Faculty Biographies
Jan
Erkert, Department Head
Jan Erkert, was a dancemaker, author and professor at The Dance
Center of Columbia College Chicago. As Artistic Director of Jan Erkert &
Dancers from 1979 – 2000, she created over 70 works critically acclaimed
for their lush, evocative imagery. Ms. Erkert’s work has been seen throughout
the United States as well as in Germany, Mexico, Taiwan, Japan, Uruguay and
Israel. Ms. Erkert and the company have been honored with numerous awards
including fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Illinois
Arts Council, and Ruth Page Awards for choreography and performance. She has
received two Fulbright Scholar Awards and served on the Fulbright panel. Throughout
her career she has devoted much of her energy to advancing teaching and learning.
She authored Harnessing the Wind: The Art of Teaching Modern Dance, which
was published in 2003 by Human Kinetics and she has been a master teacher
at universities and colleges throughout the United States, Mexico, Europe
and Asia. Her teaching awards include the 1999 Excellence in Teaching Award
from Columbia College, and a nominee for the U.S. Professor of the Year sponsored
by the Carnegie Foundation. Her political and community work includes collaborations
with the Kovler Center for Survivors of Torture, Women Against Violence, Breast
Cancer Society, Women’s Health Center, The Peace Museum and Amnesty
International and the Hospice Foundation. During 2004-05 she traveled around
the world to study perceptions of body and gender as experienced in communal
bathing. In 2006 she begins a new position as Head of the Dance Department
of University of Illinois, Champaign/Urbana. 
Linda
Lehovec, Associate Professor, Associate Department Head,
BFA Program Director
Linda Lehovec is a choreographer and performer, working from a home base
in the rural Midwest. She is currently on faculty at the University of Illinois
at Urbana Champaign (UIUC) where she is an Associate Professor with tenure.
Ms. Lehovec began her training in Pittsfield, Massachusetts with Madeline
Cantarella Culpo. She holds a BFA degree from The Juilliard School and an
MFA degree from UIUC. Linda is an active choreographer and performer, creating
and dancing in her own work, as well as dancing in the works of contemporary
choreographers Joe Goode, Ralph Lemon, Stephen Koester, Bill Young, Sara Hook
and David Parker. She has performed her own choreography in Canada, San Francisco,
Seattle, Chicago, Detroit and Korea, and performed with her company, Linda
Lehovec & Dancers, in Chicago, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. She has also
performed regularly with Aiko Kinoshita as part of AcornDance in Seattle,
Washington.
In October of 2004 Linda was invited to perform in INDABI, an international
dance festival in Incheon, Korea. In the spring of 2006 she was invited to
set a work on the students at the Dreyfoos School of the Arts in West Palm
Beach, where she will return in the spring of 2007 to make another dance.
Linda has been awarded two fellowships in Choreography from the Illinois Arts
Council.
Renée
Wadleigh, Professor, Graduate Program Director
Professor Wadleigh was a New York City-based dancer, choreographer, and
teacher for nearly 30 years. She danced with the Paul Taylor Dance Company,
among others, and has taught at the Taylor School. She was faculty at Adelphi
University and Cornell University, taught her own classes in NYC, and in guest
positions throughout the US and abroad. While working in NYC Professor Wadleigh
received Choreographer Fellowship Grants from the National Endowment for the
Arts in 1985, 1986, and 1988. In Illinois she has received funding from the
Illinois Arts Council in 1993, 1995, 1997, 1999, and 2001. She served as Company
Grant panelist on the IAC in 1997-1998-1999. Professor Wadleigh teaches Modern
Technique, Contemporary Directions in Modern Dance, Viewing Dance, Choreography
for Camera, History and Theory of Postmodern Dance, and Graduate Composition
I & II; she is an MFA Thesis Advisor and a choreographer for the Department
of Dance. Professor Wadleigh has choreographed 33 new dance works at the University
of Illinois since 1992 and has set dances on university and professional companies
in the US and abroad. She was a guest artist at the Victorian College of the
Arts at the University of Melbourne and produced a video project with internationally
known Australian contemporary dance company, CHUNKY MOVE. Through a grant
from the UIUC Research Board Professor Wadleigh learned Yvonne Rainer's masterwork,
Trio A, which she performed on the faculty concert at the 2001 Regional
ACDFA Festival and in concert at the Krannert Center. Since 2000, Professor
Wadleigh's work has been performed in Chicago on Chicago's Dance Slam project
and by Hedwig Dance at The Dance Center Columbia College, Chicago's Atheneum
Theater, and The Ruth Page Performing Arts Center. Professor Wadleigh was
a juror selecting student works for public screening at the Dance for Camera
Festival at the University of Utah, 2004. In October 2005 the opening duet
from Unforeseen Wilderness will be produced in New York City by Bill
Young & Dancers Loft Into Theater Project.
