Faculty

Pettigrew 203
207–753-6977
cdilley@bates.edu

Carol Dilley joined the Bates Dance Program in the Fall of 2003. She has been an international choreographer, performer and teacher for nearly 20 years. Based first in New York, then Barcelona, Seattle, Sydney and now Maine, she has worked with many companies and independent choreographers as well as her own companies, Radio Suec and Carol Dilley & Co. She has performed her work in the USA and Europe both as a solo artist and as director/choreographer of those companies.

Carol has also dedicated a lot of energy into the creation of opportunities for the development and performance of dance works. She co-founded La Porta, a performance series dedicated to the creation and promotion of independent dance in Barcelona and Europe, and later founded Dance Briefs, a similar initiative in Sydney, Australia. She received her MFA from the University of Washington and a Graduate Certificate in Arts Management from the University of Technology in Sydney. She served as Coordinator of the Bachelor of Dance Education at the Australian College of Physical Education before coming to Bates as Assistant Professor of Dance and Director of Dance at Bates College.

Marcy Plavin is responsible for the development of the Dance Program from the time she arrived at Bates in 1965. She launched the Bates Dance Company four years later in 1969 and became a Lecturer in Dance in 1971. Marcy has an M.A. in Dance from Wesleyan University. In addition to teaching academic and studio courses, she has produced over 100 dance concerts, contributing choreography of her own as well as advising student choreographers and touring with the Company to schools around the State. She has always encouraged an active guest artist residency program and has brought to Bates such artists as Trisha Brown, Stephen Petronio, Doug Varone, Mark Dendy, Pilobolus, Eiko and Koma, Kei Takei, Murray Louis, Doug Elkins, Tere O’Connor and others. She is an active member of the national academic dance community and has served on the Board of the American College Dance Festival Association as well as hosting the American College Dance Festival six times at Bates. She was founder and co-director of the now internationally renowned Bates Dance Festival and still serves on the Artistic Advisory Board of the Festival. Marcy is active in the Maine dance community and has lectured at a variety of institutions as well as contributing articles to the Maine press and National Dance Journals.

Visiting Assistant Professor
207–753-6978
Pettigrew 202
rboggia@bates.edu

Rachel Boggia, Visiting Assistant Professor in Dance and Acting Director of Dance in academic year 2010–2011, has been on faculty at Wesleyan University, Dickinson College, and The Ohio State University. She brings with her a BS in Neurobiology from Cornell University and an MFA in Choreography and Technology from The Ohio State University. She specializes in multidisciplinary collaboration with scientists, dance documentaries and multi media performance. Rachel continues to choreograph and perform around the east coast and has performed professionally in the work of Risa Jaroslow, Vanessa Justice, Marlon Barrios Solano, and Karl Rogers. This year she looks forward to commissioning a solo from Jeanine Durning.

Nancy Salmon, Bates Dance Festival Assistant Director/Registrar, has been teaching various courses in Theater, Dance and Education at Bates since 2008. Nancy has a long career as dancer, choreographer, and teacher in Maine, including higher education positions at Washington University (MO), University of Southern Maine, New School for Social Research in NY. She has presented her own dance/theater works and performed in works by Senta Driver, Liz Lerman, Paul Taylor, Rachel Lambert and Stephan Koplowitz, as well as being active both professional and community theaters. She was the Director of Arts Education at the Maine Arts Commission for 15 years and is a vocal advocate for arts/dance education, having served on arts education panels for regional and national grant-makers, including the National Endowment for the Arts. Nancy was the Maine Project Manager for a tri-state, three-year professional development program that trained dance artists to present in public schools, a project funded, in part, by the Dana Foundation. Nancy received her BFA from the North Carolina School of the Arts and her MFA from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University.

Debi Irons is a professional dancer/choreographer with over 20 years experience in all aspects of the dance world. She has created a method of dance education that encourages dancers to develop personal creativity and expression along with healthy technique. Debi inspires self-motivation in life through dance, guiding each individual to aspire toward their own unique potential; teaching correct yet natural technique in variant dance forms for a broad foundation. She is trained in modern, jazz, ballet, acrobatics, afro-Brazilian, street, tap, choreography, improvisation, and musical theatre dance. All are used in her teaching. She continues to study, collaborate and produce, challenging herself as an artist and human being. http://www.artmovesdance.com

Rachel Ganteaume Richards, born in Trinidad, first studied the Royal Academy Dance Syllabus, at The Caribbean School of Dance in Port of Spain. Her accomplishments there led her to being honored with a scholarship to the Joffrey School in New York City, where she also studied with David Howard and Maggie Black; performing feature roles in the Joffery II Company before joining the Joffrey Ballet in 1975. In the Joffrey Ballet, she performed principal roles in Oscar Ariaz’s Romeo and Juliet, Gerald Arpino’s Sacred Grove on Mount Tamalpais, Sir Frederick Ashton’s Jazz Calendar, Jose Limon’s The Moor’s Pavane, and others by Agnes de Mille, Vaslav Nijinsky, Gerome Robbins and Twyla Tharp. Her television performances include Rodeo, presented at the Kennedy Center at the request of the White House, marking the historic meeting of President Jimmy Carter and Deng Xiao Ping, then Vice Premier of the People’s Republic of China. Moreover, her national television broadcast history included “The Joffrey Company at Wolftrap”, and “Nureyev and The Joffrey Ballet on Broadway”. In 1982 she moved to Maine; joining the faculty of the Ram Island Dance Center and later The Portland Ballet where in 1996, she performed “Tituba” in Sam Kurkjian’s The Witches of Salem. Rachel now teaches at the Portland School of Ballet and at The Dance Center in Auburn.