The Center of Dance

Bios
The faculty is Carol Crawford Smith, Ashley Doyle-Lucas, Ann Kilkelly, Melanie Grant, Linda Caudill, Kasey Branch, Leigh Ann Cronin, Christina Parker Barton, Audrey Terrell, Chuck George, Priansu Ghose, Joyce Arditti, Jason Mitchell, Lynn Thorpe, Kusun Ensemble, and invited guest artists. All instructors are qualified professionals who teach safe dance.

Carol Crawford Smith, Founder and Artistic Director

   Carol Crawford Smith is founder and artistic director of The Center of Dance where she provides instruction, workshops, and programs demonstrative of excellence in the arts of dance-theater. Her professional experience in dance-theater includes a ten-year career as a soloist with the internationally renowned Dance Theatre of Harlem. The dance masters she has studied and worked with and whose works she performed include George Balanchine, Valerie Bettis w/Tennesee Williams, Alexandra Danilova, Agnes DeMille, Garth Fagan, Frederick Franklin, William Griffith, Geoffrey Holder, John McFall, Arthur Mitchell, Terry Orr for Eugene Loring, Domy Reiter-Soffer, Jerome Robbins, Karel Shook, John Taras, Glen Tetley, and Billy Wilson. Crawford Smith has performed in dance-theater productions including A Streetcar Named Desire (Bettis), Belé (Holder), Billy the Kid (Loring), Concerto Borocco (Balanchine), Concerto in F (Wilson), Dougla (Holder), Firebird (Taras), Fall River Legend (DeMille), Footprints Dressed In Red (Fagan), Four Temperaments (Balanchine), Giselle (Franklin based on Petipa), Paquita (Danilova/Franklin), Rhythmetron (Mitchell), and Serenade (Balanchine). She has performed for dance enthusiasts throughout the United States, and internationally in Austria, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Japan, Spain, and the former Soviet Union. Dignitaries she has performed before include Princess Lady Diana at the London Coliseum, President and First Lady Reagan at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and Mayor Ed Koch at the Metropolitan Opera House. Crawford Smith has served as Coordinators for the Black Cultural Center and for the Media Mentoring Program at Virginia Tech. As Coordinator for the Black Cultural Center, she founded and directed Ujima Dance Theatre. Smith choreographed and performed The Promise (Blacksburg Bicentennial Musical), Hard Time Blues (Dumas Theatre), Carmen, Amahl and the Night Visitors, Travels (Opera Roanoke), The Colored Museum (Virginia Tech Theatre Arts), and a soloist appearance in Flap! (Kilkelly with Virginia Tech Theatre Arts). Crawford Smith founded The Center of Dance in August of 1994. As the artistic director, she has produced/directed/choreographed over 200 community productions for the school and its’ resident company, UJIMA. In 1996, Crawford Smith and UJIMA were invited to perform at the 25th anniversary celebration of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Crawford Smith has a Bachelor of Arts in Art History and Studio Art from Marymount Manhattan College (graduated Magna Cum Laude as Carol Ann Crawford) and a Master of Science in Human Development, with a concentration of Families and the Arts, from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. She has taught undergraduate courses at Marymount Manhattan College, the University of Hawaii - Hilo, and at Virginia Tech. Crawford Smith creates CCDancer Designs, a greeting card company featuring her original art. In February 2006, Crawford Smith and her family were the featured recipients of a new home and renovated dance studio on ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. In May of 2006, she was a guest on the Montel Williams Show. Her light shines bright as she is an inspirational being of creativity.

