Paul Anthony Dennis, an associate professor of dance at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, has been named the new chair of the Dance Department at Hunter College, it was announced today by Hunter College President Jennifer J. Raab. Professor Dennis, a former member of the Jose Limon Dance Company, is a respected scholar researching the relationship between dance and movement to neurodegenerative diseases.
“We welcome Paul Anthony Dennis to our faculty and look forward to his work as chair of the Dance Department, which is the only freestanding dance department in the City University of New York,” said President Raab. “Paul shows that one person can really have it all. Not only is he a world-renowned international dancer, but he is a renowned educator and an impactful scholar himself. His academic and creative experience are well-suited to our program which provides a rigorous, challenging and humanistic dance education in a liberal arts environment.”
Professor Dennis earned his BFA at the Juilliard School, and an MFA at Purchase College, Conservatory of Dance. While at UMass Amherst, he was also Associate Director of the White Mountains Summer Dance Festival, and a Five College faculty member, which enabled him to teach at Mount Holyoke, Amherst, and Hampshire Colleges. His career includes performances with Works/Laura Glenn Dance, Jacob’s Pillow Men’s Dancers: The Ted Shawn Legacy, Janis Brenner and Dancers, Scapegoat Garden, a 1995 White House performance and Florence’s “White Nights Festival” at Palazzo Vecchio Salone De Cinquecento.
