Susan Griffin - President

Susan, dancer, teacher and choreographer, was born in New Jersey and attended Rutgers University in New Brunswick.  She earned a Master’s Degree in modern dance from Indian University in Bloomington, where she performed with Windfall Dancers, a professional dance company.  She choreographed numerous works for Windfall and for the IU Dance Theatre.  She danced with the Beverly Brown Dancensemble in New York City, and later with the Hook Dance Company in Rochester, NY.  She was a member of the faculty at the University of Rochester and also at Center College in Danville, KY.  From 1995-2002 Susan taught at Mineral Springs Elementary School in Winston-Salem, NC, where she specialized in integrating the arts into the general curriculum.   Since arriving in Phoenix in 2002, she has taught at ASU and then joined the faculty at South Mountain High School in 2003, where she teaches in the Magnet Dance program.  Susan has been active in AzDEO and serves as the chair for the National Honor Society for Dance Arts.  This year she will be hosting the Arizona State High School Dance Festival at South Mountain.

Lynn Monson -  Past President

Lynn completed Hartford Ballet’s Teacher Training Certificate Program in 1975, and began her teaching career co-directing a branch school for Hartford Ballet. Over the years, she has taught dance to all ages at a variety of organizations. She studied Labanotation at the Dance Notation Bureau and is a certified Labanotation teacher. She completed a BA in Dance at ASU and performed with the Thursday in the Dark Dance Co. At Carmel Community Arts & Technology Charter school, Lynn worked as the Director of Arts Education and Community Performance, Operations Manager and Executive Director. At Carmel, Lynn was able to connect and expand her dance expertise to the other arts and K-12 education.

Lynn was a member of the team that wrote the Performance Objectives for the Arizona Dance Standards in 1997 and a member of the planning/writing team to revise the Arizona Dance Standards in 2005-06. She is a member of the Dance Notation Bureau, International Council of Kinetography Laban, National Dance Education Organization, a board member of the Arizona Alliance for Arts Education and served on the board of the Arizona Dance Arts Alliance. Lynn was instrumental in the formation of the Arizona Dance Education Organization (AzDEO), and serves as secretary on the charter board.

April Leher - Vice President of Communications

April earned a BFA in Dance from Arizona State University in 1991, and went on to earn a MEd  in Educational Leadership from Northern Arizona University. April performed with The Movement Source Dance Company for 9 years, and has been teaching dance in the Peoria Unified School District since 1991. She is currently the Performing Arts Department chair at Ironwood High School. April's accomplishments include serving as a mentor, director, program coordinator, website designer, spokesperson and dance educator. April has designed innovative curriculum focusing on self-examination, peer assessment and group/class inquiry strategies in the choreographic process. In addition to writing curriculum for her school district and the state, extracurricular work has included serving as a member of the team that revised the Arizona's Department of Education K-12 Dance Standards in 2005-06. April's passion and commitment are clear in her philosophical statement. "I believe my purpose is not necessarily to create great technicians but to give students the amazing experience of dance - movement, expression, exploration of self, team work and creativity. I love watching students discover their own voice through movement and choreography. I love discovering my own creativity as I observe my students and get fabulous new ideas from them."

Alison Marshall: Vice President of Professional Development

Alison is a teaching and performing artist, choreographer, and arts consultant who designs and presents dance and theatre based learning programs in schools, businesses and communities. Her performance and choreography work has been presented at a variety of venues including the New Works Series San Francisco, Naropa/Colorado Summer Dance Festival, Boston Dance Umbrella, Troppen Amsterdam, Jacob’s Pillow (2008 choreographers lab) and Phoenix Theatre.  Her community based dance work has included projects and performances in Mexico, Columbia, Holland, Belgium, and the United States.

As the Arts Learning Director for the Arizona Commission on the Arts she designed and presented over 200 professional development workshops in dance and theatre-based learning. She has served as an editor for The Teaching Artist Journal, as co-director of Detour Theater Company with developmentally delayed adult actors, and is the co-author of a design arts curriculum and teachers guide titled Architecture and Children. She currently directs the Dana Foundation- Arizona Community Foundation Rural Arts Education Collaboration Project in Arizona and is a partner in THROUGHLINES Theatre and Dance Company. 

Alison holds a doctorate in Integrated Arts Education with a specialization in dance and is adjunct dance faculty at Lesley University, College of Creative Arts. She has served as faculty in dance and education at Arizona State University West, the University of Washington, Prescott College and for ten years with the Project Zero Summer Institute, Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Kelli

Kelli is currently a member of the board and the treasurer for the Arizona Dance Education Organization.  Kelli received a BA in Secondary Education with an emphasis in Mathematics and Dance from the College of Santa Fe, and a MA in Secondary Education with an emphasis in Counseling from Northern Arizona University. She has been a high school teacher at Washington High School in Phoenix for the past 11 years.  She is going on her 8th year as the dance teacher.  Kelli has been involved in both cheer and dance for over 20 years.  She has taught dance at the community college level as well as high school.  She has attended numerous workshops and conferences both in Phoenix and New York and is attending this year's NDEO conference in Long Beach, California. Kelli is very excited about being on the board and learning more about dance and all the great dance teachers in Arizona.