Ashley Doyle-Lucas, School Director

   Ashley Doyle-Lucas, school director for The Center of Dance, graduated in 2005 from the University of Utah completing her BFA in ballet performance. She moved to Blacksburg from Richmond where she was dancing with the Richmond Ballet. Her other professional experience includes dancing with the Utah Ballet and the Aspen Santa Fe Ballet. She has performed in ballets including: Swan Lake, Giselle, Don Quixote, Sleeping Beauty, Romeo and Juliet, and of course the Nutcracker. She also performed in the opening ceremonies of the 2001 winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, Utah. She has trained and worked with Sharee Lane, Attila Fizcere, Carol Iwasaki, Bruce Caldwell, Moses Pendleton, Septime Webre, Tom Mossbrucker, Jean-Phillipe Malaty, Malcom Burn, and Stoner Winslett. Prior to her professional work, she trained and graduated from high school at the Harid Conservatory in Boca Raton, Florida. While continuing to dance and teach, she is attending graduate school at Virginia Tech to complete her masters in nutrition and exercise physiology.

Melanie Grant

   Melanie Grant, is a Junior at Radford University where she is persuing a degree in Nursing. She has danced on and off in various locations and studios for eight years, before moving to Blacksburg and joining The Center of Dance. Melanie was an advocate for the art of dance though out her high school years. During her sophomore year, she co-founded the Blacksburg High School Dance Team and acted as captain and choreographer for the next two years. Throughout all four years of high school, Melanie was an active member of the Blacksburg High School Dance Club and became president her senior year. She was in the Blacksburg High School Show/Dance Choir for four years in which she choreographed various routines for competition and performance. She will be returning this year to work with the Jazz Choir in preparation for their competition in New York City in 2007. For the last eight years she has performed in many productions under the direction of Carol Crawford Smith, and was recently featured on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition which documented the recent renovations at the Center of Dance.

Ann Kilkelly, Tap Director

   Ann Kilkelly is a Professor of Women's Studies and Theatre Arts at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg, Virginia. She teaches a variety of performance and theater classes, women's studies seminars and undergraduate courses about community and culture, and tap classes and workshops in Blacksburg and at a number of festivals around the Southeast. She is a long time Master Teacher at the Swannanoa Gathering, first as part of their original Dance Week and next as Faculty for Sing, String, and Swing week. With her co-author Professor Mary Neth at the University of Missouri, she is co-authoring a book, Tapping the Margins. This work and the projects that led to it have comprised many years of Ann' academic research and "field" studies as a dancer and historian. Neth and Kilkelly received two Smithsonian Senior Fellowships for research in the NMAH Archives Center and a National Endowment for the Humanities Collaborative research grant. Ann sees her job as a researcher and collector of stories as service to artists and an art form that she loves and practices. She has danced in several concerts at the Kennedy Center, the Duke Theater during the New York Tap festival, and in many concerts of original work with artists like Elise Witt, Beverly Botsford, and Solazo. In Blacksburg, Ann directs multi-disiplinary works that feature rhythm and stories. FLAP! A Community Commotion and Return Addresses were recent examples. As a member of artists organization, Alternate ROOTS, she sees art connected to community and social change. As a writer, Ann publishes poetry, fiction, and scholarly articles in a variety of venues and publications which include: Women and Performance Journal, the American Voice, The Community Arts Network(communityarts.net), and, of course, ITA. Among her mentors and teachers she includes Brenda Bufalino, Katherine Kramer, and a host of other masters she has encountered in her more than twenty five years of dancing. Of her performance as the pink part of the Lloyd and Bunny comedy team (with Carol Burch-Brown and Hank Smith as well), Jennifer Dunning of the New York Times remarked, "Kilkelly brought down the house."

Linda Casey Caudill, Instructor

   Linda Casey Caudill comes to The Center of Dance with many years of dance training and experience, including ballet, pointe, tap, and jazz. Along with her 3 sisters, Linda trained and danced with her mother, Jacqueline Casey, who owned and operated the Jacqueline School of Dance in Massachusetts for 50 years before retiring in 1999. She has performed with non-professional dance companies in both Massachusetts and North Carolina, and considers dance not just a hobby, but a passion. In 1999, Linda relocated to Blacksburg with her family. She began studying with Carol Crawford Smith in 2000. Linda teaches children, teenage and adult ballet at The Center of Dance.

