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Faculty
We are a diverse artistic community in a unique position to create a learning atmosphere where students and faculty work alongside one another to expand and deepen our relationship to dance and the world around us. The resident faculty is augmented by both core adjunct faculty, mentors, and visiting artists and scholars who reflect a wide range of interests and experiences.
Resident Faculty
Donna Faye Burchfield is Artistic Director of HU/ADF M.F.A. program, Co-chair of Hollins' Dance Department, Dean of American Dance Festival, and HU Professor of Dance. She has both B.F.A. and M.F.A. degrees from Texas Christian University where she studied with Jerry Bywaters Cochran. Her extended studio study includes teachers Betty Jones, Donald McKayle, Gus Solomons jr, and Daniel Nagrin, among others. She has been choreographing and performing her own work since 1979. A member of the ADF community since 1982, she conceived of and directs ADFNY Intensive workshop each year. She has traveled extensively throughout the world including over 150 colleges, universities, dance programs and company homes teaching master classes, auditioning students, and giving lectures. She has received numerous grants and fellowships to extend her research in dance arenas across the globe including Tunisia, Cuba, China, Hong Kong, Italy, France, Germany, Monaco, and most recently China.
Jeffery N. Bullock (Associate Professor, Hollins University) Teacher, dancer and choreographer, Jeffery Bullock began his performing career with the North Carolina Dance Theater following graduation from the North Carolina School of the Arts (NCSA). He continued his performing career with the Pacific Northwest Ballet (PNB) in Seattle and the Pittsburgh Ballet Theater. Later, he joined Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, touring the United States and Europe. Bullock's repertoire included soloist and principal roles in an eclectic array of works by George Balanchine, Agnes De Mille, Alvin Ailey, Paul Taylor, Twyla Tharp, Daniel Esralow, Nacho Duato, Lucinda Childs, Glen Tetley and others. He was also a featured performer in the 1986 Paramount Motion Picture The Nutcracker with PNB, and was a featured performer in the 1983 PBS Special Where Dreams Debut: NCSA. Bullock's work At Midnight earned him a Dance Magazine's Best Choreography Nomination at the 1996 ACDFA at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Jeffery has been a faculty member at the ADF since 1998, teaching in both the Six Week School and Young Dancers School; and in ADF/Russia (2000), ADF/Korea (2000 & 2004) and ADF/Mongolia (2004/2005). He earned his MFA in choreography from the University of Iowa; taught at the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Iowa and joined the Hollins University Dance Program in 2004.
Douglas Becker is a choreographer and teacher working in many idioms, including contemporary ballet and improvisation throughout Europe and the United States. He is a returning resident artist in the Hollins University dance department and serves as the HU European Dance Curator for the programs various international extended study projects. A founding member and principal dancer of the Frankfurt Ballet (under the direction of William Forsythe), he performed with distinction for the company for over 10 years. He played a pivotal role in the creation of many signature pieces and is one of the few individuals around the world restaging Forsythe repertoire. Mr. Becker's collaborative process of choreographic development improvises upon and utilizes dancers' individual talents and characteristics. A native of Dallas, Texas, he makes his home in Brussels, Belgium.
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Core Adjunct Faculty
T.J. Anderson III is an associate professor of English at Hollins University, a recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship to Egypt, and the author of a book of poetry, At Last Round Up and most recently Notes to Make Sound Come Right; Four Innovators of Jazz Poetry.
