CMU's dance program will host guest artist Bailey Anderson for five days in October, during which time she will set a new work on students for performance in the fall dance concert and teach several master classes.
Anderson is an activist, artist, scholar and teacher who has explored disability and choreography as a part of her work. Her choreography has been presented at the Canadian Society for Dance Studies, Sans Souci Dance Film Festival, in London at the Society for Dance Research and at the Body-Mind Centering Association Conference. Anderson is currently working on a project funded through the New York Public Library's Short-Term Research Fellowship entitled "Disability Aesthetics in Early Modern Dance." She received degrees in both dance and history from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities and an MFA in Dance from the University of Colorado Boulder. Bailey is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at Ursinus College outside Philadelphia, PA.
The dance program, set within the Department of Theatre Arts, brings in guest artists every semester to work with students and to give them a broad perspective on the world of art and dance.
"Bailey Anderson is a unique artist and scholar that is at the forefront of research and practices in disability studies and dance," says program director Amanda Benzin. "Her pedagogy and choreography will offer our students, and the community, a new and broadened perspective in the realms of somatic practices, dance and disability studies."
Anderson will be in residence with the dance program October 20 through 24.The new work will be performed at Discovering Me: the Fall Dance Concert November 15 and 16.