RECENT NEWS
Technique Enrollment Policy
(1/24/08)
To ensure an optimal learning environment for all students, to ensure that Dance majors can meet graduation requirements in a timely manner, to ensure fairness for all students, and to make the best use of faculty time, the Department of Dance will follow the procedure detailed below for pre-registration in Fall, 2008 Ballet and Contemporary classes.
Department of Dance
UNCG Dance Alumni - 1996
UNDERGRADUATE
Christy (Shearin) Austin, BA
Penny (Howell) Boyes, BA
Kirsten Carreker, BS
updated 12/06
5864 Greenery View Lane
Las Vegas, NV 89118
I am now a booking agent for BESTAgency in Las Vegas.
Joanna Caves, BS
updated 7/07
Since graduating in 1996 I have been teaching Dance in the Wake County
Pubic School System. After teaching for six years at East Garner Middle
School, I moved to Martin Middle School. I have been teaching at this
Gifted and Talented Magnet School for the last five years. This past
year I was named the North Carolina Dance Educator of the Year by the
North Carolina Alliance for Athletics Physical Education Health
Recreation and Dance. I have been married for seven years and am
the proud mother of a two year old boy. Email: joannacaves@gmail.com
Emily E. Daughtridge, BFA
last updated 6/08
Emily received her M.F.A. from The Ohio State University where she held a GA position with the Wexner Center for the Arts. For three consecutive years, she served on the faculty of the Silesian Dance Theatre’s international dance festival in Poland, teaching community outreach/arts therapy and modern technique. In 2004, she presented research at the CORD Conference in Taiwan. From 1996 to 2001, Emily danced professionally with both the Jan Van Dyke Dance Group and the John Gamble Dance Theater. She continues to choreograph and perform with G. Alex and the Movement, Jynormous Theatre Company, X Factor Dance Company and others.
Emily recently received the 2008 Outstanding Teaching Award for the College of Fine and Applied Arts at Appalachian State University. She says of this, "I was thrilled and humbled to receive this award. I am grateful to have had such wonderful mentors who have inspired and supported me along the way."
Emily Daughtridge, M.F.A. (BFA 1996)
Assistant Professor, Dance, Department of Theatre and Dance, Appalachian State University
daughtridgee@appstate.edu
Office:(828) 262-2404
Christy (Trant) Denny, BA
Virginia Freeman Dupont, BFA
updated 2/07
vfreeman@triad.rr.com
Performer with John Gamble Dance Theater (1995-present) (associate director).
Performer with Jan Van Dyke Dance Group (1995-present).
Ballet Program Director - Burlington Academy of Dance & Arts.
Guest Artist (performer, choreographer and teacher) at various locations throughout NC.
Received MFA in Dance Performance and Choreography at UNCG in 2003.
Married in September, 2004 and gave birth to a daughter, Larkin Marie, in
December, 2005.
Ann Goodrum, BA
Teacherīs Assistant, Gateway Center (public school for severely physically disabled children)
Working on dance certification
Toured with the North Carolina Dance Festival as lighting designer and technical director (99-present)
Stacy Hendrix, BA
Rebecca (Webster) Hill, BS
udance4me@yahoo.com
Dance educator, Charlotte Mecklenberg Public Schools
Desiree Hood, BFA
Desbe@aol.com
Dancing with Otesha Creative Arts Ensemble since 1993.
Currently teaching for A Healthy Start, a dance ministry at East White Oak Baptist Church .
Dancing for AHA Dance.
Melissa Kakavas, BFA
Lives in New York, performing with companies
Teaching Pilates
Jennifer (Edwards) Kellam, BS
Owner/Teacher of "And a 5678 Studio" in Greensboro
Cindy Lieberman, BA
Susan Lutz, MFA
Assistant Professor in Dance, Appalachian State University
Jonathan Meyer, BA
updated 2/07
Jonathan Meyer founded Khecari Dance Theater in January 2002, and currently serves as Artistic Director and principle choreographer. Khecari features his fascination with the juxtaposition of disparate movement vocabularies and aesthetics, particularly modern, post-modern, ballet, capoeira, and butoh, and in the potential of performed dance to viscerally inform the audience to the infinite range of human possibility. Featuring non-traditional partnering techniques, fluid athleticism, and intensive floor work, his choreography focuses on exploring relationship and the incessant human quest to find meaningful connection in a world increasingly inimical to this need.
