Photo by Shana Sureck Photography
What: 2025 Wisconsin Dance Summit
When: April 21, 2025 from 6-8 pm (Central Time)
Where: Online (Zoom)
Who: All are invited to participate in this two hour event!
Description: The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction is proud to present the Second Annual Online Wisconsin Dance Summit on Monday, April 21, from 6:00 to 8:00 PM (Central Time). This dynamic event brings together visionary leaders in dance education for an evening of inspiration, innovation, and meaningful dialogue. The summit will open with remarks from Susan McGreevy-Nichols, Executive Director of the National Dance Education Organization (NDEO). Attendees will also enjoy an exclusive live screening of PS DANCE! THE NEXT GENERATION, a powerful film showcasing Ann Biddle and her students as they demonstrate that every school can be a dance school.
Join us for an evening that will inform, inspire, and ignite your passion for dance education. Don't miss this unique opportunity to engage with national leaders and explore the transformative power of dance in schools!
Register Here: Zoom Registration Open Now
Summit Flyer (pdf)
Special Guests
Susan McGreevy-Nicholas - Executive Officer of the National Dance Education Organization
As a teacher at Roger Williams Middle School in Providence, Rhode Island from 1974-2002, Susan found and developed that institution’s nationally renowned middle school dance program. The program treated dance as a core subject and emphasized the creating, performing and responding processes as they link to the arts and other disciplines. She is the developer of a cutting-edge reading comprehension strategy that uses text as inspiration for original choreography created by children. This literacy-based methodology combines the creative process with reading instruction. In 1995, Susan was honored the National Dance Teacher of the Year. Susan McGreevy-Nichols is the co-author of five books: Building Dances (1995), Building More Dances (2001), Experiencing Dance (2004), Dance about Anything (2006) and Exploring Dance Forms and Styles (2010). Prior to becoming NDEO Executive Director/CEO in 2012, Susan moved to CA and worked as an independent National Arts Education Consultant. Her consulting work included coaching districts in Los Angeles County as part of the Arts for All initiative and in Northern California in Alameda County as a part of that county’s initiative Revitalizing Classrooms Through Arts Learning: Strategic Plan as well as an adjunct professor at Loyola Marymount University and CSU/DHU. She/Her/Hers.
Ann Biddle - DEL Professional Learning and Curriculum Senior Consultant
Ann Biddle has been a dance educator, staff developer, curriculum consultant, writer, and choreographer for the past 30 years. She is currently the Director of the Dance Education Laboratory (DEL) Institute for Professional Learning and Advancement and the Director of DEL at Jacob’s Pillow. As the Founding Faculty of the Dance Education Laboratory (DEL) at the 92nd St Y with Jody Arnhold (1994 to present) Ms. Biddle has designed and taught multiple courses for DEL including Foundations in Dance Education, DEL Essentials, Planet Dance-Multicultural Dance Education, Dancing in Early Childhood, Dance and Nature, Teaching from Transformation to Inspiration (Tina Curran), Dance and Literacy (Barbara Bashaw), Teaching Dance Technique, DEL: The Next Generation, the DEL Facilitators Training Program, Dance for Social Change, Hip Hop to the Top (Shakia Barron & Eli Kababa), Tracing Footsteps, and the DEL Essentials OPDI course for NDEO. Ms. Biddle has been a Dance Lecturer at UMASS/Amherst Dance Department, Mount Holyoke College, and Skidmore College.
As a staff developer and curriculum consultant, Ms. Biddle has partnered with numerous cultural organizations including Urban Bush Women, Doug Varone, Flamenco Vivo, Jose Limon Dance Company, Ballet Hispanico, New York City Ballet, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Movement Research, Jonah Bokaer, HT Chen Dance Center, and Robin Becker Dance Company. Ms. Biddle has taught overseas at the National University in Costa Rica as a Fulbright scholar and at the School of Performing Arts at the University of Ghana. Additionally, she worked closely with the late Alan Lomax as a Choreometrics analyst and is currently an advisor to the Global Jukebox initiative.
Biddle was an advisor and contributor to the NYC Department of Education’s Blueprint for Teaching and Learning in Dance, PreK-12, and has been an NYCDOE Blueprint professional development facilitator since 2005. She is also a scorer for the Massachusetts Dance MTEL exam. Ms. Biddle was the Director of Arts Programs at the Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter School (PVPA) in South Hadley, MA, and Director of the Dance Department from 2011-2018. She is the Director of the DEL PVPA dance mentorship program featured in the upcoming documentary film, PS Dance! The Next GENeration, Executive Producer, Jody Arnhold, filmmaker, Nel Shelby.
As a writer, Ms. Biddle’s dance teachers’ curricula and training manuals include The Essence of Cool: West Side Story, New York Export: Opus Jazz the Film (NYC Ballet), Dance Motion USA Doug Varone and Argentinian Brenda Angiel’s aerial collaboration, Richard Daniel’s Dances for iPhone film series, Wonderdance early childhood curriculum, Dance Making Inspired by Langston Hughes Poetry, Re-imagining D-Man in the Waters, the DEL Facilitators Training Manual and Robin Becker’s Into Sunlight Dance Curriculum. She is a frequent presenter at NDEO conferences and was selected to pilot the Model Cornerstone Assessments as part of NCCA. In addition, Ms. Biddle has published integrated curricular units though the NYC DOE such as Dance Units Inspired by Literary Works (2016), and The Essence of Pearl Primus through Photography and Poetry: The Negro Speaks of Rivers (2018). Ms. Biddle is currently the Project Director of the DEL Tracing Footsteps: Honoring Diverse Voices in NYC Dance History curriculum project.
She earned a B.A. in English Literature from Kenyon College and a M.A. in Dance Education from Teachers College, Columbia University. Ms. Biddle is currently a doctoral candidate in the Dance Education EdD program at Teachers College and is a recipient of the Susan Furhman and Arnhold Foundation scholarships. Her research interests include teacher education and preparation in K-12, transformational leadership, educational mentoring and coaching, and dance and social justice.
Jody Gottfried Arnhold
Founder, Dance Education Laboratory (DEL) 92NY
Executive Producer, PS Dance: Dance Education in Public Schools
Executive Producer, PS Dance: The Next Generation
Jody Gottfried Arnhold, (MA, CMA) dance educator, advocate, and founder of Dance Education Laboratory (DEL) 92NY. Arnhold’s 25-year tenure teaching dance in NYC public schools has been the catalyst for her visionary support of dance education. Her contributions to dance in higher education have created unparalleled opportunities for dance to be taught, researched, measured, and analyzed - providing substantial evidence that dance is essential to every child’s education. She supports the NYC DOE dance program and created the Arnhold Graduate Dance Education Program at Hunter College. Arnhold’s founding and visionary support for the Doctorate in Dance Education and the Arnhold Institute for Dance Education Research, Policy & Leadership at Teachers College, Columbia University is generating valuable thought leadership for dance education in public policy. She is Executive Producer of documentaries PS DANCE! Dance Education in Public Schools and PS DANCE! The Next Generation, raising awareness for her mission - Dance for Every Child. Arnhold has received Honorary Doctorate Degrees from The Juilliard School and Hunter College for her visionary support of dance and dance education.