Lisa Thorngren - Co-Treasurer

Lisa Thorngren received her BS in Mathematics from the University of Puget Sound in 2002, and her MFA in Dance from Arizona State University in 2008.  She recently completed her Pilates training through Body Arts and Science International.  Lisa is currently an Adjunct Faculty member in dance at Scottsdale Community College, and she teaches ballet at the Mesa Arts Center and Pilates at Kinesphere Studio.  Lisa has taught ballet, modern, tap and dance kinesiology at the college level and has received recognition and awards for her teaching.   She is interested in research in injury prevention, physical rehabilitation for dancers, and more specifically, ways to minimize injury through the proper teaching of technique; Lisa has presented in related fields at NDEO’s 2006 and 2008 national conferences.

Chaille Martin: Secretary

Chaille earned a BA in Dance at the University of California, Irvine, and studied with Eugene Loring. She taught dance for fifteen years at Coolidge High School and for the last ten years at Casa Grande High School. Chaille also owns and operates The Studio, a school of dance in its 18^th year of operation, with the mental, physical, and social development of the students as the mission.

Chaille has continually contributed to the arts and dance community in Casa Grande and the state. She has developed and implemented standards based curriculum for new dance programs in two high school districts, choreographed musicals for the local community college and high school, volunteered to teach summer dance workshops for children sponsored by the Family Resource Center, and choreographed period themed entertainment for Calvin Coolidge Days, a founders day celebration. She hosted the 2004 Arizona High School Dance Festival and served on the Arizona Department of Education’s Dance Standards Revision Committee.

Denise Rapp - Representative At-large

Denise studied with Virginia Tanner at the “Children’s Dance Theater” in Salt Lake City, Utah from the age of 7. She earned her BA in Modern Dance from the University of Utah and an M.Ed in Dance Education from ASU. She has taught dance at the high school level and as a guest artist at the elementary level for over 20 years. She is currently in her 5^th year teaching dance at Arcadia High School and is director of the Arcadia Dance Company. Denise is the President of the Arizona Dance Education Organization and serves on the Board of the National Dance Education Organization as the State Affiliate Representative and as southwest representative on the Board of Dance and the Child International. In addition, Denise was selected as a member of the planning/writing team that revised the Arizona Dance Standards in 2005-06. A lifelong student she recently completed a second summer with Anne Green Gilbert in Seattle Washington at the Teachers Intensive Workshop which focuses on “Brain Compatible Dance Education”. In the future, she hopes to share her love and knowledge of integrating dance into language arts, science, social studies and math curriculums with elementary classroom teachers.

Karen began performing and teaching at a local dance studio in her hometown of Niagara Falls, NY. These experiences sparked her love of dance and have greatly informed her creative work, research interests, and pedagogy. As a choreographer and performer Karen’s work ranges from self-portraits to collaborative, site-specific group works that emphasis a high sense of craft, intuitive logic, and athleticism. Recent performances include the American Dance Guild Festival (New York, NY), Wave Rising (Brooklyn, NY) and the Attakkalari India Biennial (Bangalore, India). Karen has performed with choreographers and companies including Victoria Marks, Mary Fitzgerald, Fred Darsow, and A Ludwig Dance Theatre, and her performance in Marks’ Against Ending was recognized with a Horton Award for Outstanding Performance. In addition to her creative practices, Karen is an active dance scholar with a research focus on effective pedagogical practices for first-year dance major students. This research has been presented at National Dance Education Organization’s national conferences since 2004, the Congress on Research in Dance’s International Conference in 2006, and at the Popular Culture Association’s 2008 conference. Karen is currently on faculty in the School of Dance at Arizona State University, where she received the Herberger College of the Art’s Distinguished Teaching Award in 2007. For more information, please visit www.karenschupp.org.

Mary Fitzgerald - Representative At-large - ASU Representative

Mary has been active in the professional dance community as a performer, choreographer, teacher and bodyworker for many years.  She was a member of Kei Takei’s Moving Earth for nearly ten years, performing and teaching internationally.   Ms. Fitzgerald also has danced for A Ludwig DanceTheatre and Fred Darsow Dance.  She has been a guest artist, presenter and faculty member at several colleges, universities and studios in the United States, Europe, Japan, China, Mexico and Israel. 

Currently she is an Associate Professor in the Department of Dance at Arizona State University, where she has received two Distinguished Teaching Awards from the Herberger College of the Arts.  From 1998-2007, she served as co-artistic director of Dance Arizona Repertory Theatre, the community dance organization.  DART was recognized for its program excellence with funding from Dance/USA, Target, ASU/Motorola, The Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture, New Times and the Arizona Commission on the Arts.  As an independent choreographer, Ms. Fitzgerald regularly presents her own choreography in the local community, and internationally. She has received support from the Ministry of Culture of Mexico, Arizona Commission on the Arts, the Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture and the Herberger College of the Arts.   She is a winner of the 2005 Arizona Choreography Competition, and a recipient of a 2006 Artists Project Grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts.