Tere
O’Connor , Professor
Tere O’Connor has been making dances since 1982 and has created
over 30 works for his company. The company has performed throughout the US
and in Europe, South America and Canada. O’Connor has created numerous
commissioned works for dance companies around the world, among these have
been works for Mikhail Baryshnikov's White Oak Dance Project, de Rotterdamse
Dansgroep, Holland; Carte Blanche, Norway; TRAFO/The Workshop Foundation,
Hungary; for Canadian dancers Bill Coleman and Laurence Lemieux in Montreal;
and Dance Alloy in Pittsburgh, PA.
O'Connor is a 1993 John Simon Guggenheim Fellow. He is a recent recipient
of a Foundation for Contemporary Performance Art Award, a DNA Project Award
from Arts International, and a National Dance Project production grant from
the New England Foundation for the Arts.
He has received two New York Dance and Performance "Bessie" Awards-
One for HEAVEN UP NORTH in 1988, and another in 1999 for Sustained Achievement,
citing HI EVERYBODY. He is also a recipient of repeated grants from the National
Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, The New York Foundation
for the Arts, Jerome Foundation, Philip Morris Companies Inc., the Bossak/Heilbron
Charitable Foundation, The Harkness Foundation for Dance, Joyce Mertz-Gilmore
Foundation, and Arts International: The Fund for US Artists at International
Festivals. This past spring, O’Connor created a new solo work for Mikhail
Baryshnikov, which premiered in May 2003 and is currently on tour. He also
served as a movement consultant for a new film produced by Blue Sky Studios,
directed by Chris Wedge (director of Ice Age).
Daniel
James, Production Coordinator
After working in the maritime business as a sailor, tugboat operator
and steamship agency accountant, Daniel R. James is now in his 2nd career;
in theatre. He has been designing light for dance, stage and performance art
in various locations around the country since 1990. Before coming to UIUC,
Mr. James had been the Lighting Designer, Tech Director and Stage Manager
for the Department of Dance & Choreography at Virginia Commonwealth University
in Richmond. He is also the current resident Lighting Designer for Sojourn
Theatre Company of Portland, Oregon. Mr. James returned once again to the
Weathervane Theatre in the White Mountains of New Hampshire for the Summer,
2005 season designing lights for their productions of Beauty & the
Beast, All that Jazz, Aida, West Side Story,
Hit the Road Jack, Why not stay for Breakfast and Cash
on Delivery in alternating repertory. He has a BA in Dance Ethnology
from San Francisco State University and an MFA in Technical Theatre/Lighting
Design from Virginia Tech. Mr. James is pleased to be returning for his third
year with the UIUC Dance Department.
Sara
Hook,
Associate Professor
Ms. Hook, a former soloist with Nikolais Dance Theater, toured
internationally and appeared on National TV in the 1987 Kennedy Center Honors.
She has also performed with Murray Louis, Pearl Lang, Jean Erdman, and Stephan
Koplowitz and is currently a guest artist with David Parker and The Bang Group.
Professor Hook's company, Sara Hook Dances regularly appears in New York and
other national venues. Recent company activities include appearances at Dancenow/NYC's
DanceMOpoliton Series at Joe's Pub at the Public Theater and the Ft Worth
Museum of Modern Art in Ft. Worth, Texas. Upcoming performances include the
Family Matters Series at Dance Theater Workshop in New York and the Danceworks
Performance Series in Milwaukee, WI. Her work also continues to be produced
internationally with David Parker and the Bang Group in venues throughout
North America and Europe. The first American representative to the International
Choreographer's Residency Program at the American Dance Festival (ADF), Hook
received a Scripps ADF Humphrey-Weidman-Limón Choreography Fellowship
in 1995. She has toured widely as a guest artist/teacher and has set works
at over a dozen universities nationally. Professor Hook was previously on
the faculties of Princeton University and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center,
and a regular guest faculty of the Paul Taylor Summer Intensives in NYC. She
holds an M.F.A. from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and a
B.F.A. from the North Carolina School of the Arts; she is also a Certified
Movement Analyst from the Laban Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies.
