The Dance Department is proud to present its esteemed faculty, a diverse group of artists and scholars dedicated to nurturing the next generation of dancers. Our faculty members bring a wealth of experience from professional stages and academic institutions worldwide, specializing in various dance forms, including contemporary dance, contemporary African dance technique, and classical ballet. They are supported by a committed team of staff members, who work tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure our students have the resources they need to thrive. Together, our full-time and part-time faculty and staff create a dynamic and supportive environment where students can explore their artistic potential and develop the technical skills, creative vision, and historical knowledge necessary for a successful career in dance.
Elizabeth Johnson
Associate Professor, Chair
PAHB 344 // 410-455-3886
Elizabeth Johnson’s professional dance training began in high school at North Carolina School of the Arts where she studied with many historically notable teachers. She earned a BFA with honors from George Mason University, and her MFA in Performance and Choreography from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) where she was awarded the first Patricia Knowles Scholarship for graduate student excellence and the Wanda M. Nettl prize for student choreography.
Her teaching and research include the integration of aesthetics, anatomy, kinesiology, and somatic inquiry into embodied movement practices (inclusive of classical and contemporized Western and non-Western dance), Dance making/composition pedagogies, and exploring embodiment, relationship, feminisms, and popular culture trends and ironies in her choreographies. Her dances and dance-theatre works—often rooted in autobiography and her love/hate relationship with popular culture—include props and digital technologies to exaggerate and subvert cultural tropes regarding propriety, relationships, and bodies as objects/commodities. Johnson also enjoys choreographing and coaching movement in Theatre and musical theatre contexts (most recently: Danielle Moleman’s Dust, Sondheim’s A Little Night Music, and Chekhov’s The Seagull).
As a professional performer, Johnson toured nationally and internationally with New York City’s David Parker and The Bang Group and also danced with Sara Hook Dances (NYC), and Molly Rabinowitz Liquid Grip (NYC). Throughout her training and performance career, she performed distinguished classical and contemporary works by Marius Petipa, George Balanchine, Frederick Ashton, Salvatore Aiello, Art Bridgman and Myrna Packer, Rachel Lampert, Mark Morris, Cynthia Oliver, Luc Vanier, Trey McIntyre, and Heinz Poll and has served as rehearsal director for works by Twyla Tharp, Mark Morris, Sara Hook, Rebecca Stenn, Daniel Gwirtzman, Rebecca Bryant, and Maria Gillespie.
From 2004-2015, her Milwaukee-based company, Your Mother Dances, featured her choreography as well as produced national and regional guest artists (David Parker, Sara Hook, Gerald Casel, Trey McIntyre, Molly Rabinowitz, Heinz Poll, Luc Vanier, Erika Randall, Anna Sapozhnikov, Dawn Springer). Milwaukee Journal Sentinel arts critic and Dance Magazine contributor, Tom Strini said of her, “Johnson’s voice as a choreographer is unique and provocative, and she is a riveting stage presence.” Her choreography has been performed in New York City (DancenOw at Joe’s Pub, West End Theatre), Washington D.C., Chicago, Minneapolis, Louisville, New Haven, CT, Fort Worth, the UIUC Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, and has been selected multiple times for Gala performance at the American College Dance Association.
A somatic practitioner and educator, Johnson holds a Graduate Laban Certificate of Movement Analysis from Columbia College Chicago’s Department of Creative Arts Therapies and is also a dual-certified Teacher of the Alexander Technique (AmSAT, ATI). She regularly guest teaches in Alexander Technique Teacher training courses in the United States and South America (Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil). Johnson is also a Registered Somatic Movement Therapist and Educator (RSMT/E), Registered Yoga Teacher (RYT200), and continues her somatic education/certification in Dynamic Embodiment-Somatic Movement Therapy Training (DM-SMTT) with Dr. Martha Eddy (NYC).
Johnson regularly presents her research at national conferences as lectures and workshops, including the National Dance Education Organization (NDEO), American Society for the Alexander Technique (AmSAT), Dance Science and Somatics Educators (DSSE), Body-Mind Centering Association (BMCA), and the University of Southern Florida Performing Arts Medicine Association (PAMA). Nationally, her dance guest teaching and choreographic residencies have included the University of Utah’s Utah Ballet Summer Intensive (UBSI), Valdosta State University, Stephens College, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, Texas Christian University, Milwaukee Ballet, Milwaukee Ballet Summer Intensive, Danceworks Milwaukee Performance Company, Wild Space Dance Company, and American College Dance Association regional conferences.
