Register for NDEO 2021 National Award Recipients and upcoming Virtual Ceremony & Panel Discussion

NDEO acknowledges the extraordinary individuals who have made vital contributions to the dance education field!

Lifetime Achievement - Darwin Prioleau and Donna Krasnow
Outstanding Dance Educator (Higher Education) - Nyama McCarthy-Brown
Outstanding Dance Education Researcher - Jenefer Davies
Outstanding Leadership - Melanie George and Kim Stroud

Info on Virtual Ceremony & Panel Discussion
NDEO will honor the award recipients at our "virtual" National Awards Ceremony featuring a keynote address from the Lifetime Achievement recipients and a Panel Discussion between all recipients.

Date: Tuesday September 14th
Time: 8pm - 9:15pm EDT
Free for Members and non-Members

 In this panel discussion, the award recipients will address three questions: 1) what advice would they give to students and those new to the field of dance education, 2) what is a significant experience or person that influenced their career, and 3) what is their wish or vision for the future of dance education.


This webinar features AI live captioning, ASL interpreter, and will be accessible to audio-only attendees.
Darwin Prioleau
Lifetime Achievement

Dr. Darwin Prioleau is professor emeritus of dance and former Dean of the School of The Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at the College of Brockport, State University of New York. Previously she served as the Chair of the Department of Dance. Prioleau has taught modern dance, vernacular-based jazz, and Arts Administration. Her professional dance career spans over 12 years in New York City, dancing with various dance companies and featured dancer in several off-Broadway musicals. She has worked intensively with such dance masters as Alvin Ailey, Jimmy Truitte, Joyce Trisler, and Matt Mattox. Darwin Prioleau was the founder and director of the Young People's Dance Company in NYC from 1978-1982. In addition to her academic career, she has been a free-lance modern and jazz dance choreographer and master teacher in Ohio, Massachusetts, New York, Missouri, and Europe. Nationally, Dr. Prioleau is actively involved in arts education advocacy has published articles in the Journal of Dance Education and Arts Education Policy Review and has presented papers on Leadership of the Arts in Higher Education and Jazz Dance at NDA, NASD, NDEO, National Conference on Liberal Arts, CAS and CODA. She was a founding member of NDEO and served as President (2011-2014) of the board. Prioleau is the recipient of the National Dance Education Organization's 2006 Outstanding Leadership Award. She was inducted into the Marguerite Hare Brown Society in 2017 by the College at Brockport and the recipient of the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award, 2018 Marquis Who's Who.
Donna Krasnow
Lifetime Achievement

Donna Krasnow, PhD, is Professor Emerita in the Department of Dance at York University in Toronto and founder of the Limón modern dance program Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre. She specializes in dance science research, concentrating on dance kinesiology, injury prevention and care, conditioning for dancers, and motor learning and motor control, with a special emphasis on the young dancer. Donna has created a specialized conditioning system for dancers called C-I Training™ (conditioning with imagery), producing a C-I Training video series of the system. Her books include Conditioning with Imagery for Dancers with co-author Jordana Deveau (2010), Motor Learning and Control for Dance: Principles and Practices for Performers and Teachers with co-author Virginia Wilmerding (2015), Dancer Wellness with co-editor Virginia Wilmerding in collaboration with IADMS, the International Association for Dance Medicine & Science (2017), and Daniel Lewis: A Life in Choreography and the Art of Dance with co-author Daniel Lewis (2020). She has also published numerous articles in dance science and education journals, and she has written resource papers in collaboration with Virginia Wilmerding for IADMS and for Healthy Dancer Canada (HDC). Donna was the Conference Director for IADMS from 2004-2008, and one of the founding directors of Healthy Dancer Canada (HDC). She was the Associate Editor for Dance for Medical Problems of Performing Artists from 2014-2016. Her awards include Distinguished Alumni Award, School of Music, University of Oregon (2015); National Dance Education Organization Outstanding Dance Researcher Award (2016); HDC Lifetime Achievement Award (2018), and IADMS Dance Educator Award (2020).
Nyama McCarthy-Brown
Outstanding Dance Educator - Higher Education