Jennifer Monson, Professor
Jennifer Monson has been transforming the nature of cross-disciplinary research among artists, environmentalists, scientists, and urban designers in order to in her own words, “...illuminate our kinetic understanding of the world,” and to move people to social and political action. In the last six years she created the BIRD BRAIN projects, three comprehensive tours following migratory animals, including the Gray Whales (Spring 2001), Ospreys (Fall 2002), and Ducks and Geese (Spring 2004). For each tour, Ms. Monson and a small group of dancers camped out along the route of the migration. She and the dancers performed in over 30 free outdoor performances along the way engaging with local communities, park rangers, hikers, and townspeople. She has also created iLAND, (Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art Nature and Dance). This organization raises funds, implements selection processes, and financially supports numerous innovative environmental and arts related projects submitted by artists and scientists.
Ms. Monson has received two New York Dance and Performance Awards (Bessie’s); one in 1997 for Sender and one in 2005 for the BIRD BRAIN project as well as for Sustained Achievement in the Dance Field. She has received major fellowships including a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2003, a Foundation for Contemporary Art Fellowship in 1998, numerous National Endowment for the Arts Choreographer Fellowships, and two New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowships. She has been performed at top venues in the United States such as the Baryshnikov Arts Center and Dance Theater Workshop in NYC, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. In addition to these prestigious venues she has consistently performed in museums, nature centers and site-specific outdoor spaces in order to bring dance to people who have little access to the arts. She has been written about in feature articles in numerous publications including the New York Times, The Village Voice, Time-Out NY, Dance Magazine, the Miami Herald and The Chicago Tribune.
Rebecca
Nettl-Fiol, Associate Professor
Rebecca-Nettl-Fiol has been a member of the dance faculty at UIUC
since 1982, most recently serving as Interim Department Head from 2001-2005.
She holds an MA in Dance from Ohio State University and a BFA from UIUC; she
is also a certified teacher and reconstructor of Labanotation, and a certified
teacher of the Alexander Technique. In addition to choreographing annually
for the Festival concerts at Krannert Center, she has choreographed over 30
opera and musical theatre productions, including for UI Opera Theatre, UI
Repertory Theatre, Interlochen Center for the Arts, and Peoria Opera, among
others. Her work has been presented in New York, Chicago, at five regional
American College Dance Festivals, and is in the repertories of the Columbus
Dance Theatre, Contemporary Dance/Fort Worth, and Art! Art! Barking Dog Dance
Company, Louisville. Her research interests include the application of Alexander
Technique to dance, and she has presented papers, workshops, and classes throughout
the country to both Alexander and dance populations. Her article, Alexander
Technique and Dance Technique - Applications in the Studio will appear
in an upcoming issue Journal of Dance Education. She is in the final stages
of a co-edited book on dance training since the Judson era with Ohio State
University Associate Professor Melanie Bales. Professor Nettl-Fiol teaches
Dance Kinesiology and Somatics, The Alexander Technique for Dancers, Somatics
in Dance Training, Labanotation, Improvisation, Composition, and Modern Technique.
She received the College of Fine and Applied Arts Outstanding Faculty Award
for Service in May, 2005.
Cynthia
Oliver, Associate Professor
Cynthia Oliver joined the faculty as Assistant Professor in August
2000. A former dancer with numerous companies including the David Gordon Pick
Up Co. and Ronald Kevin Brown/Evidence, Ms. Oliver is a New York Dance and
Performance Award (a Bessie) winning choreographer in her own right. A woman
of Caribbean descent, her work is a melange of dance theatre and the spoken
word, and incorporates textures of Caribbean performance with African and
American sensibilities while simultaneously nodding to a tradition in black
avant garde theatre. In 2000 she was named "Outstanding Young Choreographer"
by reviewer Frank Werner of German magazine Ballet Tanz, and in April of 2002
was one of the artists featured in Dance Magazine's article "Masters
of the Balancing Act," an article highlighting artists who balance their
creative work with a life in the academy. Her evening length work, AfroSocialiteLifeDiva
premiered at Dance Theater Workshop's inaugural Carnival season in January
2003, for which she was awarded both a Dance Theater Workshop/Bessie Schonberg
First Light Commission and a prestigious Creative Capital grant. Ms. Oliver
recently translated this work to a 25 minute dance film in collaboration with
German director Marcus Behrens. The film aired on European art channel Canal
Arte in August of 2005 and has been making a round of Dance Film festivals
around the country and abroad. For this project, Ms. Oliver was awarded an
Arnold O. Beckman award from the University of Illinois. In 2004 she was also
awarded a Faculty Research Award by the school of Fine and Applied Arts, and
an Illinois Arts Council grant in Choreography. In addition to Ms. Oliver's
performance work, she holds a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from New York University.