Kasey Branch, Instructor

   Kasey Branch grew up in Blacksburg, Virginia studying ballet, contemporary, and afrocentric movement with Carol Crawford Smith and The Center of Dance and also studied jazz and tap with The Dance Place in Christiansburg, Virginia. She was also a member of The Center of Dance resident company UJIMA for four years. Kasey was a member of the Blacksburg High School dance team her junior year and went on to study intensively with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater for a semester. She then continued to live in New York and study with Steps School of Dance for a year. Upon graduation from High School, Kasey attended James Madison University as a Dance Major and then transferred after a year to Virginia Tech. She is currently a junior at Virginia Tech earning a degree in Interdisciplinary Studies. Kasey was a member of the Virginia Tech dance team, the HighTechs, and is currently a member of Dance Company of Virginia Tech. She has been an instructor for The Center of Dance for four years.

Chuck George, Instructor

   Chuck George has been a student of African-style percussion since the mid-eighties. He has learned from master drummers and teachers from all over Africa. He has accompanied dance classes, and performed with UJIMA, the professional dance company of The Center of Dance, since 1994. Chuck teaches beginning hand drumming classes and private lessons, and does drum clubs, drum circles, and presentations for schools and other groups.

Leigh Ann Cronin, Instructor

   Leigh Ann Cronin is currently a junior at Virginia Tech and is majoring in Interdisciplinary Studies with concentrations in Business Management and Sociology. She has been taking ballet since she was four from Terri Post at the Post School of Ballet in Salem, Virginia. She was also a member of Southwest Virginia Ballet for six years and has been in many noteworthy productions including the Nutcracker with the Roanoke Symphony. She has played many different roles including the lead performer in the PSB production of Cinderella. She has had the opportunity to take classes from several well-known instructors including Donna Faye Burchfield, Martha Fayse, and Tom Clower. Leigh Ann has had the experience of working with young dancers before at the ArtsXtreme camp in Radford, and is thrilled to share her passion of dance with The Center of Dance.

Christina Parker Barton, Instructor

   Christina Parker Barton grew up in Hillsville, Virginia. She studied dance from a variety of local studios and in Mount Airy, North Carolina. Her love of song and dance led her to graduate Cum Laude from Radford University with a degree in classical dance. While receiving a BFA in the performing arts at Radford, Christina performed in Long Island, New Orleans, and in the local communities. She has taken various master classes from professional artists, did a summer study with Ballet Magnificat, and toured the east coast from Pennsylvania to Florida with the "New Dawn Singers". Most recently she taught for five years at In Motion Dance Center located in North Carolina. Both choreographing and teaching ballet, pointe, jazz, modern, Pilates, tap, acrobatics, and praise and worship movement bring her joy. Christina and her husband Erik, now reside in Radford Virginia.

Audrey Terrell, Instructor

   Audrey Terrell began her classical ballet training with Kathy Ward at the age of 6. Then at age 9 began studying at The Center of Dance for more serious training with Carol Crawford Smith. At age 10 she began training at the Post School of Ballet with Terri Post. In 2000, at age 11, she joined the Southwest Virginia Ballet's Junior company. In 2002 she became a senior company member and performed in ballet's such as The Nutcracker, Snow Maiden, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, and Cinderella. In 2004 at age 16, she moved to Houston, Texas and attended the High School for Performing and Visual Arts. There she studied with many teachers, including Lisa Ballo, Sandra Organ, and Jeanne Doornbos. There she also studied at a small school called West University Dance Centre with Sally Rojas, Jose' Herrera (former Houston Ballet members), and Evelyn Ireton. In 2006 at age 17 she returned to Blacksburg, Virginia and began teaching for The Center of Dance. Currently Audrey is dancing with Inessa Plikhanova at Radford University. She has also attended the summer programs of American Ballet Theater (twice), Boston Ballet, and Pittsburgh Ballet Theater.

Lynn Day Thorpe, Instructor

   Lynn Day Thorpe inherited her love of rhythm and tap dance from her father, who tapped with Gene Kelly. She has studied jazz, modern and ballet, but began serious study of tap ten years ago with Ann Kilkelly. Honing her skills in class, workshops and performances, Lynn has been teaching tap for five years. She currently teaches English as a second language at the English Language Institute and intermediate tap at The Center of Dance.


