Dr. Jill Flanders Crosby

Education History

Ed.M. and Ed.D. Teachers College Columbia University
M.A. New York University

Biography

Jill Flanders Crosby is a Professor and the Dance Program Coordinator in the Department of Theatre and Dance, University of Alaska Anchorage. She holds an Ed.M and Ed.D from Teachers College Columbia University. She has been an active performer and choreographer in Anchorage and at UAA since 1975. She choreographed for and performed with Moving Company North, Alaska Contemporary Dance Company and Alaska Dance Theatre. She also appeared as a guest artist with XSIGHT! Performance Group of Chicago and appeared at the Moningside dance Festival in New York City in 1991. She has taught jazz dance classes in Hvavana, Cuba with DanzAbierta. She also taught at the University of Ghana, West Africa.
 
Dr. Crosby received a 1998 Fulbright research grant for her work in Ghana and also traveled to Cuba to research the folklorization of traditional religious dance, the links between the Ewe people of Ghana and the Arará people Cuba and elder oral histories in Perico and Agramonte Cuba. She is published in the CORD, Etnofoor and Southern Quarterly journals, and contributed a chapter to the edited book Making Caribbean Dance on her work in Ghana and Cuba. She is the project director and principle investigator for a multi-disciplinary and collaborative art installation Secrets under the Skin that premiered in Havana, Cuba in December 2010 with later showings in Anchorage and Homer Alaska. The show is scheduled to open in San Francisco in 2013. She also researches jazz expression and is currently writing two chapters for an edited jazz dance reader on jazz dance history and the aesthetic shapings of rhythm-generated jazz dance.

Career History

2010-2011: Secrets Under the Skin. Multidisciplinary and Collaborative Arts Installation. Project Director and Lead Investigator. Presented at: Bunnell Street Arts Center April 2011, Kimura Gallery, UAA January, Fundación Ludwig Havana, Cuba December (Premiere). Website created Spring 2011 – www.uaa.alaska.edu/spotlight/secretsundertheskin
 
2010: Water, Air, Earth, Fire. Four Performance-Based Videos for Secrets Under the Skin installation.
 
2009: “Secrets Under the Skin” Work in Progress on the University of Alaska New Dances Series.
 
2005: “Conversations” Rhythm Explosion, Bozeman Montana
 
2004: “Simplicity and Grace” UAA Dance Ensemble in Concert
 
2003: “Mobius” Alaska Dance Theatre. Guest artist performer.
                                                                                                      
2002: “Look Again” – an NEA funded statewide multidisciplinary 3 week performance
         project – co-project design creator and executive producer.                                                                          
 
         “Clowns and Scholars” Dance on Film Project - performer. Los
          Angeles CA: independent project.       
 
2001: “Mostly Love Stories” Featured guest artist with Chicago-based XSIGHT!       
           Performance Group.
 
         “Softly as in a Morning Sunrise” Co-choreographer and performer with nationally
           recognized tap artist Katherine Kramer, UAA Jazz Week.
 
2000: “Impressions of Cuba” Video realization and conceptualization. Filmed in Chicago and
            in Havana, Cuba. Co creators, Brian Jeffery and Stephen Mazurek.
          
1997: “Tired.” Co-choreographer and performer with Brian Jeffery, Artistic
           Director, Chicago-based XSIGHT! Featured guest artist with XSIGHT! Performance
           Group.
 
          “Estate.” Co-choreographer and performer with Heather Cornell, Artistic
           Director of Manhattan Tap, UAA Jazz Week.
 
1991:  Performer; Morningside Dance Festival, New York City.

Research

Dance Research Methodology and Dance Ethnography
Religious dances of the Ewe of West Africa and the Arará of Cuba
Sensational Heritage Forms

Teaching Responsibilites

Coordinator Dance Program, Department of Theatre and Dance
Reviewer for various peer-reviewed professional journals
Courses: Dance Appreciation. Modern Dance, Jazz Dance

Publications

Crosby, Jill Flanders and Katherine K. Kramer (forthcoming). Jazz Dance. Grove Dictionary of 
  American Music, 2nd Ed. (definition contribution).
 
Crosby, Jill Flanders (2010). “The Social Memory of Arará in Cuba: Oral Histories from
  Perico and Agramonte.” Southern Quarterly 47:4.
 
Crosby, Jill Flanders (2010). “Secrets Under the Skin: They Brought the Essence of
  Africa.” In Making Caribbean Dance: Continuity and Creativity in Island Cultures Editor,
  Susana Sloat. University of Florida Press.

Crosby, Jill Flanders (2008). “West African Music and Dance in the United States and Cuba.
  Looking at Social and Concert Jazz Dance and at Cuban Religious and Social Dances.                   
  Dancing at the Crossroads 1(1): 1-28.
 
Crosby, Jill Flanders 2007. “A Felt Authentic Grounding: Intersecting Theories of Authenticity,
  and Tradition.” In Choreographies of Migration: Patterns of Global Mobility. Congress on
  Research in Dance, pp 24-28.
 
Dils, Ann, & Crosby, Jill Flanders (2001). “Dialogue in Dance Studies Research.” Dance
  Research Journal, 33(1), 62-81. NY: Congress Research in Dance (CORD).
 
Crosby, Jill Flanders (1997). “The Dancer’s Way of Knowing: Merging practice and Theory in
  the Doing and Writing of Ethnography.” Etnofoor 10(1/2): 65-78.