Her scholarly work focuses on performance in the Anglophone Caribbean. She
has published creative pieces in a number of journals and art publications
and scholarly essays in the exhibition booklet "African American Art
and the Modernist Impulse," and the anthology, "Caribbean Dance:
>From Abakua to Zouk, How Movement Shapes Identity." She teaches dance
technique, composition, performance and feminist theory, and courses emphasizing
the African-American and African-Caribbean contributions to American concert
dance.
Kirstie Simson , Assistant Professor
Kirstie Simson has been a continuous explosion in the contemporary dance scene, bringing audiences into contact with the vitality of pure creation in moment after moment of virtuoso improvisation. Called "a force of nature" by the New York Times, she is an award-winning dancer and teacher who has "immeasurably enriched and expanded the boundaries of New Dance" according to Time Out Magazine, London. Simson's eternal subject is freedom, as she dares to go beyond the boundaries of form and structure to create movement out of the rhythm of life itself. She is a renowned improvisational performer and has performed with other master improvisational artists such as Steve Paxton, Nancy Stark Smith, Lisa Nelson, Andrew Harwood, Chris Aiken, Russell Malliphant, Ming-Shen Ku, Christian Burns, and Andrew Morrish. She is much in demand as a master teacher and has taught for such companies as DV8 Physical Theater Company and Siobhan Davies Dance Company in London, Mudances Company in Barcelona, Ku & Dancers in Taiwan, Pauline de Groot Dance Company in Amsterdam, and Sasha Waltz and Guests in Germany. She has been invited to perform and teach at major International Improvisational festivals such as the 10th Anniversary of Contact Improvisation at St. Marks Church in NYC, the Jacobs Pillow "inside Out" series, the New York Improvisation Festival and Dance Theater Workshop in NYC, The Dance Umbrella Festival in London, Dartington Festival in Devon, International Summer School in Tokyo and Hong Kong Dance Academy. She has been a regular guest teacher at P.A.R.T.S. School in Brussels and the Laban Center in in London. She is currently working on a film about Dance Improvisation with renowned dance filmmaker Katrina McPerson. Kirstie uses her extensive knowledge of Dance Technique, Open Improvisation, Contact Improvisation and Ki-Aikido to lead students into a state of mind from which dancing arises effortlessly and spontaneously. Students have found an immediate improvement of their technical ability through her open and sensitive approach to the body. Correct alignment and posture arise automatically from the emphasis Kirstie places on the activity of locating, listening to and allowing dance to be expressed through the body, combined with the learning of simple technical and sensory expanding skills. She will guide people to be able to access and work with the powerful energy of Ki within their bodies, training a concentration that excites and loosens the body's natural hunger to express itself through full and vibrant dancing. More and more students are finding that Kirstie's approach to dance is allowing them to discover a much greater depth, enjoyment and freedom in their moving, by helping them to go beyond the limitations of any technique that the body has been trained to perform.
John
Toenjes, Assistant Professor, Music Director
John Toenjes is the Music Director of the UIUC Department of Dance,
and the President of the International Guild of Musicians in Dance. Professor
Toenjes has a BA from Stanford University with an emphasis in Early Music.
He has performed as harpsichordist with the San Francisco Symphony and the
Carmel Bach Festival Orchestra. In 1980 he started playing dance classes in
the San Francisco Bay Area. Much in demand as a dance musician, Prof. Toenjes
has played classes all over the world for master teachers and at dance workshops.
Prof. Toenjes has had more than 30 scores performed by dance companies and
universities. His collaboration with choreographer Joe Goode, The Ascension
of Big Linda into the Skies of Montana, earned the SF Bay Area Isadora
Duncan Dance Award for Best Production of 1986. His most recent work is a
score for choreographer Todd Williams' dance 108, recently performed at St.
Mark's Church in NY and at Jacob's Pillow. In February 2006 he will be premiering
a new piece with Todd Williams/WilliamsWorks at the Ailey Theater in New York.
Prof. Toenjes is now combining his expertise in computers with music for dance,
collaborating with Washington University (St. Louis) choreographer David Marchant
on a piece incorporating interactive computer sensor technology. Professor
Toenjes presented a session on Improvisation in the Modern Dance Class at
the 2004 UIUC International Conference on Music Improvisation. He will be
presenting his article, "Interactive Dance: Paradigms for Integrity and
Perception" at the SoundMoves conference on music and dance
in London, England in November 2005.