	Bios The faculty is Carol Crawford Smith, Ashley Doyle-Lucas, Ann Kilkelly, Melanie Grant, Linda Caudill, Kasey Branch, Leigh Ann Cronin, Christina Parker Barton, Audrey Terrell, Chuck George, Priansu Ghose, Joyce Arditti, Jason Mitchell, Lynn Thorpe, Kusun Ensemble, and invited guest artists. All instructors are qualified professionals who teach safe dance. Carol Crawford Smith, Founder and Artistic Director Carol Crawford Smith is founder and artistic director of The Center of Dance where she provides instruction, workshops, and programs demonstrative of excellence in the arts of dance-theater. Her professional experience in dance-theater includes a ten-year career as a soloist with the internationally renowned Dance Theatre of Harlem. The dance masters she has studied and worked with and whose works she performed include George Balanchine, Valerie Bettis w/Tennesee Williams, Alexandra Danilova, Agnes DeMille, Garth Fagan, Frederick Franklin, William Griffith, Geoffrey Holder, John McFall, Arthur Mitchell, Terry Orr for Eugene Loring, Domy Reiter-Soffer, Jerome Robbins, Karel Shook, John Taras, Glen Tetley, and Billy Wilson. Crawford Smith has performed in dance-theater productions including A Streetcar Named Desire (Bettis), Belé (Holder), Billy the Kid (Loring), Concerto Borocco (Balanchine), Concerto in F (Wilson), Dougla (Holder), Firebird (Taras), Fall River Legend (DeMille), Footprints Dressed In Red (Fagan), Four Temperaments (Balanchine), Giselle (Franklin based on Petipa), Paquita (Danilova/Franklin), Rhythmetron (Mitchell), and Serenade (Balanchine). She has performed for dance enthusiasts throughout the United States, and internationally in Austria, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Japan, Spain, and the former Soviet Union. Dignitaries she has performed before include Princess Lady Diana at the London Coliseum, President and First Lady Reagan at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and Mayor Ed Koch at the Metropolitan Opera House. Crawford Smith has served as Coordinators for the Black Cultural Center and for the Media Mentoring Program at Virginia Tech. As Coordinator for the Black Cultural Center, she founded and directed Ujima Dance Theatre. Smith choreographed and performed The Promise (Blacksburg Bicentennial Musical), Hard Time Blues (Dumas Theatre), Carmen, Amahl and the Night Visitors, Travels (Opera Roanoke), The Colored Museum (Virginia Tech Theatre Arts), and a soloist appearance in Flap! (Kilkelly with Virginia Tech Theatre Arts). Crawford Smith founded The Center of Dance in August of 1994. As the artistic director, she has produced/directed/choreographed over 200 community productions for the school and its’ resident company, UJIMA. In 1996, Crawford Smith and UJIMA were invited to perform at the 25th anniversary celebration of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Crawford Smith has a Bachelor of Arts in Art History and Studio Art from Marymount Manhattan College (graduated Magna Cum Laude as Carol Ann Crawford) and a Master of Science in Human Development, with a concentration of Families and the Arts, from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. She has taught undergraduate courses at Marymount Manhattan College, the University of Hawaii - Hilo, and at Virginia Tech. Crawford Smith creates CCDancer Designs, a greeting card company featuring her original art. In February 2006, Crawford Smith and her family were the featured recipients of a new home and renovated dance studio on ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. In May of 2006, she was a guest on the Montel Williams Show. Her light shines bright as she is an inspirational being of creativity. Ashley Doyle-Lucas, School Director Ashley Doyle-Lucas, school director for The Center of Dance, graduated in 2005 from the University of Utah completing her BFA in ballet performance. She moved to Blacksburg from Richmond where she was dancing with the Richmond Ballet. Her other professional experience includes dancing with the Utah Ballet and the Aspen Santa Fe Ballet. She has performed in ballets including: Swan Lake, Giselle, Don Quixote, Sleeping Beauty, Romeo and Juliet, and of course the Nutcracker. She also performed in the opening ceremonies of the 2001 winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, Utah. She has trained and worked with Sharee Lane, Attila Fizcere, Carol Iwasaki, Bruce Caldwell, Moses Pendleton, Septime Webre, Tom Mossbrucker, Jean-Phillipe Malaty, Malcom Burn, and Stoner Winslett. Prior to her professional work, she trained and graduated from