Glenna Batson teacher, founder and director of Wellness Partners in the Arts, an organization that facilitates community offerings in a wide spectrum of movement arts, doctoral candidate in neuroscience; began her dance studies in the 1950s at her mother's school, the Modern School of Dance Education, established in Washington, DC in 1940; studied ethnomusicology and dance, specializing in Bharata Natyam and classical Javanese styles; studied in Bangalore, India in 1971 with Krishna Rao and Chandrabhaga Devi; in 1973, moved to New York, studying primarily with Erick Hawkins, Ibrahim Farrah (Middle Eastern Dance), and at the Laban Institute of Movement Studies; obtained her M.A. in Dance Education from Columbia University Teachers College in 1978; has spent the last 25 years integrating dance with movement science and somatic learning; apprenticed with Irene Dowd in Ideokinesis and subsequently, she and Irene co-taught an extended seminar series, Maintaining Healthy Bones & Muscles; earned her physical therapy degree from Hahnemann Medical University in 1983; became certified in the Alexander Technique from the Alexander Alliance of Philadelphia in 1985, and is an internationally recognized teacher, with extended residencies in Germany, Austria, Japan, Australia, and Ireland; participated in ADF Linkage project, teaching in Venezuela (1996; 1998) and in Ecuador (1994; 1995); has been guest dance educator and faculty (dance science and somatics) at numerous universities, including University of Maryland, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and Duke University; ADF faculty '87-'91, '94-'00.
Irene Dowd, author of Taking Root to Fly: Articles on Functional Anatomy for Dancers, has developed a unique approach to injury prevention using neuromuscular reeducation, which she teaches in her private practice in New York City. She is an the dance faculty of The Juilliard School and The National Ballet School of Canada. Dowd discussed with Feldenkrais practitioner Barbara Forbes how she works with dancers to embody whatever movement they choose to perform.
Anna Kisselgoff was the chief dance critic of The New York Times from 1977 to 2005. She joined the paper in 1968 as a dance critic and cultural news reporter. She has reviewed modern dance, ballet, ethnic dance, tap, folk dance, Michael Jackson, ice dancing and at the 1988 Olympic Games the rodeo. Prior to joining the Times, she continues to write on dance, she wrote dance reviews and features for the New York Times International Edition and worked for Agence France-Presse in Paris. Ms. Kisselgoff is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College. She received an MA in European History from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She studied French history at the Sorbonne and Russian at the School of Oriental Languages in Paris. At the age of four, she began studying ballet in New York with Valentian Belova, later head of the dance department at Sullins College. Ms. Kisselgoff then studied ballet for nine years with Jean Yazvinsky, a former dancer in Diaghilev's Ballet Russes. Among the honors Ms. Kisselgoff has received for her writing is the Order of the Falcon, personally presented by the President of Iceland (2002). She was made a Knight of the Order of the Dannebrog by Queen Margrethe II of Denmark (1986) and a Chevalier Government (1990). She received the Dean's Award for Distinguished Achievement, awarded to alumni by the Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (2000) and the Distinguished Alumni Award from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism (1991). She received an honorary doctorate from Aldelphi University in 1992. Ms. Kisselgoff served as consultant and wrote the forward for "Bronislava Nijinsky: Early Memoirs." She has taught at Yale University and Barnard College and given lectures at other colleges and at the American Dance Festival.
Jen Boyle is an assistant professor at Hollins; B.S. in physics from California Polytechnic University; B.A. in English from California State University, Fullerton. She completed her M.A. in Comparative Literature and PhD in English at the University of California, Irvine. Her dissertation explored seventeenth- and eighteenth-century perspective theory as an influence on emerging relationships between science, technology, and literature in the early modern period. Her interests include early modern cultural studies; embodiment, science, and technology; and gender and feminist theory. She is also interested in the representation of exile and embodiment in media and literature. She has held a fellowship at the Folger Institute and been a scholar in residence at the Dibner Library in Washington D.C.
