Professor Karen Bradley wins Excellence in Advocacy for the Field of Dance Education award at 2016 NDEO conference

October 11, 2016 School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies

Congratulations to Professor Karen Bradley on winning the Excellence in Advocacy for the Field of Dance Education award at the 2016 National Dance Education Organization (NDEO) conference this past weekend!

Congratulations to Professor Karen Bradley on winning the Excellence in Advocacy for the Field of Dance Education award at the 2016 National Dance Education Organization (NDEO) conference this past weekend!

The 18th Annual National Conference welcomed over 800 dance educators from around the world to Washington, D.C. to address the theme of “Speaking with Our Feet.” They discussed ideas about how to advocate for, analyze, and advance dance education in various contexts. They addressed questions about fostering local dance programs; dance pedagogy; dance policy; and dance for community building, conflict prevention, and empowerment.

Professor Bradley was awarded a President's Award for a lifetime of work devoted to advocacy through dance. She also presented with TDPS Professor Miriam Phillips and Dr. Susan Wiesner (Digital Humanist at the Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library) on "Reimagining Choreometrics: Access to the World." A number of TDPS Dance students and alumni were in attendance, including BA Dance alumni Jenna Kiefer Mercurio '09 and Gabriella Meiterman '14; and MFA Dance alumni Vannia Ibarguen '09, Heather Looney '09, Emily Oleson '12, Shannon Dooling '13, Jessie Laurita-Spanglet '14, Erin Crawley-Woods '14. TDPS Board of Visitors member and BA Dance alumna Jen Katz-Burk '02 also attended the conference. As Professor Phillips said,

What impressed me so much about watching Karen in action at this conference is that she not only models leadership and dance advocacy as she IS a leader, but she corrals her students into becoming leaders too.

Congrats to all on a successful event and representing the important work that our faculty, students, and alumni are doing in the field of dance!

By Kate Spanos