high school at the Harid Conservatory in Boca Raton, Florida. While continuing to dance and teach, she is attending graduate school at Virginia Tech to complete her masters in nutrition and exercise physiology. Melanie Grant Melanie Grant, is a Junior at Radford University where she is persuing a degree in Nursing. She has danced on and off in various locations and studios for eight years, before moving to Blacksburg and joining The Center of Dance. Melanie was an advocate for the art of dance though out her high school years. During her sophomore year, she co-founded the Blacksburg High School Dance Team and acted as captain and choreographer for the next two years. Throughout all four years of high school, Melanie was an active member of the Blacksburg High School Dance Club and became president her senior year. She was in the Blacksburg High School Show/Dance Choir for four years in which she choreographed various routines for competition and performance. She will be returning this year to work with the Jazz Choir in preparation for their competition in New York City in 2007. For the last eight years she has performed in many productions under the direction of Carol Crawford Smith, and was recently featured on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition which documented the recent renovations at the Center of Dance. Ann Kilkelly, Tap Director Ann Kilkelly is a Professor of Women's Studies and Theatre Arts at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg, Virginia. She teaches a variety of performance and theater classes, women's studies seminars and undergraduate courses about community and culture, and tap classes and workshops in Blacksburg and at a number of festivals around the Southeast. She is a long time Master Teacher at the Swannanoa Gathering, first as part of their original Dance Week and next as Faculty for Sing, String, and Swing week. With her co-author Professor Mary Neth at the University of Missouri, she is co-authoring a book, Tapping the Margins. This work and the projects that led to it have comprised many years of Ann' academic research and "field" studies as a dancer and historian. Neth and Kilkelly received two Smithsonian Senior Fellowships for research in the NMAH Archives Center and a National Endowment for the Humanities Collaborative research grant. Ann sees her job as a researcher and collector of stories as service to artists and an art form that she loves and practices. She has danced in several concerts at the Kennedy Center, the Duke Theater during the New York Tap festival, and in many concerts of original work with artists like Elise Witt, Beverly Botsford, and Solazo. In Blacksburg, Ann directs multi-disiplinary works that feature rhythm and stories. FLAP! A Community Commotion and Return Addresses were recent examples. As a member of artists organization, Alternate ROOTS, she sees art connected to community and social change. As a writer, Ann publishes poetry, fiction, and scholarly articles in a variety of venues and publications which include: Women and Performance Journal, the American Voice, The Community Arts Network(communityarts.net), and, of course, ITA. Among her mentors and teachers she includes Brenda Bufalino, Katherine Kramer, and a host of other masters she has encountered in her more than twenty five years of dancing. Of her performance as the pink part of the Lloyd and Bunny comedy team (with Carol Burch-Brown and Hank Smith as well), Jennifer Dunning of the New York Times remarked, "Kilkelly brought down the house." Linda Casey Caudill, Instructor Linda Casey Caudill comes to The Center of Dance with many years of dance training and experience, including ballet, pointe, tap, and jazz. Along with her 3 sisters, Linda trained and danced with her mother, Jacqueline Casey, who owned and operated the Jacqueline School of Dance in Massachusetts for 50 years before retiring in 1999. She has performed with non-professional dance companies in both Massachusetts and North Carolina, and considers dance not just a hobby, but a passion. In 1999, Linda relocated to Blacksburg with her family. She began studying with Carol Crawford Smith in 2000. Linda teaches children, teenage and adult ballet at The Center of Dance. Kasey Branch, Instructor Kasey Branch grew up in Blacksburg, Virginia studying ballet, contemporary, and afrocentric movement with Carol Crawford Smith and The Center of Dance and also studied jazz and tap with The Dance Place in Christiansburg, Virginia. She was also a member of The Center of Dance resident company UJIMA for four years. Kasey was a