Press kit
Overview:
VCU Dance is a community of highly motivated, disciplined and creative dancers who are interested in shaping the future of the field. We are a vital and young department with an established reputation, hot guest-artist program and professionally active faculty dedicated to working with students. Dancers intent on preparing for careers in dance thrive in our program.
VCU Dance offers the benefits of a teaching and learning environment with a student/faculty ratio of 10 to 1. It is housed in the VCU School of the Arts, which is ranked in the top 20 arts schools nationally. Our production calendar is full of opportunities for students to perform and choreograph. Facilities include seven dance studios with floor-to-ceiling windows and a fully staffed theater specially designed for dance.
VCU Dance supports a vibrant and stimulating atmosphere where students prepare for the demands and challenges of dance careers. In a community setting where communication, mutual respect and self motivation are encouraged, classes provide students with disciplined training that will maximize their potential to become dancers of technical excellence, choreographers with original and powerful voices, and thinkers with high academic standards.
Curriculum: B.F.A. in modern dance. Daily modern technique classes are supported with a strong ballet curriculum and additional offerings in contact improvisation, African, somatics, yoga, tap, jazz and Hawaiian. Our creative track is especially strong with two semesters of improvisation, composition and choreography before the culminating senior project. The required curriculum includes dance history and music for dancers. Electives in video choreography, dance management and design for dancers are offered. VCU Dance is an accredited member of the National Association of Schools of Dance.
Faculty: The current full-time faculty includes Martha Curtis (chair), Chris Burnside, Katrina Clemans, James Frazier, Audrey Jung, Scott Putman, Melanie Richards and Judith Steel. The department also has ten part-time faculty. The teaching roster consists of nationally recognized guest artists whose residencies range from a single workshop to entire semesters. Recent guest artists have included David Dorfman, Dan Froot, Joe Goode, Victoria Marks, Gesel Mason, Bebe Miller, Richard Move, Gus Solomons Jr., Paul Taylor Dance Company, Paule Turner, Doug Varone, Sara Pearson and Patrik Widrig.
Students: The student population numbers between 75 and 80 and attracts a culturally diverse and highly motivated group of young artists. Two alumni, Richard Move and Paule Turner, were recently selected as two of the "Top 25 to Watch" by Dance Magazine.
Chair, Martha Curtis
Martha Curtis (Chair, Professor) is a dancer, teacher, choreographer, and video producer/director. She is currently serving as Chair of VCU Dance.
Beginning in the early 1990s, Ms. Curtis has choreographed, produced and directed videodance works. Her most recent videodance broadcast, Deconstructed Dialogues was created in collaboration with Robbie Kinter and Bruce Berryhill and is currently on contract with the National Educational Telecommunications Association for broadcast on PBS stations throughout the United States. Her videodance work On the Tracks was selected by RD Studio Productions of Paris, France for international distribution to television stations in Europe and Canada. Three Dances by Martha Curtis was broadcast on PBS stations across the United States as well as in India, Pakistan and China through Heartland USA of PBS.
Her video work has been selected for screening at several festivals including the Grand Prix International Video Danse, Paris, France; the American Dance Festival; Dancing for the Camera International Dance and Video Festival; the 3rd Mondail Video - 15th International Film and Video Festival, Brussels, Belgium; and the Dance Films Association Dance-on-Camera Festival in New York. She has twice received Silver Awards at the World Fest Houston International Film and Video Festival and she has received two Telly Awards. Ms. Curtis' choreography for the stage as been selected for showcases throughout the United States.
From 1976-1982, Ms. Curtis was Dancer and Assistant to the Artistic Director of the Pauline Koner Dance Consort. Since then she has performed in her own choreography as well as in works by Doug Varone, Chris Burnside, Ruth Solomon, Li Chiao-Ping, Sharon Kinney, Melanie Richards, Rachel Harms and Rita Rivera. She has taught master classes and workshops nationwide and her other full-time teaching credits include The Ohio State University, and the University of California, Santa Cruz.
She is currently the president of the Council of Dance Administrators (CODA) and serves as an outside evaluator for the National Association of Schools of Dance (NASD).
Virginia Commonwealth University
School of the Arts
Department of Dance and Choreography
dance@vcu.edu
Date Last Modified: 11/7/2009