Dear UW Department of Dance Community,
Greetings! I hope that this newsletter finds you well and in good spirits. The presence and energy that students have brought to our studios, hallways, theaters, and classrooms as we have returned more fully to on-campus activity this past year has been invigorating and healing. While we, along with the rest of the world, are still contending with and navigating life with Covid, we continue to take great care and precaution to help keep our students, faculty, staff, and audiences as safe as possible. We are still making adjustments to teaching modalities as needed, and learning new skills to accommodate in-person, online, and hybrid environments. The joy of being able to welcome more students to our studios and to present live concerts has reaffirmed our commitment to dance, dance education, creative work, and scholarly activity.
In October of 2021, we celebrated the 30th Anniversary Season of the Chamber Dance Company with our first live-audience dance performance in over a year! The UW Dance Presents concert in January and the Dance Majors Concert in March were also successful and highlighted the talent and creativity of our faculty, undergraduate student choreographers and dancers, and guest artists. We are eagerly anticipating the MFA Dance Concert (May 18th-22nd) which will premiere new works choreographed by our world-class MFA candidates and be performed by undergraduate students, as well as APEX (April 28th- 30th), a completely student-led show, produced by the Dance Student Association.
Academically, the Department of Dance maintains its efforts in implementing long-range improvements to our programs. The faculty continues to work on the revision of our BA curriculum to better align with our values of equity and inclusivity, and we are always striving to offer new courses in a variety of dance techniques such as vertical dance (rope and harness dance), commercial dance, and Afro dance. With the same goals of advancing diversity, equity, inclusivity and access, the faculty has also started work to revise the MFA degree. We are proud that the student-run Arts Diversity Council is continuing its important work of providing support to marginalized students.
Faculty, staff, and students deserve enormous credit for the ways they have exemplified flexibility, resilience, and positivity in the face of uncertainty these past two years, and we are all grateful for the support from you, the UW Department of Dance community, who have contributed so much through your interest, gifts, concert attendance, and more. I wish you a wonderful rest of the spring.
Sincerely,
Christina Sunardi
Chair, UW Department of Dance
Associate Professor, School of Music, Ethnomusicology Program
Adelaide D. Currie Cole Endowed Professor