Yutian
Wong, Assistant Professor of Dance
and Asian American Studies
Yutian Wong's research and teaching interests include Asian American
performance history, representations of national cultural identities in dance
discourse, and ethnographic writing. Prof. Wong is a former Andrew W. Mellon
Postdoctoral Fellow in Arts and Feminist/Gender Studies at Bryn Mawr College
(2001-2003). (B.A., Art History, UC Davis, 1992); Ph.D., Dance History and
Theory, UC Riverside, 2001).
Ken
Beck, Music Specialist
Ken Beck was introduced to dance while a student at the Boston
Conservatory of Music. Captivated by the art of dance, he followed a group
of dancers to Kansas City in 1978, where he learned the art of accompanying
technique classes and had the opportunity to create scores for several companies.
From 1979 to 1985, Mr. Beck served as the Music Director of the Westport Ballet.
He has accompanied for Todd Bolender, Violette Verdy, Carmen DeLavallade and
many others. He has participated in numerous festivals, notably the those
of the Cecchetti Council of America and the Bates Dance Festival. At UIUC,
Mr. Beck accompanies Modern and Ballet classes, composes, serves as a departmental
media consultant and designer, teaches Digital Media for Dancers and directs
the Media Lab. Visit his personal pages at https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/beck2/www/.
John Dayger, Visiting Lecturer
John Dayger left his home town of New Paltz, New York to accept
a scholarship to the Martha Graham School in New York City. Shortly thereafter,
he began his professional career with the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company and
continued as principal dancer and rehearsal director with Lar for 25 years.
After years of dancing and assisting Lar, Mr. Dayger became the company's
Dance Director and began traveling to dance companies around the world to
set numerous Lubovitch Ballets. Those companies include American Ballet Theatre,
The Royal Danish Ballet, Stuttgart Ballet, Les Grand Ballet Canadian, Pennsylvania
Ballet, Israeli Ballet Co and Baryshnikov's White Oak Dance Project. John
recently left a position at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. He still enjoys
performing "guest spots" in various capacities around the U.S.
Philip Johnston, Lecturer
Philip Johnston trained with Helen Lewis in Belfast. He performed and choreographed in Europe for fifteen years before relocating to the United States in 1992. In London, New York, Oslo and Copenhagen Philip danced in original works by internationally acclaimed choreographers. He has performed extensively throughout the world in modern dance festivals and appeared on film for the London Dance Umbrella, Channel 4, BBC Television and NRK-Norway. He was the Artistic Director for The Norwegian Modern Dance Company touring throughout Scandinavia, Germany, The United Kingdom and Ireland. Philip has held adjunct, guest and faculty positions at: The University of Surrey, The Inner-London Education Authority, The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, The Norwegian State Ballet School, Dansens Hus (Denmark), Joseph Holmes Dance Company (Chicago), Dance Theatre Rollo (Finland), The Dance Society of Malaysia (Malaysia), The Belfast Modern Dance Company, Illinois State University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has received choreographic and dance fellowships from: The Arts Council of Northern Ireland, The British Council, The Norwegian Fund for Performing Artists, The Norwegian Culture Council, The London School of Contemporary Dance, The Skinners Guild of London and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The Charles and Harriet Luckman Undergraduate Distinguished Teaching Award was awarded to Philip in 1997 for his teaching in the Department of Dance at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Philip received undergraduate degrees from the University of Ulster and The London School of Contemporary Dance. At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign he received his Master of Fine Arts in Dance and a Ph. D. in Theatre History. He holds a joint appointment in Dance and Theatre at the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign.
Kate
Kuper, Visiting Lecturer
Kate Kuper is the recipient of National Endowment for the Arts and
Illinois Arts Council Choreographic Fellowships, and the Illinois Alliance
for Arts Education's Service Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Field
of Arts Education. She has taught creative movement in the schools since 1982
as a teaching artist through the Illinois Arts Council's Arts-in-Education
program. Ms. Kuper also conducts teaching workshops for the Kennedy Center
in Washington, D.C. She is the author of three audio/instructional CDs of
creative movement song and dance activities. Previous to her teaching in the
dance department, Ms. Kuper consulted in the School of Art and Design, teaching
integrated arts to education majors.
Kimberly D. Hardin, Physical Therapist
Ms. Hardin graduated from The Ohio State University with a degree
in education and the University of Louisville in Kentucky in physical therapy.
