A New Vision for Dance
Carol Hess, associate professor and chair of dance, is the recipient of the 2008 Maryland Council for Dance Award for Outstanding Service to Dance in Maryland.
Associate Professor of Dance Elizabeth Walton praised Hess’ work in leading UMBC’s dance department, training future dance teachers and bringing dance into public schools. “Under Carol’s leadership as chair of the dance department, our enrollments have doubled. She instituted Project REACH, which brings dance into public elementary and middle schools and also provides an opportunity for UMBC students to perform and teach master classes. The Methods of Teaching Dance course, which she developed, has trained many UMBC students who hold positions in dance education throughout Maryland.”
For more than ten years, Hess’ groundbreaking choreography has focused on the interaction between dance and video. Many of her dances for the stage feature the use of live camera feeds and/or pre-recorded images. She is the co-director of the award winning Baltimore Dance Project, UMBC’s resident dance company, originally founded in 1983 as Phoenix Dance Company.
“Carol is an outstanding, energetic, creative and visionary force in the UMBC and Maryland dance community,” said Doug Hamby, associate professor of dance and co-director of the Baltimore Dance Project. “Through her research and teaching at UMBC, her choreography for the Baltimore Dance Project and Project REACH, she has expanded the understanding and appreciation of dance. Through her work with digital media she has expanded the relationship between the body in motion and interactive technology. She is an example of an artist who is always looking for a new approach and a generous teacher who delights in sharing her expertise and love for dance with others.”
Hess’ work has been screened at film and video festivals in the United States and abroad. Her most recent video, Substrata, was a 2007 Rosebud Festival nominee, and was screened at the Maryland Film Festival, Baltimore’s Artscape, Tucson Shortfest and the Dallas Video Festival.
Trained as a dancer in New York, Hess earned her B.A. in Dance from Barnard College and her M.A. in Dance Education from Columbia Teachers College. In New York she performed with Hannah Kahn and Dancers, The Rondo Dance Theater and DANCES/Janet Soares. Her choreography has been presented in New York at the Cubiculo, Dance Theater Workshop, the Grand Finale, the New York Fringe Festival, and in Germany and The Netherlands. Hess has appeared at Lincoln Center in New York, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. and other major venues.
Hess has been on the faculty of the International School of Dance at Carnegie Hall, New York, and has been a guest teacher for Dance Masters of America, the Maryland Council for Dance and the Dance Teachers Club of Boston with the American Society of Teachers of Dance.
Video: Work by Carol Hess
(11/5/08)
© 2007-08 University of Maryland, Baltimore County 1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore, MD 21250 410-455-1000
