The Lisbon School of Dance (ESD) was established in 1983, as part of an artistic teaching reform, when the National Conservatory and associated schools were established and embedded into higher education, by way of the polytechnic schools, which also included the higher schools of Music, and Theatre and Cinema. It is, thus, a continuation of the singular tradition of professional artistic education, which dates back to the creation of the General Conservatory of Dramatic Arts, in 1836, in which the teaching of Dance was associated with those of Music and Theatre.

This tradition of vocational training determines its curricula, which is intensely practical but, within the scope of higher education, necessarily borne of a reflective and scientifically grounded practice that seeks to integrate cultural contexts, in pursuit of educating the "artist", with a broad core of common training, which, complemented with specific training opportunities, allows for a diversity of professional outputs, such as interpreter or choreographer.

The ESD has also continued another line of training, which was "inherited" from the now extinct Higher School of Art Education, created under the National Conservatory Pedagogical Experience, and which ESD has, from the beginning, taken into in its goals and its curriculum: teacher training.

Since its foundation, our school has continued to develop and consolidate its place within the artistic educational landscape. Currently, the quality of its teaching is recognized and proven via the opportunities afforded to its graduates within the job market as well as the requests it receives for its performances.