William Evans

Guest Artist
and Undergraduate Program Director

Phone: (585) 395-2413

E-mail: bevans@brockport.edu

William Evans is artistic director of the Bill Evans Dance Company, founded in 1975. The company was based in Seattle and then Albuquerque, where it celebrated its 30^th anniversary in 2004. The Company has performed in all 50 states as well as many other countries and was the most-booked company in this country for several years under the Dance Touring and Artist-in-the-Schools Programs of the National Endowment for the Arts. BEDC now works on a project basis for performances in western New York, in national conferences and on summer national and international tours. Current company members are Evans, Don Halquist (chair of the Brockport Department of Education and Human Development), Mariah Maloney and several recent MFA graduates from the Brockport Department of Dance. Brockport undergraduate dance majors and MFA candidates sometime perform as guest artists.

He founded the Evans Rhythm Tap Ensemble in 1992 and performs solo tap concerts frequently throughout North America. He was formerly artistic coordinator, dancer and principal resident choreographer of Utah's Repertory Dance Theatre, which just celebrated its 45^th anniversary, and artistic director and resident choreographer of Winnipeg's Contemporary Dancers, Canada’s oldest professional modern dance company.

He has choreographed more than 200 works, which have been performed by more than 70 professional dance companies in several countries and by college and regional pre-professional dance ensembles throughout North America and in Europe. He received the Guggenheim Fellowship and numerous fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts as well as state, regional and private arts agencies. He received the National Dance Education Organization Lifetime Achievement Award, the New Mexico Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts, two Albuquerque Arts Alliance Awards for Excellence in Dance, the Dance Teacher Magazine Lifetime Achievement Award, an honorary doctorate of fine arts from the Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle and the Distinguished Dance Alumnus Award from the University of Utah.

He earned a BA in English/Ballet and an MFA in Modern Dance from the University of Utah and is a Certified Laban Movement Analyst with both Integrated Movement Studies and the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies. He is distinguished professor emeritus at the University of New Mexico, permanent guest artist in the Senior Professional Program of Winnipeg's School of Contemporary Dancers and artistic director of the Bill Evans Summer Institute of Dance, which just celebrated its 35^th anniversary. The annual Bill Evans Summer Dance Teachers’ Intensives and Evans Technique Certification Program, have taken place at The College at Brockport and in other national and international locations since 1999.

He joined the faculty of The College at Brockport in 2004, after taking early retirement from the University of New Mexico Dance Program. Here, he teaches Evans Modern Dance Technique and Improvisation; Evans repertory; choreography; rhythm tap technique, improvisation and repertory; Laban Movement Analysis/Bartenieff Fundamentals, and dance pedagogy in both the undergraduate and graduate programs. He has served as artistic director of the annual faculty concert, DANSCORE, of the NEW DANCERS’ SHOWCASE and of DANCE/Hartwell, and has choreographed or re-staged 24 works for Brockport student dancers.

Since 1981, he has served regularly as an adjudicator for the American College Dance Festival Association, for Regional Dance America and other organizations. He has served on the boards of the American College Dance Festival Association, the National Dance Association and the National Dance Education Organization and he produced the 2003 NDEO Conference in Albuquerque. A cover story on his impact in the professional and educational dance worlds was featured in the October, 2003 issue of Dance Magazine, and he was named one of three favorite tap artists in the most recent Dance Magazine Readers Poll. He has been the subject of several cover stories in Dance Teacher Magazine, most recently in July, 2010.

Visit www.billevansdance.org to find out more about his summer programs, his touring schedule, his book, Reminiscences of a Dancing Man, published by the National Dance Association in 2005, and other publications he has written of or which he is the subject.

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Last Updated 8/1/11