Her experience includes two years in a spine and sport medicine clinic. Currently
she is employed by Carle Clinic Physical Therapy/Sports Medicine Department
and Bodyworks Associates. She serves as consultant to the University of Illinois
Athletic Department for athletes with spine dysfunction and is pursuing certification
as an athletic trainer.
Beverly Blossom, Faculty Emeritus
Beverly Blossom, a professor at the University of Illinois from
1967-1990, was a principal dancer with the Alwin Nikolais Dance Theatre for
ten years from 1953-1963. She then produced concerts of her own choreography
in New York in the 1960s, participating in the development of the filmstage
theatre of actor/poet Roberts Blossom, to whom she was married from 1966-1970.
Blossom has choreographed and performed more than 100 works and has received
numerous grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council
for the Arts, Illinois Arts Council, and private foundations. Beverly was
awarded a New York Dance and Performance Award (“Bessie”) for sustained
achievement. She holds a bachelor's degree in liberal arts from Roosevelt
University, Chicago; and a master's in dance from Sarah Lawrence College in
Bronxville, New York. Since her retirement, she has been choreographing for
her own company, Beverly Blossom and Co., Inc., performing, and teaching.
She now lives in Lake Forest, Illinois.
Patricia Knowles, Professor Emeritus
In 1966, Patricia Knowles was awarded the first M.A. degree in
Dance from Florida State University. She joined the Dance faculty at the University
of Illinois Urbana/Champaign in 1973 after teaching at the University of Georgia,
where she implemented a dance major program, and at Eastern Michigan University.
At UIUC, she served as department head, graduate program director, and producing
director for department concerts from 1977 until her retirement in 2001, dividing
her time between administration, teaching, choreography, and service. Chief
among her administrative accomplishments at UIUC were the design and implementation
of the M.F.A. degree program in 1981, extensive revision of the B.F.A. curriculum,
and expansion of the general education dance program to include eleven course
offerings for non-dance majors. She established a floating artist-in-residence
position, developed the department’s performance component into a significant
cultural resource for the university community, planned and acquired two dance
facilities, and initiated international ties with dance programs in Taiwan
and Australia.
Her primary research interests have been choreography and the history and
continuing development of dance in education. She has created over thirty
works for the Department of Dance and staged dances for nine UIUC opera and
theatre productions. Her choreography has been performed by Harbinger in Detroit,
MI; and by Australian companies in Perth and Adelaide. She has presented papers
on the history of dance in education at the VII International Conference on
Sport and Dance in Brisbane, Australia, 1982, and the Fifth Hong Kong International
Dance Congress, 1990. Pat’s NASD President’s Address in 1998,
“Connecting to the Legacy of the Past,” was a tribute to Alma
Hawkins, Dance Education Pioneer, after her death earlier that year.
Her service to the profession reflects her ongoing interest in the development
of dance in academe. Most significant are her K-12 curriculum research activities
with the National Arts Education Research Center, and her continuous accreditation
work with National Association of Schools of Dance. As Dance Project Director
for NAERC, she provided the leadership for the publication of several documents
on the status and reform of K-12 dance education in the U.S. and formed an
NASD K-12 working group which revised the NASD standards for K-12 dance education.
Her offices in NASD include chairing the Commission on Accreditation, 1994-97,
and serving as President, 1998-2000. She provided the leadership for the drafting
of a document on competencies for M.F.A. programs for the 2004-05 NASD Handbook,
and served as organizer/ moderator for the first NASD workshop for new dance
administrators at the 2004 Annual Meeting. A program reviewer/consultant for
NASD since 1984, Pat has served as team chairperson for accreditation visits,
or as NASD consultant, to over thirty university dance programs and studio
schools.
Additional professional activities include membership in the Council of Dance
Administrators from 1976 until her retirement. She served as coordinator of
the first conference on Dance Administration in 1985, co-sponsored by CODA
and the UIUC College of Fine and Applied Arts; and she coordinated the CODA
presentations at the Fifth Hong Kong International Dance Congress in 1990.
In the founding years of the American College Dance Festival Association,
1977-90, she held the offices of Treasurer, Secretary, and Board Member. She
has also served on the Illinois Arts Council Dance Panel, 1978-80, and adjudicated
the Detroit City Dance Festivals, 1975 and 1978; the Wisconsin Arts Council
choreographic fellowships, 1987; and the Michigan Choreographers’ Showcase,
1989. She has participated in numerous tenure reviews, program reviews, and
consultancies for dance programs nation-wide since 1978.