International research presentation conferences of note include the International Somatic Movement Education & Therapy Association (ISMETA-NYC), International Association for Dance Medicine & Science (IADMS-Italy, Montreal), Movementis Brain, Body, Cognition (La Sorbonne Paris, Harvard Medical School), International Alexander Technique Congresses (Chicago, Berlin, Dublin), CORPS de Ballet International (Florence, Italy), the International Symposium on Practice as Research (Hong Kong), and The Fourth International Dance and Somatic Practices Conference at Coventry University (UK). In addition, Johnson has taught many master classes in Dance/Movement, Alexander Technique, Framework for Integration, Laban/Bartenieff Movement Analysis and more in the UK (London, Birmingham), Argentina (Buenos Aires, La Plata), and Chile (Santiago), including work with the mixed-ability dance company Compañía de Danza Sin Fronteras/Dance Without Frontiers (Buenos Aires).
In Dance Science and Medicine contexts, Johnson is eager to continue the work she has done in collaboration with colleagues from the UF Center for the Arts in Medicine and College of Medicine’s Department of Neurology, which considered best practices and protocols for dance/movement interventions for patients with Multiple Sclerosis. With colleagues from Scottish Ballet, Georgetown, Marquette University, and Joffrey Ballet School, she has presented research at IADMS and Consortium of Multiple Sclerosis Center conferences.
Johnson is co-author and author of five book chapters featuring Alexander Technique and developmental movement applications that promote conscious embodiment in response to new media technologies, student stress and trauma, as well as applications in arts performance pedagogies. With co-authors Rebecca Nettl-Fiol (University of Illinois) and Luc Vanier (University of Utah), she is awaiting the publication of a forthcoming book from University of Illinois Press, which introduces an emergent movement patterning and analysis system called Framework for Integration, rooted in somatic, educational, and developmental methodologies (Alexander Technique, Laban/Bartenieff Movement Analysis, the Dart Procedures, and developmental movement). She has served as an editor for the American Society for the Alexander Technique (AmSAT) Journal and is on the Journal of Dance Education (JODE) Review Board.
Johnson has served as Dance faculty at the University of Florida, Texas Tech University, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, University of North Carolina-Greensboro, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is honored to be the next Chair of UMBC’s Department of Dance.
Carol Hess
Professor
PAHB 353 // 410-455-2951
Carol was born in New York City, where she trained as a dancer and received her BA from Barnard College. She has performed with Hannah Kahn and Dancers, The Rondo Dance Theater, DANCES/Janet Soares, and as a tap soloist, she appeared on television and in concerts in the United States and in York. She received an MA from Columbia University, where she studied dance composition from Robert Ellis Dunn. Dunn’s approach to developing and manipulating movement has had a profound effect on her work as a choreographer. Her choreography has been presented in New York at the Cubiculo, Dance Theater Workshop, the Grand Finale, and Dance Workshop in Bonn, and the Flora Theater in Amsterdam. She has been Artistic Director of Oregon Dance Theater and Phoenix Repertory Dance Company. Changing Room, a work for video created in collaboration with video artist Vin Grabill and composer Neal Woodson, has been featured on the Innovators Series, Artscape 1995, and on Maryland Public Television’s Independent Eye, an associate professor of dance, and chair of the dance department, she has taught at UMBC since 1982. Prof. Hess teaches Intermediate Contemporary (Modern) Technique, Dance and Technology, Dance Composition and Teaching Methods for Dance.
Ann Sofie Clemmensen
Associate Professor
PAHB 347 // 410-455-2952
Ann Sofie Clemmensen (Danish) holds a BA in Dance Pedagogy from the Norwegian College of Dance, a first-class honors Postgraduate Diploma (VERVE) from the Northern School of Contemporary Dance, and an MFA in Dance from The Ohio State University.
Her interdisciplinary, choreographic, and pedagogical research explores the body as a repository of physical, spatial, sensory, and emotional experiences. Clemmensen enjoys the creative process, which for her consists of questioning perceptions and creating new realizations. As an artist, the exploratory process of investigating and organizing separate lines of information into one coherent whole is guided by her interest in the dancing body as a problem-solver that engages with the physical world and the resistance it provides.
