|
A choreographer, dancer, and dance scholar, Michelle
Heffner Hayes joined the faculty of the Dance Division at the
University of Kansas in the Fall of 2006, where she teaches modern
dance technique, improvisation, choreography, dance history and
flamenco dance technique. Heffner Hayes holds a PhD in Dance History
and Theory from the University of California-Riverside. She taught
modern dance, composition and dance history at the University of
California-Riverside; and aesthetics, philosophy and criticism at the
University of California-Irvine. There, she choreographed solo and
group works in both the postmodern and flamenco dance traditions. She
also performed with the postmodern dance companies of Susan Rose,
Stephanie Gilliland and the flamenco company of Armando Neri.
While Executive Director of Cultural Affairs at Miami
Dade College (1999-2006), Hayes taught jazz dance and expressive
movement for actors at the internationally-recognized bilingual theatre
program, Prometeo. She has more than 15 years of experience as a
professional performing arts administrator, specializing in
contemporary and culturally-specific music, dance and theater forms.
She continues to create works in contemporary dance
theater, such as Martinete (2007), Cradling Persephone (2007) and Odd Man Out (2008), and to perform traditional
flamenco solos from contemporary flamenco artists like Niurca Marquez (Guajira,
2007), Adriana Maresma Fois (Tangos, 2008) and regional
flamenco artists like Miel Castagna (Solea, 2007).
Select publications by Hayes include parallels in
postmodern dance improvisation and flamenco (Taken By Surprise: An
Improvisational Reader, 2003) and discussion of contemporary
flamenco on film (Dancing Bodies Living Histories: New Writings on
Dance and Culture, 2000). Her first full-length book, Exotic
Imaginings: Flamenco Dance Histories, will be published by
MacFarland & Company, a scholarly press, in Spring of 2009.
Artist Statement
Michelle Heffner Hayes creates as a choreographer and
performer in two different traditions: contemporary dance theatre and
flamenco dance. Her contemporary dance vocabulary is marked by her
experience and training. She combines an eclectic mix of Humphrey and
Limon modern dance styles, with their inherent emphasis on breath and
momentum, with gesture and pedestrian movements influenced by the works
of postmodern choreographers. Her distinctive use of athletic
partnering developed from the practice of contact improvisation. The
use of movement as action, rather than movement for its own sake, she
borrows from the European dance theatre of the past twenty years.
Hayes travels to Jerez and Seville, Spain each year to
deepen her technical development and add to her repertoire. Since her
scholarship also places her in dialogue with some of flamenco's most
important voices, she has joined a network of flamenco artists working
across the globe, collaborating across cultures and and traditions. Throughout her career as an arts administrator, Hayes
continued to teach and publish scholarly work in dance. She developed a
residency-based performance series that served as a national model for
arts education at Miami Dade College, and was given the "Unsung Hero"
award from the Miami Arts and Business Council for her service to the
communtiy. Determined to give back to the region that helped to shape
her world view, in 2006 Hayes returned to the world of full-time
artistic endeavor as an Associate Professor of Dance at the University
of Kansas. |
