DANCE FACULTY

Ford Evans

Ford Evans is Director of Hopkins Center Dance and the Dartmouth Dance Ensemble. He was a professor at the University of Utah in the Department of Modern Dance from 1985 through 1997, where he taught modern technique, composition, repertory and performance at the undergraduate and graduate level. He served as artistic director of the University of Utah's Performing Dance Company, produced works by faculty and renown guest choreographers and toured with the company in Asia, Australia and the United States. As a principal dancer with the Repertory Dance Theatre from 1978-1985, he performed an extensive range of works by historical and contemporary masters of modern dance throughout the U.S. and Europe. Professional and university dance companies have performed his choreography nationally and in China, Taiwan, South Africa and Costa Rica. Professor Evans teaches Movement Fundamentals 1 & 2, Dance Composition and Dance Studies in Performance in the Theater Department.

Melinda Evans

Melinda Evans was a member of the Repertory Dance Theatre in Salt Lake City, Utah from 1981-1995. While with RDT, she toured nationally and internationally, performing in an expansive repertory of classic and contemporary modern dance, including works by Merce Cunningham, Laura Dean, Isadora Duncan, Doris Humphrey, Jose Limon, David Parsons and Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane. In addition to teaching master classes throughout the U.S., she was guest faculty at the University of Utah in 1995, at Brigham Young University 1995-1996 and guest artist at the Universidad Nationale in Costa Rica in 1996. She received a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies from Dartmouth College in 2002. Summer of 2005 she attended the Doug Varone Intensive at Suny Purchase, NY.

Fiona Lundie

Fiona Lundie is a junior at Dartmouth College and a third year member of the Dartmouth Dance Ensemble. She is pursuing a major in Neuroscience and a minor in Dance. She has trained in dance for 11 years and in synchronized swimming for eight years. She has taught, coached and choreographed synchronized swimming for four years at all levels from beginners (about age five) to grandmasters (those swimmers who achieved national or international titles in their youth and now compete in age groups separate from current domestic and global amateur competition). She received the Heiman-Rosenthal Arts Award in Dance in 2007 given to one student in each art discipline for "exceptional work and contribution to their group or discipline." She co-taught the Winter 2008 Children's Dance Class with Emily Cross officially taking over half way through the term.

Ruth Mayer

Ruth Mayer is a former soloist with the American Ballet Theatre, dancing with them from 1969-84. She spent years freelancing as a dancer, teacher and choreographer in the U.S. and Europe before settling in the Upper Valley. From 1994-2005, Ruth was on the teaching staff of the Lebanon Ballet School and served as Artistic Director of their student ballet company, City Center Ballet of Lebanon. Since 1999, Ruth has performed locally with Revels North and recently with the Dartmouth Dance Ensemble. She was on the staff of the Hopkins Center Dance Program in 2000-01, and returned in winter 2007.

Jennifer Armstrong

Jennifer Armstrong grew up in the Upper Valley dancing and performing at Dartmouth College. In her teens she attended Boston Ballet Summer Dance Program. She went on to study dance at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. While at NYU she performed with the Second Avenue Dance Company, including pieces choreographed by Doug Varone and Ronald K. Brown. After college, she moved to Japan and taught ESL and studied Japanese as well as Nihon Buyo, Japnese classical dance. Since returning from Japan she has performed as a fairy in New England Shakespeare Ensembles's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and in other local dance productions. In April 2007 she received her Intermediate Mat and Reformer Certification from STOTT PILATES.