University Courses:

Westminster College Dance Department:

Improvisation-Based Composition I and II

Movement Levels 1-3 

Anatomy and Kinesiology 

Community-Based Work 

Production 

Senior Capstone 1 and 2

Dance Conditioning

Dance History

Pilates For Wellness

Additional roles:

Dance Company Director

American College Dance Association faculty representative

*Footage of choreography set on students available by request via email.

University of Utah Department of Modern Dance:

Modern Dance Technique (Intermediate Level)

Composition

Graduate Apparatus (Pilates for Graduate Students)

Conditioning for Dancers

NEW CLASS DESIGNS

Alternative Body Forms:  Exploring The Grotesque Body, The Collaged Body, and The Metamorphic Body Through Art, Literature and Society (Theory Course)

This course is designed to expose students to the multiplicity of alternative, metaphoric, and symbolic body forms that exist in art, literature, and society. We will examine how these alternative body forms provide commentary on cultural and sociological issues and challenge concepts of what is "normal" and what is not.

Alternative Body Forms will give students a dynamic introduction to the “weird”, “ugly”, “odd”, “unreal”, "paradoxical", and “fantastical”.  By the end of the course, the students will have vast knowledge of how the grotesque body, the collaged body, and the metamorphosed body can help us reflect on our identities and our societies.  What role(s) do these “different” figures play in our world?  What is their significance?

Becoming Creature: Fantastical Physicality for Choreography and Performance

In this course, the movement of real and imagined creatures will be used to produce new physical qualities and intensify the sophistication, awareness, and depth of dancemaking and performance. Becoming Creature is a class that creates a context for the aesthetic investigation of abject, aberrant, raw, distorted, odd or disproportionate movement. Through stepping out of their comfort zones and into the unfamiliar, students’ physical and artistic ranges will expand.

Diversity and Controversy in Contemporary Israeli Dance and Culture

Abstract:

Israeli contemporary dance is flourishing globally through international recognition and acclaim, and the study of diversity and controversy within this small Middle Eastern country is becoming more urgent and relevant. Israel is home to a vast multitude of ethnicities and is a center of heated and contentious cultural conflict. This lecture-based course will examine how cultural diversity and ethnic strife informs artistry and affects collective and personal identity. Exploration of the aesthetics, works, and philosophies of dance artists, Palestinian/Israeli artistic collaborations, and political art and protest in the region will help address the following questions:

• How does ethnic/cultural diversity affect dance making?

• How does warfare and politics influence art making?

• What are the polarizing issues of Israeli politics and how do these affect art exposure in and outside of Israel?

• Which artworks represent or symbolize political conflict and which are sources for positive change and understanding of cultures?

The course curriculum will provide students with a deeper exposure and knowledge of dance in this region, and open dialogue to how art can or cannot, should or should not be a source for bridging, activism, peacemaking and change.

Rationale:

My experience living in Israel for four years heightened my awareness of the polarities between viewpoints in and outside of this country, and fed my fascination with how diversity and conflict can influence artistic creation.  Through reading, dialogue, and observation, this class will research topics including history of contemporary Israeli dance, emerging and established Israeli dance artists today, multicultural population within Israel and surrounding areas, Palestinian/Israeli cultural collaboration, and political art and movements. The class will look at bridging work – such as Pierre Dulaine’s film, “Dancing In Jaffa,” Arkadi Zaides’s dance quartet, “Quiet” (featuring Israeli and Arab performers), and Hillel Kogan’s dance, “We Love Arabs.”  Various oppositional movements explored will be “Don’t Dance With Israeli Apartheid” and  “Boycott Israel, Boycott Batsheva” organizations, as well as Nadia Arouri’s “I Can Move” dance project in Ramallah, West Bank, which empowers Palestinians, but avoids collaboration with Israelis.  Rather than feeding narrow opinion and polar views, this class will create a platform for dichotomy and welcome questioning and dialogue for greater empathy and understanding.  The hope is that students will become more aware of the vast variety of dance and gain perspective of the pressing issues in Israel and the surrounding areas today.

Dance Exchange Class (Proposed Design)

The objectives of this course is to provide a platform of the best of both worlds – professional post-graduate real life experience while still a student, with access to mentorship and support from the network of university and professors.

The Dance Exchange is designed to give students a global and professional perspective of the current dance field.  Each year takes a different “case study” or particular location, with each individual participant in his/her own internship, so as to widen and broaden the connection to a larger community.  This course will give students a better understanding of the professional dance world on a global scale.  The students will get entrepreneurial experience through organizing the trip and their internships.  They will get professional experience while a student, which will allow them to receive mentorship as well.  The students will have a better understanding of their aesthetic and philosophical preferences in the dance world and will broaden their cultural experience.

Community Teaching:

Minding Motion for Graceful Aging:

Lead and assistant teacher for organization that provides dance and creative movement to senior citizens in assisted living and memory care facilities.

Link: https://www.mindingmotion.com/

*Syllabi or additional information on these courses, as well as a full list of teaching experience and/or my curriculum vitae available by request via email.