens up a secure, second path to success within the international dance and cultural landscape.

teacher gives explanations in dance of professional program at Balance 1 Academy in Berlin
Dancer of the professional program at Balance 1 Academy performs a split on one hand in Berlin.

Admission Requirements: How to Join the Academy

To be admitted to our Conservatory, you must have prior dance experience, be physically fit, and pass our entrance exam. The maximum age for starting the program is generally 26.

The next step: You’ll be admitted through a personal audition at our Villa Balance or, for your convenience, via a video audition.
International applicants: Applicants from many countries outside the EU must apply for a student visa well in advance.

Comprehensive Support and Temporary Housing

Studying in a new city requires some guidance. In addition to the intensive studio training at Villa Balance, we actively support you with organizational matters related to your start in Berlin.

Starting in October (tentatively), we’ll even offer affordable, on-site temporary housing right on the lower ground floor of Villa Balance for incoming international students.

🔗 You can find all the information about housing, visas, and life in Berlin here ➔

 

Dancers of the professional program at Balance 1 Academy onstage with pointe shoes in Berlin.

🎭 Stage Experience & Productions: From the Studio to the Spotlight

Real stage experience is the beating heart of a successful dance career. It is only in front of a live audience that technical precision and months of studio preparation transform into captivating art. Starting in your second year, we provide our dancers with regular, professional performance opportunities.

Whether through original student creations, works by renowned guest choreographers, or university collaborations—at Balance 1, you learn to handle live performance pressure, cultivate stage presence, and deliver excellence within an ensemble.

⏱️ Your Performance Roadmap by Semester

  • 3rd Semester | First Solo Works on the Studio Stage

    As part of your dance composition classes, you create and choreograph your first original solo piece. You present your unique artistic voice publicly on our in-house stage (Studio 3 inside Villa Balance).

  • 4th Semester | Performing in Graduate Pieces

    You take the stage as a performer in the final works of the graduating class, gaining invaluable experience by participating directly in the creative processes of the Graduation Choreographies.

  • 5th Semester | Full-Length Production: "Admission To Dance"

    A major milestone in your education: Resident and international guest choreographers create exclusive pieces specifically for your class. The full-length evening production Admission To Dance is performed annually every March before a public audience in Berlin—a major showcase for your versatility and technical standard.

  • 5th Semester | Collaboration with HfS Ernst Busch

    High-level professional networking: In an exclusive partnership, you collaborate with emerging choreographers from the Master’s degree program in Choreography at the prestigious Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts.

  • 6th Semester | Your Graduation Choreography

    Your masterpiece as both dancer and choreographer: You design and direct your own graduating choreographic work, casting dancers from the 2nd and 3rd year cohorts, while simultaneously performing in the pieces created by your fellow graduates.

🏆 The Grand Finale: Graduation Choreographies

Following your final examinations, your three years of training culminate in a grand artistic highlight: the Graduation Choreographies.

As an official graduation thesis in your 6th semester, each graduate creates an original piece, rehearses it with junior dancers, and presents it as a world premiere.

Presented as a series of festive, full-length public evening performances, the Graduation Choreographies serve as your ultimate professional calling card as you transition into the international dance world.

Graduates of the professional dance program at Balance 1 Academy perform in Berlin.

Certificate, ECTS Equivalence, and Academic Progression

Upon successful completion of all theoretical and practical examinations at the end of the 3-year full-time program, you will receive an officially state-approved certificate for professional stage dancers with a specialization in Contemporary Dance (staatlich anerkannter Berufsabschluss).
Since 1996, the Balance 1 Academy has been an approved vocational conservatory (Ergänzungsschule according to § 9a of the historic Private School Act, now regulated under § 103 of the Berlin School Act) by the Berlin Senate under the official name Dance Academy Balance 1 Berlin, former Tanzakademie balance 1. As a professional vocational academy, not a private university or higher education institution.

The Difference Between a Vocational Conservatory and a University

Because we are a pure academy focusing entirely on professional dance practice, we do not award an academic degree such as a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.). However, our curriculum matches the depth and scope of a European Bachelor's program. For your professional and academic future, this means a high, yet clearly defined pathway:
  • Admission to Master's Programs (M.A.): Many state and international universities of the arts accept our state-approved certificate in professional practice as an equivalent to 180 ECTS credits. This regularly enables our graduates to apply for artistic-practical Master's programs (e.g., Master of Arts in Choreography or Contemporary Dance) in Germany and abroad.
  • Formal Boundaries in Higher Education: Because this is a vocational rather than a university degree, there are formal, bureaucratic boundaries in Germany and abroad. Purely scientific-theoretical programs (such as a Master of Science in Dance Science) are excluded. Furthermore, a few state arts universities—such as the Folkwang University of the Arts—strictly require an academic undergraduate degree (university degree) for admission to their Master's programs.
  • International Bureaucratic Restrictions (Examples: Spain and France): Please note that national ministries of education abroad apply different regulations. Our certificate is not automatically recognized by state authorities in Spain, as the Spanish education system has no direct equivalent for the highly specialized German vocational school system in dance. In France, the certificate is not automatically recognized for teaching positions at state music schools and conservatories, as France strictly requires the specific Diplôme d’État de professeur de danse. However, ex-post recognition or exemption (dispense) is often possible based on proof of several years of professional stage experience in European dance companies.
    For a purely artistic career on stage in the international dance scene, these bureaucratic national regulations have no impact whatsoever.

Your Advantages at the Balance 1 Academy at a Glance:

  • Full Transparency: We do not market our program with misleading academic titles. We offer genuine, verified recognition within the real dance world.
  • State Funding (BAföG): As a state-approved vocational program, our students with german nationality are fully eligible to apply for German student funding (Schüler-BAföG).
  • Direct Bridge to the Stage: Our focus is 100% on qualifying you as a professional stage dancer, choreographer, or dance pedagogue—powerfully backed by our extensive alumni success stories.

Requirements for Exam Participation and Program Structure

Core Facts of the Program:
  • Duration: 3 years (Full-time professional program)
  • Structure: 6 consecutive semesters
  • Program Start: Annually at the beginning of October (for Semesters 1, 3, and 5)
  • Semester Shift: Semesters 2, 4, and 6 begin in April of each year
  • Graduation: End of September after the 3rd academic year
Training Schedule and Time Management:
  • Weekly Schedule: Classes run from Monday to Friday, both mornings and afternoons.
  • Rehearsals & Self-Study: In addition to regular classes, time must be allocated for independent practice. During intensive rehearsal phases for public performances, rehearsals may exceptionally be scheduled on weekends.
  • Planning Reliability: Class schedules are announced well in advance so that you can reliably organize part-time jobs and your free time.
  • Holidays (Non-training periods): 6 weeks in summer, 2 weeks in autumn, 3 weeks for Christmas, and 2 to 3 weeks for Easter.
Requirements for Exam Admission:
Regular attendance is the core foundation for a successful education at our Dance Academy. Therefore, a strict attendance policy applies:
  • Annual Intermediate Exams: Exams in both practical and theoretical subjects take place after the 2nd and 4th semesters. To be admitted to these exams, your absences must not exceed 20% at the time of testing.
  • The Final Graduation Exam: Takes place during the 6th semester. Prerequisites for admission are successfully passed intermediate exams and total absences not exceeding 20% across all three years of training.
Close Mentorship Instead of Exam Anxiety:
To ensure you always know exactly where you stand, we conduct personal teacher-student feedback sessions four times a year (just before the holidays) regarding your individual development. You will never have to walk into an exam filled with self-doubt!

Entry & Admission Requirements Information