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"I like my students to acquire an appreciation for the role of dance in American culture," says Associate Professor of Dance Pamela Risenhoover. "Dance is often considered to be the mother of the arts. It existed even before language, and like every other art form, it teaches us about ourselves." A former dancer with the acclaimed Martha Graham Dance Company, Risenhoover chairs the Dance Department, which emphasizes technique and dance composition while instilling an understanding of dancehistorically, aesthetically, and therapeutically. Cited early in its history as one of the five leading colleges and universities in the development of modern dance by the New York Herald Tribune, R-MWC trains women to become versatile in classical ballet, modern dance, and jazz. Dancers perform in productions that highlight all the disciplines of dance and are encouraged to choreograph their own pieces. Recent graduates currently dance, or have danced, professionally with a variety of U.S. companies or have gone on to pursue graduate degrees in the field. A linchpin of the R-MWC Dance Department is the Visiting Artists Program, which Risenhoover directs. Founded in 1971 by Helen McGehee '42 (herself a soloist with the Martha Graham company for nearly 30 years), it brings to campus professional dancers and choreographers who reside at R-MWC for two to three weeks. Visiting artists have come from the Paul Taylor Dance Company, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, the Jose Limon Dance Company, the Joffrey Ballet, the Metropolitan Opera Ballet, and the Jump Rhythm Jazz Project, as well as from Martha Graham's and other companies. "I want students to have the opportunity to study with the bona fide article," Risenhoover notes. Risenhoover graduated with honors in ballet from New York's School of Performing Arts. She received her B.F.A. from the Juilliard School and her M.F.A. from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She has performed with several companies in the New York area and in England with the Janet Soares Dance Group. She regrets that few people realize how demanding dance is as a discipline, and how it requires years of study as well as thought. "Accomplishment in dance doesn't occur spontaneouslyyou have to think about it," she says. "Mind and body must both work together." As an antidote to the tension that can arise in the studio, Risenhoover goes out of her way to employ humor. "Sometimes students take it much too seriously," she laments. "What I've found is that you can laugh when you discover that you're not perfect and can't do something, or you can laugh when you have a breakthrough. Either way, laughter is a result of discovery."
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Kelly Dudley
(e-mail)
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Hiawatha Johnson
(e-mail)
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