Dr. Suzanne Knosp - Representative At-large - U of A Representative

Suzanne is an Associate Professor at Dance and the Music Director for Dance at the University of Arizona School of Dance in Tucson, Arizona. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in music and dance and accompanies dancetechnique classes. As a pianist and composer, Suzanne has collaborated with many choreographers. Her work with Melissa Lowe includes three videos distributed internationally on the KULTUR label including The New Ballet Workout: for Wellness, Renewal and Vitality. Her book, Ballet Barre and Center Combinations, Volume II: Music and accompanying CD provides original musical accompaniment for notated ballet class exercises. Dr. Knosp is a specialist in the research, education and training of dance musicians. She has created the curriculum for the Master of Music in Dance Accompaniment in both piano and percussion performance. The University of Arizona is the only major university in the world to offer these degree programs. She has lectured and performed at numerous national and international festivals and conferences and is an active member of the National Dance Education Organization and the Music Teachers National Association. Dr. Knosp is a member of the International Guild of Musicians in Dance and served as Treasurer of the Guild from 1992-1999. She is currently Vice President of the Guild. In 1988, she received a DMA in piano performance pedagogy from the University of Iowa where she was a student of Kenneth Amada and studied dance accompaniment with Francoise Martinet and Alicia Brown.

Amber Duke - Representative At-large - Southern Arizona

Amber is currently directing the Orchesis Dance Company at Flowing Wells High School in Tucson, Arizona. She recently graduated with her MFA in Choreography from The University of Arizona, School of Dance. She continues to choreograph for companies in the Tucson community as well as her hometown of Houston, Texas. Her future plans include further developing the fantastic program at Flowing Wells and founding a professional dance company!

Leslie Ptak Baker - Representative At-large - Northern Arizona

Leslie, a native Arizonan, began dance studies at the age of four with R.A.D. ballet training and actually made it through Grade 5 before musical theater and jazz dance lured her away.  She was Outstanding B.F.A. Graduate, Arizona State University, ’78, in Dance Performance and Choreography.  She has performed professionally in New York, Los Angeles, Montreal, and Japan and sailed eight years, worldwide, as an entertainer with Princess Cruises.  She has performed in and choreographed shows for the Flagstaff Light Opera Company, Theatrikos, Town & Gown Theater (NAU/Theatrikos), Canyon Moon Theater, NAU Musical Theater Camp, and Fountain Hills Community Theater.  Currently, Leslie teaches jazz, tap and modern dance at Flagstaff Arts & Leadership Academy.  Ms. Baker would like to thank her fabulous children, Kieran and Kinzi, for their love and support.

Samantha Basting - Representative At-large - Community College

Samantha recently completed her MFA at Arizona State University with a concentration in Performance and Choreography. While teaching both lecture and studio courses in pursuit of her MFA, Sam, most recently, earned The Outstanding Graduate Service Award and the NDEO Bill Evans Scholarship for Performance and Education. Sam is most interested in connecting her passions of choreography and education with her previous studies in journalism and research in audience development. She received her Bachelor's of Science in Journalism from Bowling Green State University. Sam is a dedicated advocate for creating public value in the arts. 

Melissa Canto: Representative At-large - Higher Ed. Student

Melissa is a performer, choreographer, teacher, and lover of dance. Melissa will be completing her M.F.A. in dance at Arizona State University in 2010. She received her B.F.A. in dance in 2003 from the University of Florida. Currently at Arizona State, Melissa is on the board of the University Graduate Council, serves as a representative of the graduate dance student organization ‘Junk Drawer’, and is a teacher of non-major dance classes.

Alternates

Becky Dyer: Higher Ed. Rep. - ASU

Becky (M.F.A., CLMA, A.B.D.) is an assistant professor in the School of Dance at Arizona State University and is completing a doctorate degree at Texas Woman’s University with a research emphasis in dance pedagogy and somatics.  She teaches dance pedagogy, contemporary dance technique, Laban/Bartenieff praxis and somatic studies. Becky also serves on the NDEO Publications, Periodicals, and Resources Review (PPRR) committee and holds a secondary education certification in dance.

Rebecca Hillerby: Higher Ed. Student Rep.

Rebecca is a 2004 Graduate of Slippery Rock University with a BA in Dance.  Since her graduation she has been a freelance dance educator, performer, and choreographer.  She has worked throughout the US and also in Europe.  She is currently a graduate student at Arizona State University working towards her MFA in Dance.  Rebecca is a graduate teaching assistant instructing both technique and theory classes at ASU.  She is very active within the department serving as a class representative on the Graduate Dance Council as well as choreographing and performing in various concerts presented at ASU.  Rebecca is also very active in the Phoenix arts scene as both a choreographer and performer.

Arizona Dance Education Organization

P.O. Box 60152

Phoenix, AZ 85082-0152

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