Illinois State University Dance Faculty 1999

THERE ARE MANY CHANGES TO THE DANCE FACULTY THIS YEAR...
WHILE LAURIE & GREG MERRIMAN CONTINUE THIS SCHOOL YEAR (2007-2008), MAUREEN MINER HAS BEEN REPLACED WITH PAMELA WALDEN WHEN THE FACULTY LINE WAS CONVERTED TO A PERMANENT POSITION. SARA SEMONIS, WHILE VERY MUCH STILL A FULL-TIME FACULTY MEMBER OF THE DANCE PROGRAM AT ISU, IS ON MATERNITY LEAVE. WE ARE FORTUNATE TO HAVE DARBY WILDE and RHYTHM MCCARTHY WORK WITH OUR STUDENTS UNTIL SARA RETURNS! AND FINALLY, IN JANUARY WE WILL WELCOME LON GORDON INTO THE DANCE FACULTY.

SARA SEMONIS

Sara Semonis, Assistant Professor of dance at
Illinois State University holds an MFA in Dance
from the University of Iowa and a BA from
Western Illinois University. She has been on
faculty at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln from
2000-2003 and at Knox College as the Director of
Dance from 1995-1997. She is a former member of
Dancers In Company and has performed in works
by David Parsons, Doug Nielsen, Timothy O’Slynn,
Brenda Bufalino, Laurie Eisenhower, and others.
Sara’s choreography has been recognized at the
regional American College Dance Festival in 2002,
1999, and 1997. In 1999, she was the recipient of
the Choreography Award at the National
Choreography Conference for Regional Dance
America. Sara has created over 30 original works
that have been performed throughout the U.S.
She holds an active performance career, recently
performing with Charlotte Adams and Dancers at
the Joyce SoHo in New York, the David Berkey
Retrospective Concert in Iowa City, and is in her
forth season with Shelter Repertory Dance Theatre.
Sara continues her work as a free-lance,
choreographer, teacher, performer, and
Pilates instructor. .

GREGORY MERRIMAN

Gregory is a graduate of Texas Christian University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Classical Ballet performance. Of the many he has studied with, Fernando Shaffenburg, Claire Duncan, Clara Cravey, Bill Martin-Viscount and Maria Grandy have been the most influential. Gregory began his dancing career with the Houston Allegro Ballet followed by the Houston Ballet Academy. Gregory apprenticed with the Houston Ballet and the Joffrey II company. He was a company member with the Fort Worth Ballet and the Fort Worth Opera Ballet and a regular guest artist with regional companies throughout the Southwest. Gregory taught for and co-directed the Twin Cities Ballet Company for ten years and founded the Bloomington Ballet Company in 1997. He continues as the resident choreographer for the Barrington Youth Dance Ensemble’s annual full-length production of “The Nutcracker”, which he originated in 1994. Gregory currently teaches at both Illinois State University and Illinois Wesleyan University as well as at the Mclean County Dance Association studios.

DARBY WILDE

Darby was raised in Mt. Carroll, IL where she graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BA in Communications from Western Illinois University. She earned her MFA in Dance from the University of Michigan where she received the Esther Betty Pease Outstanding Graduate Student Award. Darby danced with Eisenhower Dance Ensemble for seven years, during which time, she toured New York City, Arizona, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, and Michigan. She also did numerous educational residencies, lecture-demonstrations, and taught at Oakland University and at the Eisenhower Dance Ensemble Center for Dance. In addition to her professional performing experience, Darby has worked with nationally ranked figure skaters at the Detroit Skating Club including both on and off-ice training. For three years, Darby was a Professor of Dance at Collin County Community College District in Plano, TX. She also performed with Ellendanceworks based in Dallas. Darby was the lead dance teacher at Mercer County Performing Arts High School in Trenton, NJ and performed with Teamwork Dance and Mercer Dance Ensemble during her stay in New Jersey.

RHYTHM MCCARTHY

Rhythm has danced professionally with the North Carolina Dance Theatre, Agnes DeMille, Valerie Bettis, the California Ballet Company, Pauline Koner, and Ernestine Stodelle. Her teaching and choreographic credentials include residencies and guest artist positions with Florida State University, Jacksonville University, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, University of Nevada-Las Vegas, Imperial College in London (for the International Enrichment Program) and Missouri State University. Rhythm has directed/choreographed over fifty shows for the musical stage. Most recently she was responsible for a critically acclaimed production of Bye, Bye, Birdie ! for The Tent Theatre in Missouri. While at Missouri State University, she has been repeatedly recognized for the excellence of her scholarship, creativity, and teaching. In addition to numerous internal grants, and a sabbatical provided to pursue research detailing the original costumes of Diaghilev's Ballets Russe, she won the College's top teaching award in 2001 and the University's top teaching award in 2004. She has taught ballet, tap, jazz, and modern dance, and developed a premier touring program utilizing dance performance and movement studies to enhance literacy in the public schools of Missouri and Arkansas Rhythm's paper on The Dance Educator's Role in Preserving Diversity: Two University Programs was chosen for presentation in 2004 at the 18 th World Congress on Dance Research in Argos, Greece. The same organization invited her to return in 2005 to present her dance work, Ozarks Folk Suite for the 19 th World Congress in Larnaca, Cyprus with a company of American dancers. Rhythm holds degrees from Jacksonville University (BFA) and Florida State University (MFA), and also received extensive undergraduate training from Pauline Koner at the North Carolina School of the Arts. Ms. McCarthy is currently the Central Regional Representative to the National Board of Directors of the American College Dance Festival Association.