Dr. Nyama McCarthy-Brown is an Assistant Professor of Community Engagement Through Dance Pedagogy, at The Ohio State University. Nyama is an active educator, scholar, and artist. She has written numerous articles academic publications in addition to her book, Dance Pedagogy for a Diverse World. The book was greatly informed by her teaching dance in the public schools, private studios, universities, and in the community. New York City Department of Education purchased over two hundred copies of her book for all dance teachers in the district. Nyama teaches dance education and contemporary dance with Africanist underpinnings grounded the celebration of all movers. Her work has been sought out nationally to consult and led workshops on diversifying curriculum for organizations such as: San Francisco Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, Enrich Chicago, Dance Educators Coalition, and Rutgers Dance Department.  Currently, she is working on her second book, Skin Colored Pointes: Women of the Global Majority in Ballet.
Jenefer Davies
Outstanding Dance Education Researcher

Jenefer Davies is Head of the Department of Theatre, Dance & Film Studies and Professor of Dance at Washington and Lee University and Artistic Director of the W&L Repertory Dance Company. She received an MFA in Choreography and Performance from The George Washington University and a MALS in Dance from Hollins University. Her choreography has been commissioned by dance, opera and theatre companies and has toured to Spain, Greece, Scotland, and throughout the United States. Her research is centered in modern dance including the use of technology in dance, the use video, motion capture and non-linear video editing in composition and to create authentic movement, the exploration of the feminine aesthetic, and in-depth research and experimentation exploring aerial dance forms, creating a technique for aerial rope & harness, and integrating aerial into the university dance curriculum. Davies created one of the first academic programs in aerial dance in the country and her aerial students have performed at the Ailey Citigroup Theatre in Manhattan, at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington DC, the Southeastern Theatre Conference, and from the rooftops of buildings on the Washington & Lee campus. Davies’ publications include the International Planetarian Magazine, World Congress on Dance, the Nu Delta Alpha Journal and the Athens, Greece Institute for Research in the Arts Consortium, among others. She has served on the Reviewer’s Board of the Athens Journal of Humanities and Arts and reviewed dance proposals for Oxford University Press. Her book Aerial Dance: A Guide to Dance with Rope and Harness was published by Routledge Press in 2017 and she is currently writing a textbook on dance composition.
Melanie George
Outstanding Leadership

Melanie George is an educator, dramaturg, choreographer, scholar, and certified movement analyst. She is the founder of Jazz Is… Dance Project and an Associate Curator and Scholar-In-Residence at Jacob’s Pillow. As a dramaturg, she has contributed to projects by David Neumann & Marcella Murray (on the Obie Award winning Distances Smaller Than This Are Not Confirmed), Raja Feather Kelly, Susan Marshall & Company, and Urban Bush Women, among others. Melanie has presented her research on jazz dance throughout the U.S., in Canada and Scotland. She founded the global advocacy website jazzdancedirect.com and is a featured contributor to the documentary UpRooted: The Journey of Jazz Dance. A teacher of the neo-jazz aesthetic, her jazz choreography is regularly commissioned by colleges throughout the United States. Publications include chapters in Jazz Dance: A History of the Roots and Branches and the forthcoming Rooted Jazz Dance: Africanist Aesthetics and Equity in the Twenty-First Century (University Press of Florida). Melanie has worked as an arts consultant for over a decade, applying her expertise to assist artists and organizations in articulating language and facilitating the development of creative work. In addition to her work with independent choreographers and dance educators, Melanie has provided professional services for The Joyce Theatre, The Guggenheim Museum, BAM, and Stephen Petronio Company, among others. She is the former Dance Program Director at American University, former Dance Education Coordinator at Kent State University, and has lectured at Harvard University, the Yale School of Drama, and The Juilliard School.
Kim Stroud
Outstanding Leadership

Kim Stroud is currently Director of the Arts at the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts. She has danced with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet, Martha Graham Company and with Katherine Dunham. Her Broadway credits include “The Wiz” and “Your Arms Too Short to Box with God. She has lead the Center for Creative Youth at Wesleyan University, the Dance Program for City Youth in Hartford, the Diversity Committee for the International NETWORK of Performing and Visual Arts Schools. Ms. Stroud has been on faculty at the Martha Graham School, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center, SUNY Purchase and the University of Hartford. Ms. Stroud has been guest faculty for University of California at Santa Barbara, University of Southern California at Los Angeles, University of Connecticut, Eastern Connecticut State University, Randolf-Macon Women’s College in Virginia, and the Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington D.C. Ms. Stroud has been recognized by the state of Connecticut and nationally for teaching and setting the works of Martha Graham. She has received recognition for her teaching and leadership from the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, the International Arts Schools Network, Dance Teacher Magazine to name a few. She is a member of the CT Dance Alliance, The National Dance Education Organization and the International Dance Council of UNESCO.

To learn more about our National Awards, click here.


National Dance Education Organization (NDEO) | 301-585-2880 | www.ndeo.org