Clemmensen approaches her interdisciplinary collaborations and dance-making as a gateway for experimenting with composition and embodied ways of knowing to craft works that consider how her continually evolving understanding of the space and place she inhabits is established and maintained, along with the possible impact and consequences.
She was awarded the 2022-2023 CIRCA-IMET Artist-in-Residence fellowship, with which she investigated ways to transpose the kinetic world of microorganisms onto the human body and how to use the moving body’s sensory, visual, and kinetic language to present new perspectives and convey the importance of microbiological research and marine health. In 2024, she joined the SIVAM project (Synergy-based, Intuitive, Virtual and Augmented therapy for Mental health / robotic dance therapy) under the direction of computer science and electrical engineering Professor Vinjamuri, and with Professor Kleinsmith in information systems, who specializes in ways that computers can assess humans’ emotions.
Clemmensen’s choreographic work has been presented at THE REACH – Kennedy Center (DC) under the 2019 Local Dance Commission Program, the Davison Theater (OH), BalletMet Performance Space (OH), the Louis Armstrong Theatre (MI), American Dance Festival (ICR), Ullens Contemporary Dance Center (Beijing, China), Movement Research at Judson Church (NY), and other venues. Her research has received support from the U.S. Embassy in Copenhagen, the Columbus Dance Fellowship, OhioDance, the Maryland State Arts Council, and UMBC.
Other notable residencies include Dance All Year Long (Odense, Denmark), American Dance Festival (IRC), Grand Valley State University, and Old Dominion University (VA). She has performed original works by Wendy Houstoun, Henri Oguike, Darshan Shing Bhuller, Francesco Scavetta, Sølvi Edvardsen, Kari Hoaas, Tatiana Baganova, and Anne H. Ekenes.
Clemmensen teaches courses in contemporary movement practice, improvisation, composition, dance and technology, and interdisciplinary creative research. She is the Director of the Linehan Artist Scholars Program at UMBC.
Shaness D. Kemp
Associate Professor
PAHB 349 // 410-455-2952
Shaness D. Kemp, a native of Nassau, Bahamas is a dynamic performing artist, choreographic-activist, storyteller, educator and lifelong learner. She holds both a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and a Master of Fine Arts degree from Temple University and is a Master teacher of the Umfundalai technique. She is the last muse of the late Dr. Kariamu Welsh, Umfundalai’s progenitor and is one of only seven Master teachers in the world. Her contributions to the teaching and advancement of the Umfundalai technique have been recognized both nationally and internationally; the same is true for her work as a performing artist, educator and choreographer.
Kemp is a culturally responsive educator and choreographer who is moved to create work that speaks to human experiences and explores social and cultural inequalities, particularly that of black and brown people. Her choreography fuses contemporary modern and African derived movement with her individual expression which is supported through strength, agility, nuance and funk. As a performer, she is often credited for her versatility, vulnerability and ability to transform whatever work she is a part of. She has performed and presented work nationally and internationally, most recently presenting her evening-length interdisciplinary work Spirit of Our Bones (2025), performing in the Kariamu & Company: Traditions Legacy Concert (2024) and presenting work for Artful Conversations: An Evening with Misty Copeland and the intensive performance for Deeply Rooted Dance Theater (2023).
As an Associate Professor of Dance at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, Kemp has received several fellowships and awards that have supported her research and teaching over the past few years. This support has allowed her to engage with student artists in projects that have informed their development and individual artistic interests in a positive way. Kemp continues to work as a freelance performing artist, choreographer and dance educator which directly informs and enriches her pedagogical practices. She has trained and performed with several notable artists and professional dance companies, including Tabanka African and Caribbean Peoples Dance Ensemble, Deeply Rooted Dance Theater, Kariamu & Company: Traditions, Ron K. Brown/EVIDENCE, A Dance Company, Kun-Yang Lin/Dancers, Eleone Dance Theatre, Philadanco! The Philadelphia Dance Company, Urban Bush Women, Complexions Contemporary Ballet, Rennie Harris Puremovement, The Katherine Dunham Seminar and The American Dance Festival, to name a few.