Thomas DeFrantz holds degrees from Yale, the City University of New York, and earned his PhD from the Department of Performance Studies at NYU. He has taught at Stanford, NYU, and at MIT, where he is Associate Professor and holds the Class of 1948 Career Development Professorship, and served as Acting Associate Director of the program in Comparative Media Studies. He teaches courses on Hip Hop, Theater, and Dance. He has published widely, including recent essays on break dancing and afro-futurist filmmaking. An accomplished tap dancer, he has performed the Morton Gould Tap Concerto with the Boston Pops conducted by Keith Lockhart, as well as the Duke Ellington Tap Concerto with the Aardvark Jazz Orchestra led by Mark Harvey. A director and choreographer, he has affiliations with the Drama League of New York, the Theater Offensive of Boston, and the performance research group Slippage: Performance Interventions in Culture and Technology, in residence at MIT. His recent original plays include Queer Theory! A Musical Travesty, slated for production in Boston in 2005; The Man In My Head, written with composer Michael Wartofsky for New York cabaret star Darius de Haas in 2005; Ennobling Nonna, produced at MIT in 2004; and Monk's Mood: A Performance Meditation on the Life and Music of Thelonious Monk. His books include the edited volume Dancing Many Drums: Excavations in African American Dance (University of Wisconsin Press, 2002) and Dancing Revelations: Alvin Ailey's Embodiment of African American Culture (Oxford University Press, 2004). DeFrantz served on the boards for the Society of Dance History Scholars and as Book Editor for the Dance Critics Association. He also organized the dance history program at the Alvin Ailey School in New York for many years.
Pauline Kaldas is assistant professor of English and creative writing at Hollins University. She is author of Egyptian Compass and co-editor of Dinarzad's Children. She serves as the writing consultant and thesis forms mentor for the program.
Ben Pranger (Assistant Professor of Performance and New Media, Hollins University) BA, Oberlin College, MFA, Art Institute of Chicago. He is a visual artist who teaches and advises students in the Hollins Dance Department. He has taught at American Dance Festival, Southampton College and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His sculpture, works on paper and installations have been shown nationally, with recent exhibitions at 1708 Gallery in Richmond and Second St. Gallery in Charlottesville. Ben Pranger's work has been reviewed in publications such as Artforum, Art in America, ArtNews and recently in Art Papers. He has participated in artist residency fellowships at Kohler Art/Industry, Fine Arts Work Center of Provincetown, the Marie Walsh Sharpe Program and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. He has received sculpture grants from the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
Kim Rhodes is an art historian who writes and teaches about modern and contemporary visual culture. She received her Ph.D. from Columbia University and before coming to Hollins in 1998 worked at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Parrish Art Museum in Southampton, NY. Her scholarly work on nineteenth-century British and American art has been published by Yale University Press and Hudson Hills Press, among others, and she has presented papers at conferences, museums and universities around the U.S. She is currently completing a book manuscript entitled "Ophelia, Visual Culture and Victorian Body Politics." At Hollins she teaches classes that reflect her feminist, interdisciplinary and transhistorical engagement with visual culture including "Feminism and Contemporary Art," "Art and Literature in Britain" and "Art History and Fiction."
Charles L. Reinhart has worked as a producer, manager, festival director, consultant and administrator in the arts since 1955. He has served as President of the American Dance Festival (ADF) since 1968, and was Co-Director with the late Stephanie Reinhart from 1993-2002. Mr. Reinhart is currently a member of the Board of Directors of The Anglo-American Contemporary Dance Foundation, and the Theatre Development Fund (TDF), where he is the Dance Chair and a member of their Astaire Awards Jury. Mr. Reinhart has been the recipient of numerous awards including: The Morrison Award for service to the arts in the State of North Carolina (1985), Dance/USA's Honors for lifetime achievement in dance (1994), the Capezio Dance Award (1996), the Diaghilev Award (1997), the Dance Notation Bureau Service Award (1999), and Dance Magazine Award (2003) which he received along with the late Stephanie Reinhart. Mr. Reinhart and Stephanie Reinhart were awarded an Emmy as Executive Producers of the 2001 PBS Series, Free to Dance: The African American Presence in Modern Dance. Mr. Reinhart was honored by the French Government in 1986 receiving the title, Officier dans l'ordre des Arts et des Lettres for his efforts in introducing French modern dance to the United States. In 2002, he was honored again by the French Government receiving the title of Commandeur dans l'orde des Artes et des Lettres. Duke University conferred the honorary degree of Doctor of Fine Arts upon Mr. Reinhart in 2003.
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