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Contributors

Marjorie Franken was born in Kansas. She taught anthropology at Arkansas State University and several colleges and universities in California, including the University of California at Riverside and Whittier College. Dr. Franken became acquainted with the Swahili people while she was a Peace Corps volunteer in Kenya in 1974, when she began to learn the Swahili language. She returned to Kenya in 1983 to study the history and forms of Swahili dances, completing her PhD in anthropology at the University of California, Riverside, in 1986. Later research projects focused on the formation of nationalism, postcolonial national culture, and gender roles through the study of dancing in Egypt. At the time of her death in 2011, she was completing a book on Egyptian dancing. An essay, "Egyptian Cinema and Television: Dancing and the Female Image" appeared in Visual Anthropology (1996). Her research on Egyptian dancing was facilitated by travel grants both from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Arkansas State University.

Gina Lalli was born in Binghamton, New York, during the Great Depression and became an outstanding performer of two idioms of Indian dancing (South Indian Bharatanatyam and North Indian Kathak). Lalli began studying Indian dancing, music, and language in New York City when she was eighteen. She worked with several teachers in the city (notably Nala Najan) before her first trip to study in India (1955–56), where she worked with Chokkalingam Pillai, who taught Pandanallur Bharatanatyam. He taught Lalli her first three-hour-long dance suite, performed at Carnegie Recital Hall at her American debut in 1958. Performance debuts in India took place in New Delhi (Bharatanatyam) in May 1968, Bombay (both Kathak and Bharatanatyam) in July 1968, and Calcutta (Kathak) in September 1968. She presently resides in Austin, Texas, where she has lived, taught, and performed for more than thirty years. She was recently given the Austin "Critic's Table" Award, placing her in the Austin Arts Hall of Fame, honoring a chosen few who have made lifetime contributions to Austin's civic and social life.

Pamela Matt completed a bachelor's degree at the University of Washington in 1970, having studied various modern dance techniques in the 1960s and ʽ70s, and as one of the first students of Skinner Release Technique. She earned an MA in dance from the University of Illinois in 1973. Concurrent with her graduate studies, she began intensive private study with Barbara Clark, a founding teacher of what has become known as ideokinesis. Professor Matt was on the faculty of the Department of Dance at Arizona State University from 1978 to 2005. In 1993, she published A Kinesthetic Legacy: The Life and Works of Barbara Clark, a biographical portrait of Clark and an exposition of her educational techniques and teaching philosophy. At ASU, Professor Matt taught undergraduate courses in dance wellness, dance education, kinesiology, and ideokinesis, as well as graduate coursework in dance science and dance in higher education. Outside ASU, Professor Matt conducted numerous workshops in ideokinesis for dancers in the United States, Europe, Indonesia, and Australia. Her lecture/demonstrations were featured in regional and national dance conferences, and her articles on dance kinesiology, dance education, and ideokinesis appeared in national and international professional journals. In her retirement, Professor Matt has developed an online introduction to the discipline of ideokinesis, www.ideokinesis.com. She is currently writing a textbook on dance wellness and developing a teacher training program in experiential anatomy and ideokinesis called Mindful Movement®.

Rebecca Nettl-Fiol, professor of dance at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, is a teacher, choreographer, and author, specializing in the Alexander Technique and dance training. A faculty member at Illinois since 1982, she certified as an Alexander teacher in 1990 and serves on the board of the American Society for the Alexander Technique. She is the coauthor of two books: Dance and the Alexander Technique: Exploring the Missing Link (2011) and The Body Eclectic: Evolving Practices in Dance Training (2008), both published by University of Illinois Press. She has presented papers and workshops throughout the country, most recently at the Freedom to Move Conference in New York City, the National Dance Education Organization in Minneapolis, and the International Association for Dance Medicine and Science in Washington, DC. Nettl-Fiol is currently serving as the Teaching Academy Fellow for the College of Fine and Applied Arts and is the recipient of the University of Illinois Campus Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, 2012. Nettl-Fiol's choreography has been presented in New York City and Chicago; Quito, Ecuador; annually at the Krannert Center in Urbana, Illinois; at many American college dance festivals; and throughout the Midwest. Her work was selected for performance in New York City by the American Dance Guild, performed at Dance New Amsterdam, and for FranceOff!, produced at PS 122. Her opera and musical theater choreography includes over thirty productions in venues including the UI Opera and Theatre departments, Interlochen Center for the Arts, Crane School of Music, and Peoria Opera.

Diane Wawrejko holds a PhD in dance studies from the University of Surrey, UK; a BA in classical ballet from Mercyhurst College; and an MFA in modern choreography and performance from Arizona State University where she studied under Daniel Nagrin. After a professional performance career with several U.S. dance companies, Dr. Wawrejko remains an active choreographer, teacher, and adjudicator. She was a Senior Fulbright Scholar in dance in Sofia, Bulgaria (fall 2006); executive director of the National Dance Association (2002–3); dance program coordinator at the University of Texas (Pan Am) and Wheaton College, and was nominated to the President's Commission on the Arts in 2002. Dr. Wawrejko is an independent scholar who serves on the dance and humanities faculties at Chicago-area colleges and conservatories of dance.

 

 
 
 
 

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