Sandra Lacy
Full-Time Instructor
PAHB 348 // 410-455-2980
Sandra Lacy has a degree in Psychology, is an Associate of the Royal Academy of Dancing in London, a certified Gyrokinesis teacher, a certified Feldenkrais Method ATM teacher and has studied with neuromuscular therapist/dance specialist Irene Dowd for 20 years. Some of the companies she has performed with include the BDP, Maryland Ballet, Impetus Dance Company, Path Dance Company, Phoenix Repertory Dance, James Hansen’s Assemblage Dance Company, Lorraine Chapman The Company, ClancyWorks and Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane and Company. Her extensive performance background also includes a 14 year partnership touring nationally and internationally with Mary Williford-Shade in Lacy & Shade Solo Duet Dance Works. She is the recipient of 9 Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Awards in Solo Dance Performance. Throughout her career, as well as making work, she has created work collaboratively with artists such as Adrienne Clancy, Mariah Maloney and Tonya Lockyer. She has performed the work of over 50 choreographers ranging from historical figures like Doris Humphrey, José Limón and Bill Evans to contemporary choreographers such as Bebe Miller, Irene Hultman, Lisa Race and Jeanine During. Notable venues at which Lacy has performed include Jacob’s Pillow, The Kennedy Center Theater Lab, The Ailey Citigroup Theater in NYC, The Joyce SoHo, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, Judson Church, DTW, PS 122, BAM, the Winchester Street Theater in Toronto, The Puebla State Theater in Mexico,The Edinburgh Fringe Festival and The Toronto International Festival of Dance. At the 36th Annual Choreographer’s Showcase at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center Lacy was celebrated as the choreographer whose work was the most chosen in the history of the Showcase.
Brandon Russell
Assistant Teaching Professor
PAHB 346 //
Brandon Russell is a native of Fort Worth, TX. He began his dance training at Dian West Dance Studio, Texas Ballet Theatre School and Debbie Allen Dance Academy. Brandon was named NYCDA’s regional outstanding senior male and won NDA’s best senior male dancer national title. Brandon continued his academic and dance training at Southern Methodist University studying a variety of dance techniques and composition, where his choreographic aspirations were nurtured by Larry White and Nathan Montoya. Mr. Russell was awarded numerous scholarships and trained all over the country, including such prestigious institutions as Edge Performing Arts, The Ailey School, Dance Theatre of Harlem School, Joffery Ballet School, Boston Ballet, Orlando Ballet, Kirov Ballet Academy, Houston Ballet School and many more. Upon leaving SMU Mr. Russell moved to New York, to pursue his career in dance. He has performed with Dance Theatre of Harlem Ensemble(DTH) under the directorship of Arthur Mitchell, Pascal Rioult Dance Theatre, Lydia Johnson Dance, Errol Grimes Dance Group, Nanette Bearden Contemporary Ballet, Balance Dance Theater, Texas Ballet Theater, Subtle Changes Inc and Bad Boys of Dance. Mr. Russell has taught ballet, modern, jazz, contemporary, hip-hop, gymnastics and choreographed for various companies, schools, colleges, studios, fine arts programs, summer intensives (including DTH, Kirov Academy of DC, Paul Taylor Intensive, Showbiz Xtreme …) and served as proud founding choreographer, ballet master and Director of Operations for Bad Boys of Dance. Brandon is an instructor of classical ballet and contemporary dance at The University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Brian Jones
Technical Director
PAHB 354 // 410-455-3772
Brian’s lighting for dance includes works for Any Seiwert (But Now I Must Rest, Under Covers, Dear Ms. Cline, Requiem, Slow Ride, and others since 2001), Larry Keigwin (Caffeinated), Charlotte BoyeChristensen (Walls), and many others. A close collaborative relationship with Kate Weare has included Dark Lark (2013), The Light Has Not The Arms to Carry Us (revived 2012), Garden (2012), Bright Land (2010, with music by The Crooked Jades), Leanto (2009), Bridge of Sighs (2008) and rep works. His lighting has premiered at the BAM Next Wave Festival, New York City Center’s Fall For Dance Festival, The Joyce Theater and The Joyce Soho, as well as with Washington Ballet, Jacob’s Pillow (Massachusetts) and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco). Brian has toured nationally and internationally since 2000, most recently with the Paul Taylor Dance Company. He holds his MFA from NYU/Tisch School of the Arts and is a member of United Scenic Artists. Brian also lights theater and music productions.