member of the Blacksburg High School dance team her junior year and went on to study intensively with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater for a semester. She then continued to live in New York and study with Steps School of Dance for a year. Upon graduation from High School, Kasey attended James Madison University as a Dance Major and then transferred after a year to Virginia Tech. She is currently a junior at Virginia Tech earning a degree in Interdisciplinary Studies. Kasey was a member of the Virginia Tech dance team, the HighTechs, and is currently a member of Dance Company of Virginia Tech. She has been an instructor for The Center of Dance for four years. Chuck George, Instructor Chuck George has been a student of African-style percussion since the mid-eighties. He has learned from master drummers and teachers from all over Africa. He has accompanied dance classes, and performed with UJIMA, the professional dance company of The Center of Dance, since 1994. Chuck teaches beginning hand drumming classes and private lessons, and does drum clubs, drum circles, and presentations for schools and other groups. Leigh Ann Cronin, Instructor Leigh Ann Cronin is currently a junior at Virginia Tech and is majoring in Interdisciplinary Studies with concentrations in Business Management and Sociology. She has been taking ballet since she was four from Terri Post at the Post School of Ballet in Salem, Virginia. She was also a member of Southwest Virginia Ballet for six years and has been in many noteworthy productions including the Nutcracker with the Roanoke Symphony. She has played many different roles including the lead performer in the PSB production of Cinderella. She has had the opportunity to take classes from several well-known instructors including Donna Faye Burchfield, Martha Fayse, and Tom Clower. Leigh Ann has had the experience of working with young dancers before at the ArtsXtreme camp in Radford, and is thrilled to share her passion of dance with The Center of Dance. Christina Parker Barton, Instructor Christina Parker Barton grew up in Hillsville, Virginia. She studied dance from a variety of local studios and in Mount Airy, North Carolina. Her love of song and dance led her to graduate Cum Laude from Radford University with a degree in classical dance. While receiving a BFA in the performing arts at Radford, Christina performed in Long Island, New Orleans, and in the local communities. She has taken various master classes from professional artists, did a summer study with Ballet Magnificat, and toured the east coast from Pennsylvania to Florida with the "New Dawn Singers". Most recently she taught for five years at In Motion Dance Center located in North Carolina. Both choreographing and teaching ballet, pointe, jazz, modern, Pilates, tap, acrobatics, and praise and worship movement bring her joy. Christina and her husband Erik, now reside in Radford Virginia. Audrey Terrell, Instructor Audrey Terrell began her classical ballet training with Kathy Ward at the age of 6. Then at age 9 began studying at The Center of Dance for more serious training with Carol Crawford Smith. At age 10 she began training at the Post School of Ballet with Terri Post. In 2000, at age 11, she joined the Southwest Virginia Ballet's Junior company. In 2002 she became a senior company member and performed in ballet's such as The Nutcracker, Snow Maiden, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, and Cinderella. In 2004 at age 16, she moved to Houston, Texas and attended the High School for Performing and Visual Arts. There she studied with many teachers, including Lisa Ballo, Sandra Organ, and Jeanne Doornbos. There she also studied at a small school called West University Dance Centre with Sally Rojas, Jose' Herrera (former Houston Ballet members), and Evelyn Ireton. In 2006 at age 17 she returned to Blacksburg, Virginia and began teaching for The Center of Dance. Currently Audrey is dancing with Inessa Plikhanova at Radford University. She has also attended the summer programs of American Ballet Theater (twice), Boston Ballet, and Pittsburgh Ballet Theater. Lynn Day Thorpe, Instructor Lynn Day Thorpe inherited her love of rhythm and tap dance from her father, who tapped with Gene Kelly. She has studied jazz, modern and ballet, but began serious study of tap ten years ago with Ann Kilkelly. Honing her skills in class, workshops and performances, Lynn has been teaching tap for five years. She currently teaches English as a second language at the English Language Institute and intermediate tap at The Center of Dance.