After an earlier gymnastics career, Jonathan began dancing and choreographing at Oberlin College. Taking time away to study capoeira with Maestre Medicina in Muritiba, Brazil, he return to the states to complete a B.A. in Dance from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, during which time he also toured with the erstwhile San Francisco-based The High Risk Group. After an internship with Elizabeth Streb/Ringside, he moved to Montréal where he performed with Pierre-Paul Savoir. His dance training has included Cunningham, Nikolai, and Taylor techniques, ballet, release technique, contact improvisation, butoh, capoeira, bharatanatyam, gymnastics, aikido, yoga, and acrobatics. Other training has included massage therapy and Body-Mind Centering.
Jonathan moved to Taos, New Mexico in 2000 from a professional dance career in Amsterdam where he worked with Het Volta, a community-based educational company, and Sowulo Dance Theater, a solo-works performance company. He performed in the 2001 and 2002 Taos Dance Festival with Gail Gilbert and Kevin Wynn.
Jonathan moved to Chicago in April of 2006, relocating Khecari with him. He has performed with Chicago Dance Crash, The Seldoms, and Asimina Chremos. While still performing and dancing for others, he has since 1998 focused primarily on developing his own choreographic métier through his work with Khecari Dance Theatre.
Please visit Khecari Dance Theater's website at www.khecari.org.
Tiffany Rhynard, BA
updated 2/07
Tiffany Rhynard ‘96 is the Artist in Residence at Middlebury College in
Middlebury, Vermont. Active in the collaborative process, she is
currently working with composer Lei Liang on several projects: the live
dance/video/music performance Green Piece, and the dance film TRASH: Living in a Disposable World.
Rhynard is also collaborating with percussionist and writer Karma
Johnston on a new solo for fellow UNCG alumna Christal Brown to be
presented in Brown’s performance From Every Angle: Migration at Dance New Amsterdam in New York City. Additional video projects include the documentary, Women Building Larger Lives
with her production company Sisters Unite. The film illuminates the
strength and resiliency of incarcerated women in Vermont as they build
a modular home from start to finish. Contact:
trhynard@middlebury.edu
Angie Setliff, BS
Studio teacher
Marisa Shipley, BA
Erica Sines, BA (and BA Spanish)
last updated 8/04
Moved to Madrid, Spain
Married, has 2 daughters - born in May 1999 and January 2001 - and one son - born in March 2002.
Plans to study International Nursing at St. Louis University-Madrid Campus starting September 2003.
Email: sines21@hotmail.com
From Erica:
"I have 3 children, ages 5,3 and 2. Still living in Madrid and presently
going to get my BS in Nursing at the Univ. of St. Louis, Madrid Campus."
Margo Jackson Tulless, BS
updated 2/07
Dance Educator, Gates County Public Schools (1996-1998).
Co-owner, River City Dance (1997-2002).
Living in Greenville, NC, with husband, John, and 4 children.
Currently a stay-at-home mom of: Hayden (15), Aly (14) are
stepdaughters, Parker (5) and Jackson (2); Independent Consultant with
Arbonne International, a health and wellness company. My
5-year-old daughter just started ballet this year and I am so
excited...she loves it!!
Jana Watkins, BA
Works as a personal trainer
Performed in a show in New Jersey
GRADUATE
Erin Leyden Smith, MFA
MCSESS99@aol.com
Erin and her husband run a studio in Ohio, and are busy raising their two year-old son, and thereīs another baby on the way.
Erin also teaches part-time at Kent State University.
She has been involved with the Ohio chapter of AAHPERD-OAHPERD, and served as VP and President of Dance.
Has won several choreography awards