Part-time Instructors 2025-2026
Amy Kleinendorst
Contemporary
Amy (Young) Kleinendorst is a graduate of Interlochen Arts Academy and holds a BFA from The Juilliard School. She began her professional career with Taylor 2 and joined the Paul Taylor Dance Company in 2000. In addition to her work with Taylor, she was a founding member of TAKE Dance Company. Since retiring from the stage in 2013, she has staged Paul Taylor’s choreography at Interlochen Arts Academy, Boston Conservatory, University of Wyoming, University of Arizona, and Point Park University, among others. From 2013-2021, she was a faculty member at The Taylor School in NYC, teaching youth and professional-level classes regularly. Since relocating to Maryland in 2021, Amy serves as an adjunct professor at Towson University and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), and teaches weekly youth and adult classes at The Dance Center at Severna Park Community Center. In 2024, Amy also joined the team at the Carole Cascio Fund for Mind Movement Dance Connections, under the leadership of Peter Pucci.
Anna Kroll
VPA225 section 1 | GEP: AH
Anna Kroll is a dancer, educator, and interdisciplinary artist. Her performance work has been shown at No Theme Festival (Poughkeepsie, NY), in Philadelphia theaters, rivers, and subway underpasses, at FringeArts’ Scratch Night, Open Call Guerilla Outdoor Performance Festival, Invisible River’s Schuylkill River Arts Day, Cathy Weis’ Sundays on Broadway (NYC), and Danspace’s DraftWork series (NYC). She’s created livestreams and Instagram-based work for the Philadelphia Fringe Festival and meditations on placemaking and bodies of water commissioned by Painted Bride Art Center’s “Re-place-ing Philadelphia.” She was the Fall 2024 VisArts Bresler and Montgomery College Collaborative Artist-in-Residence in Rockville, Maryland.
Her collaborations with Chloë Engel have appeared in re:semblance at New Media Artspace (NYC/online), Spark IV and V (Baltimore/online), The Mind on Fire Variety Show (Baltimore/online), and Tendon Magazine.
She currently teaches at UMBC, where she received her MFA and is staff at Arts & Ideas Sudbury School.
Max Vanderbeek
Music Coordinator, staff
Music for Dance, instructor
Maximus Vanderbeek discovered his passion for percussion at the age of 16 when he received his first conga drum. A dedicated musician, he specializes in percussion, keyboard, and performance. He received his undergraduate degree from SUNY Purchase, later earning his Doctorate in World Percussion from the University of Maryland in 2000, studying a diverse range of instruments, including congas, djembe, drum set, frame drums, tablas, and keyboard percussion.
His career began at UMBC, where he started playing percussion for university modern dance classes at just 19. He then transferred to, and was active in the Dance Department at Purchase College, New York.He later served as the Music Coordinator for the Dance Department at the New World School of the Arts in Miami, Florida. In addition to teaching music in Maryland public schools, he has composed an original music piece for a Merce Cunningham solo dance that was discovered in 2016 on old film footage from 1965 by Stan Vanderbeek (filmmaker).
Maximus continues to perform throughout the Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and New York areas, sharing his expertise and passion for percussion with audiences and fellow musicians alike.
Jill Vasbinder
Dance Appreciation, Dance History
Jill Vasbinder Morrison, BA (Barnard College), MFA (SUNY Purchase), is a dancer, scholar, and activist teaching dance at UMBC. She centers her research on decolonizing Dance Studies courses, incorporating embodied knowledge and learning into the practice of traditional lecture coursework. She examines the intersections of dance, open licensing, and copyright, questioning how historical practices of exclusion have brought us to this ambiguous place. Jill has presented at the Inclusion Imperative Symposium, DSA and MDEA annual conferences. Her article “There’s a long history of dances being pilfered for profit and TikTok is the latest battleground” was featured on the Conversation and is being adapted for Actively Learn. She led the HT Lab: Movement Relationships bring the concepts of Embodied Practice across disciplines. Currently, Jill has begun the writing of the biography of Barbara Supovitz. Her research is supported by the Dresher Center for Humanities and the Maryland Open Source Textbook Initiative.
Staff
Mary Branning | Program Management Specialist
PAHB 342 // 410-455-2179
Emeritus Faculty
Doug Hamby | Associate Professor Emeritus | hamby@umbc.edu
Elizabeth Walton LeBlanc | Associate Professor Emerita