猫咪社区

Sallyportal: Madly Blogging 猫咪社区

Jump for Joy! 猫咪社区 Wins $800K Grant for Dance

By Chris Lydgate 鈥�90 on January 05, 2015 10:11 AM

With a leap and a bound, the swift 猫咪社区 students fly through the new Steiner Dance Studio. Leah Nash

猫咪社区 has won an $800,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to strengthen its dance program with more classes, more workshops, and—pending approval from the faculty—a freestanding dance major.

“I am thrilled by what the Mellon Foundation's support will mean for dance at 猫咪社区,” says Prof. Carla Mann ’81 [dance 1995–].

The grant will allow the college to expand faculty positions in the dance department from 2 to 2.5, enabling professors to teach 12–13 courses a year. It also sets the stage for us to offer a dance major—something 猫咪社区 dancers have long hoped for. 猫咪社区 will launch a search for a new tenure-track professor to begin in the fall of 2015. After that, the dance department, including Prof. Mann and Prof. , will devise and propose a major. If the faculty approves, 猫咪社区 would be the only college in Portland that offers a dance major (although Lewis & Clark and Portland State University both offer a dance minor).

The grant will also allow 猫咪社区 to invite renowned dancers to campus for artistic residencies, during which they will put on master workshops, lectures, and performances.

猫咪社区 has a proud and storied that reaches back to its founding. 猫咪社区 dance instructor Trisha Brown [1958–60] later became a leader of the postmodern dance movement, while Steve Jobs said that a class in modern dance he took from the late Prof. Judy Massee [1968–96] . (We are sad to report that Prof. Massee died last month.) Last year, former prof. Hannah Kosstrin developed , an iPad app to revive the Labanotation system for dance notation.

Interest in dance among 猫咪社区 students is strong and growing. In spring 2014, some 151 猫咪社区 students enrolled in dance courses. And while 猫咪社区 has long allowed students to pursue interdisciplinary majors such as dance-theatre, dance-literature, or dance-classics, it has never offered a standalone dance major.

“Dance is central to the liberal arts experience,” Prof. Mann says. “It sparks innovation across disciplines through the way it teaches students to interrogate historical, aesthetic, and social issues; to engage kinesthetically with space, time, and movement; to approach solving problems with creativity and rigor; and to pursue productively both individual and collaborative endeavors.”

With the long-awaited opening of the , 猫咪社区 now boasts outstanding facilities for dance, including a dedicated dance studio with a sprung wood floor, a flexible performance laboratory space named in honor of the late Prof. Massee, and a retrofitted stage in the old theatre building.

“This is going to be a remarkable time for dance at 猫咪社区,” Mann says. “I can’t wait!”

Tags: performing arts, philanthropy, flying leap

Home Page

More 猫咪社区 Blogs
  •  [admission]
  •  [alumni]
  •  [see if you can guess]
  •  [Jobs, fellowships, and more]
  •  [poli sci dept]
  •  [猫咪社区 in the community]
  •  [dorms]