The latest--

We are in rehearsal for a free community performance at the Green Hill Center for NC Art on Friday, March 2 at 7:00 pm.  The Van Dyke Dance Group will be performing a short concert of dances designed for the gallery space at the Green Hill Center for North Carolina Art on Friday, March 2 at 7:00 pm. Admission will be free. The Green Hill is located in the Cultural Arts Center at 200 N. Davie Street in Greensboro.

Two dances from the Van Dyke repertory will be presented: DUALITY, a 2006 duet with music by Joe Morgan, danced by Virginia Dupont and Amanda Smith, and QUATRE FEMMES, a 1997 quartet danced by Virginia Dupont, Laura McDuffee, Melissa Pihos, and Kelly Swindell to accompaniment by Deep Forest. Both dances have been arranged for performance in the round, allowing viewers to walk around the space and see the dances from all four sides. This free community collaboration with the Green Hill has been an annual event for over fifteen years, and this year it falls on a First Friday. Come to see us dance and then stroll through downtown Greensboro!

A little recent history--

We premiered Time, for five women  on December 2 and 3 in the UNCG Dance Theater.  On December 5 we showed the same dance and the new Variation on Air for the G String in the Recital Hall in the School of Music, accompanied by the UNCG String Orchestra.

Earlier this fall, we presented a joint performance with UNCG colleague, John Gamble, and we invited works by two guest choreographers, Sherone Price, a dance faculty member at Appalachian State University, and Carol Finley, Director of Dance at Meredith College. The concerts took place on October 20-22 in the UNCG Dance Theater.

I stepped down after five years as Head of the Dance Department at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in June, and I'm teaching at UNCG during the fall semester 2011.

Further back--

During the 2010-11 season, my dances were performed in Dance Charlotte!, at the Green Hill Center for NC Art in Greensboro, on the Faculty Concert at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC, and by the Moving Collective in Louisville, KY, in addition to touring with the NC Dance Festival's 20th Anniversary Season.  I delivered a keynote speech at the September 2010 North Carolina Dance Alliance Annual Event at Elon University, and took part in a panel discussion on curricular trends and strategic planning at the university level at the National Association for Schools of Dance conference in Tucson, also in September. 

Bio--

Van Dyke has been making dances for over 40 years and has shown choreography widely throughout the United States and in Europe, including Italy, the UK, and Portugal. She spent October and November 2000 teaching at the Western Australia Academy of the Performing Arts in Perth. She has set dances on a variety of groups ranging from the Washington Ballet to students at Baltimore's Carver Center for Arts and Technology.  Her choreography, known for dynamic energy and rhythmic precision. seems to live within its musical form, bringing both the movement and the music to a new plane. Her dances are highly structured and meticulously crafted while the movement vocabulary is quick, vigorous and driving. THE WASHINGTON POST has described her use of form as "...immaculate. Thematic variation and recapitulation, counterpoint and consonance occur so naturally that one is hardly aware of the strict structure until the end." DANCE MAGAZINE has written "Van Dyke builds intense anticipation and escalating climax through interwoven designs of rhythmic movement and variations in timing, ending each work powerfully on a single image of finality."

She is on the dance faculty at UNC Greensboro, a recipient of a NC Choreography Fellowship, and a 1993 Fulbright Scholar. In 2001, she was honored with the North Carolina Dance Alliance Annual Award for contributions to the development of dance in the state. An acclaimed teacher, DANCE TEACHER MAGAZINE recently gave her the 2008 Dance Teacher Award for Higher Education.  In 2010, UNCG honored her with the Gladys Strawn Bullard Award for leadership and service.

Awards:

• 1993: Fulbright Scholar to Portugal.
• 1993: Choreography Fellowship from the North Carolina Arts Council.
• 2001: NC Dance Alliance Annual Award for Contributions to the Development of Dance in North Carolina.
• 2005: Copperfoot Award for Choreography from the Dance Department at Wayne State University.
• 2008: 2008 Dance Teacher Award for Higher Education from Dance Teacher Magazine
• 2008: Choreography (SPIKE) selected for Sharing the Legacy Conference, Masterworks of the 20th Century concert at Hunter College, New York City.
• 2010: Gladys Strawn Bullard Award for initiative and perseverance in leadership and/or service from UNC Greensboro.
• 2011: Betty Cone Medal of Arts from the United Arts Council of Greensboro.