Teacher, performer, and choreographer Trudy Cobb Dennard is this year's Visiting Guest Artist for the WSU Dance Company, one of the faculty-directed student dance companies within the Maggie Allesee Department of Theatre and Dance. Ms. Cobb Dennard will be in residence in the dance program October 10-14 setting a dance on the members of Dance Company. She will also be teaching various technique classes in the department.

An Informance (informal performance) of her work will be held on Monday, October 14 at 11:00am in the Allesee Dance Theatre, room 3317 Old Main. All are welcome, and the event is free. This will be a preview of the company performing this new work that will be further rehearsed, refined and included in Dance Company's performances of "Jazz - Made in America" on December 7th as part of Mid-town's Noel Night festivities.

 

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Biography:
Trudy Cobb Dennard, MFA (Master of Fine Arts in Dance) is an Associate Professor of Dance in the College of Fine Arts & Communication at Towson University. She earned her MFA at the University of Michigan and has studied many different styles and techniques of dance including Dunham technique with Clifford Fears and Walter Nicks, jazz with Pepsi Bethel, Bucket technique with Garth Fagan, African dance with Chuck Davis and African-American dance styles with Jawole Willa Jo Zollar. She performed with The Bucket Dance Theatre and as a soloist and with other artists under the auspices of Trudy Cobb & Dances.

Before coming to Towson University, Ms. Cobb Dennard served as a faculty member and/or quest artist at Western Michigan University, Binghamton University, University of Memphis, SUNY Brockport, Arizona State University and Wayne State University (MI). She has collaborated with composers, orchestral directors, playwrights, actors, video artists, directors and other dancers. She has directed and choreographed several musicals and received grants to support her choreography and her research. Ms. Cobb Dennard's research interests include the documentation of the contributions of African Americans to the field of dance, with attention on the contributions of regionally based African American dance companies and, by some, their work to preserve African and African American dance forms. She collected the oral history of the late Joseph Nash, dance historian and the foremost archivist of African American dance memorabilia in the United States and has choreographed a work based on his life. She has a special interest in the role of dance in praise and worship and has worked with dance ministries in Baltimore, MD and in Kalamazoo, MI teaching technique.

From 2004-2011 she served Towson University as associate dean of the College of Fine Arts and Communication. Prior to this administrative position, she served SUNY Binghamton as associate dean for academic affairs and Western Michigan University as chair of dance. She presents workshops on arts administration, dance technique, and dance and technology, jazz dance, African and African-American dance styles. She serves as an accreditation evaluator for the National Association of Schools of Dance and developed NASD's first New Chairs Seminar. She was on the faculty of the 2010-11 Council of Colleges of Arts and Sciences Chair Seminar for new and continuing chairs.