ISDT Resident Choreographers and Dance Faculty- 2007-2008

LAURIE MERRIMAN

Laurie Merriman, Associate Professor of Dance and Head of the Dance Area at Illinois State University, also serving as Assistant Dean of the College of Fine Arts, earned her B.F.A. (double major) in Ballet & Modern Dance from Texas Christian University and her M.F.A. in Dance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She began her professional training at The National Academy of Dance in Champaign as a young ballet dancer and eventually became a scholarship student with the Joffery Ballet School and the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance. Laurie's dual respect and love for both ballet and contemporary dance has afforded her the opportunity to perform and learn the works of many great artists in the field such as Martha Graham, Paul Taylor, Bebe Miller, Dwight Rhoden, Stephen Koester, Jose Limon, Doris Humphrey, Vaslav Nijinsky, Michel Fokine, Marius Petipa, Robert North, and Frederick Ashton (among many others). Laurie has been the recipient of various grants and fellowships for her work in choreography, teaching, and research. Her choreographic work has been performed by the Columbus Dance Theatre, Interlochen Center for the Arts, the Shelter Repertory Dance Theatre, the University of Minnesota at Duluth, and presented at the Southwest Regional Ballet Festival, the Harold Washington Library Theatre in Chicago, Illinois State University, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Winona State University, the University of Wisconsin at LaCrosse, several American College Dance Festivals, and beyond. Since 1988, Laurie"s teaching focus at Illinois State University has been in the areas of ballet and modern dance technique, Improvisation, dance composition, and dance pedagogy. Laurie also serves as Artistic Director for Illinois State Dance Theatre and teaches at the high school level for University High School. She has served on the National Board of the American College Dance Festival, Illinois State Board of Education Dance Content Advisory Committee, adjudicator for the Springfield Area Arts Council, panelist for a variety of learning symposiums in the arts and in general education, Artistic Director of Illinois State Dance Theatre, ballet mistress for Twin Cities Ballet, Executive Director of Illinois Summer School for the Arts, Chair of the Illinois Dance Association, adjudicator for Beloit College, and panelist for the Illinois Arts Council Artist-In-Residency program.

LON GORDON

Lon Gordon is an artist with a wide range of experiences and talents. He holds an MFA in choreography and painting from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He studied in the United States, Japan, Korea and Mexico, and has taught in fine arts institutions throughout the world. He holds the equivalent of a Doctor of Fine Arts degree in classical Japanese dance-cultural studies from the Nishikawa School of Classical Japanese Dance in Tokyo. Gordon has received two Fulbright-Hays Grants to study in Japan and a third Fulbright was awarded to research and teach in Korea. He has also received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, three U.S. Information Agency awards, numerous Illinois Arts Council and Nevada Arts Council grants, a Wisconsin Dance Council and Governor’s Honors Performance Award for Choreography, and the 1979 Japan Foundation Professional Fellowship. He is the only non-Japanese ever accepted into the Grand Kabuki Theatre as an apprentice for three years. Gordon previously held administrative and faculty positions at University of Nevada Las Vegas, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.

PAMELA WALDEN

Pamela has been dancing all her life and teaching dance in higher education since 1985, when she joined the faculty of San Jose State University, California. She has been on the faculty of Smith College, University of Georgia, Western Kentucky University and 2007 joins the Illinois State Department of Theatre and Dance. With a diverse background in jazz and modern techniques, she has trained and danced professionally in New York, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, Mexico and Japan. Her choreography crosses all dance genres, from contemporary ballet to musical theatre and has been performed at national and international venues, including the Kennedy Center, Washington D.C. and the Theatreo Traiano in Civitavecchia, Italy.

Dr. Walden holds a Bachelors degree from Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, where she trained with Graham dancer, Helen McGehee. Her Masters degree from San Jose State culminated in an award-winning thesis on Pina Bausch in 1988. She received her Doctorate Degree in Dance Education from Temple University where her interest in somatics was further realized in her dissertation on Authentic Movement.

Dr. Walden’s dance instruction draws from her extensive background in modern, jazz, and ballet, as well as alternative forms of training such as Authentic Movement, yoga, Pilates and her studies in movement therapy. Her teaching ranges from Advanced Jazz and Modern Dance Technique, focusing on dance anatomy, spatial acuity, interpretation and movement qualities, to more interdisciplinary methods of instruction that include the visual arts, cultural music forms, and environmental components.

Ultimately, I am committed to investigating dance as an art form, celebrating the body and the power of movement within our lives.

Return to the ISDT Homepage