Professional Development Opportunities

Professional development is essential to building a resilient dance field. Dance/USA strives to ensure that dance professionals have equitable access to the latest information and innovations on which to build our collective future. Through convenings, collaborative partnerships, and presentations, we connect our members to a wide range of ideas, leaders, and opportunities.

Information on Dance/USA’s exclusive professional development opportunities, which include convenings, webinars, trainings, and office hours, may be found by exploring both our Conference and Leadership and Learning pages.

Below, we also host a user-generated listing of opportunities from members and affiliates. For more information on getting your upcoming professional development opportunity listed and applicable fees (listings are FREE for Dance/USA members), please contact our Membership Team.

Dance-based "Embodied Oral History" training workshops

Jeff Friedman is a well-known dance-based oral history documentation trainer with doctoral education and close to forty years of experience in oral history interviewing that emphasizes theory, method, and practice for recognizing the value of documenting embodied knowledges in the performing arts, as well as emphasizing the special needs and requirements for documenting embodied channels of communication. My experience includes founding director of LEGACY Oral History Program (1988-2013; San Francisco Museum of Performance & Design) and additional commissioned works with the School of American Ballet (New York City NY, ongoing), among others, numerous peer-reviewed publications and presentations on the topic of embodied oral history and choreography and performance in the interdisciplinary areas of documentary-based performance, focusing on dance. In the past, I have implemented oral history training for multiple populations, providing:

Workshops for a variety of community-based interests, for dance community members at the San Francisco Museum of Performance & Design (annually, from 1996-2013) and for dance educators at the National Dance Educational Organization (online), and general community interests at the Latah County Historical Society (Moscow, Idaho) and at the Centro de Cooperacion (Buenos Aires, Argentina).
Workshops for government agencies and academic institutions, such as the Korean Arts Council (Seoul), and for dance and theater higher education at the masters and doctoral level, at Universities of Calgary/Lethbridge (Canada), Auckland University (New Zealand), University for Music and Performing Arts (Germany), and the Ph.D in Dance Studies at Texas Woman's University (Denton) on a biennial basis, since 2016, among others.
Workshops range from 8 to 20+ hours in length depending on sponsoring group interests and can be delivered (in English or by translation), either in-person or online, with some limitations.
Workshop options include COMMUNITY-based workshops, at BASIC, BASIC PLUS, PREMIUM, and PREMIUM-PLUS levels, which include basic oral history interview training, with options to add 5 theoretical/methodological lecture module, individual project consultations, and a public lecture-performance of Muscle Memory, an oral history-based dance/theater work or ACADEMIC-based workshops, at BASIC, BASIC PLUS, and ACADEMIC PREMIUM level which include basic oral history interview training, with 7 theoretical/methodological lecture modules, with the option to add individual project consultations, and a public lecture-performance of Muscle Memory, an oral history-based dance/theater work
A summary of fees is available, plus travel, accommodations, and per diem, as needed.
Please contact Dr. Jeff Friedman, Professor of Dance Studies, Mason Gross School of the Arts, at Rutgers University-New Brunswick: jfdance@nullmgsa.rutgers.edu, for more information. I’m happy to answer any questions and develop and provide workshops that suit your interests, timing, and budget.

Please note: Listings on this website (danceusa.org) are all user generated. The inclusion of content by any user does not constitute an endorsement by Dance/USA of that individual or organization’s views. Please email Dance/USA’s Membership Department if you have any questions or would like to flag a listing. Dance/USA reserves the right to remove a posting at any time.