The Cowles Center for Dance and the Performing Arts

As the Midwest’s largest nonprofit dance complex, The Cowles Center for Dance & the Performing Arts offers our local dance community the dance-centric facility it needs to flourish. By providing nine rehearsal studios, three theaters, and administrative office space for 26 leading dance and performing arts organizations, The Cowles Center ensures that local artists can thrive and still call Minnesota home.

Since opening our doors in 2011, we have welcomed more than 900,000 members, students, and artists to The Cowles Center. The historic buildings we reside in have become a dynamic hub of creativity, innovation, education, and diversity — resulting in a vibrant arts community in which we all can live, work, and play. The Cowles Center makes it possible to: 

• Offer free art-infused education programs to Minnesota schools

• Make dance a viable profession in our state

• Raise the curtain on students' first live dance performance

• Administer world-class training for dancers, dance educators, and choreographers