Dance students at Purchase College (and other programs of which I know, also) are required to take Dance Stagecraft and do crew work as a practicum. While this is not (usually) enough to qualify them to work backstage professionally, it does teach them that there's more to producing a dance performance than merely choreographing and performing it, and it teaches them (well, some of them) that stagehands are highly skilled professionals, not mindless drones.
Technical theatre students, of course, are almost always required to take dance, music, and acting classes and acting students are usually required to take stagecraft classes; finally, colleges are realising that dancers also need an appreciation of the technical elements.
_________________ Jeffrey E. Salzberg,
Dance Lighting Design http://www.jeffsalzberg.com
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