Barbara Dickinson

Barbara Dickinson, Professor Emerita of the Practice of Dance at Duke University, served as Dance Program Director for eighteen years, and faculty member for 34 years, overseeing faculty growth, guiding the focus of a greatly expanded curriculum, and establishing a major in dance. Founder and Artistic Director of the Ways and Means Dance Company from 1986-2002, and of Three For All, a company of dancer, poet, and pianist, from 1981-87, she has performed, taught and presented her choreography in schools, colleges, private studios and dance festivals throughout the United States. She has created many large scale, full evening collaborative choreographic presentations including Walking Miracles, an original dance/theater production based on the stories of six survivors of child sexual abuse; and Contents Under Pressure, an exploration of the many faces of bias in society co-choreographed with Ava LaVonne Vinesett. In addition to over 100 individual works of choreography, she has choreographed a number of full evening works such as Carmina Burana by Carl Orff, performed with the combined choirs of the Duke University Chorale and the Durham Civic Choral Society directed and conducted by Rodney Wynkoop; and with vocal soloists, Metropolitan Opera's Louise Wohlafka and Frankfurt Opera's Nickolas Karousatos. Barbara was a member of Manbites Dog Theater, a professional experimental theater company based in Durham, NC, from its founding in 1987 to its closing some 35 years later, serving as actress, choreographer, and movement consultant. Her research in age and the dance artist has produced a chapter in Staging Age, eds. Marshall and Lipscomb by Palgrave Macmillan, 2010; and the article “Margie Gillis: The Indelible Art of an Integrated Artist” in Dance Chronicle, 41:2, 2018. She is now working on “Ballet and logos: Persistent Identities.” Artistically, she works closely with Michael Kliën as part of his Laboratory for Social Choreography at Duke’s Kenan Institute for Ethics, as well as exploring improvisations with Daniel Levin, cellist through Synchronicity Arts.