Erica Dankmeyer

Erica Dankmeyer

Artist-in-Residence in Dance

[email protected]
413-597-2960
'62 Center for Theatre & Dance Rm 180

Education

B.A. Williams College, Art History (1991)

Courses

DANC 106(S) STU

Modern Dance I: Beginning Modern Dance

DANC 205 SEM

Modern Rebels: Movement Revolt and Revelation (not offered 2024/25)

DANC 210(F) TUT

LET'S MAKE A DANCE: Dance Making and Re-Making

MUS 280 / DANC 280 TUT

Dancing the Score/Scoring the Dance (not offered 2024/25)

DANC 306(F, S) STU

Modern Dance III: Intermediate/Advanced Modern Dance

DANC 315(F) STU

Modern/Contemporary Dance Technique, Repertory and Performance

Current Committees

  • Committee on Student Life, formally Committee on Undergraduate Life

Additional Training

  • Teacher Training Program at the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance
  • Liz Lerman/Dance Exchange Summer Institute: Evolving Creative Practices, Social Engagement

At Williams

  • 2008-present: Artist-in-Residence in Dance
  • 2010-present: Founder and Artistic Director of CoDa, Williams College Contemporary Dance Ensemble
  • 2012-13: Acting Chair of the Dance Department

Bio

Erica Dankmeyer is a dancer, choreographer, and educator specializing in Modern and Contemporary dance. She earned her BA in Art History at Williams College and studied on scholarship in the Professional Trainee Program at the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance. As a Soloist with the Martha Graham Dance Company (1996-2006), she performed extensively in the U.S and abroad in a wide array of the Graham repertoire, including Primitive Mysteries, Satyric Festival Song, Night Journey, Acts of Light, Heretic, Celebration, Dark Meadow, Appalachian Spring, Diversion of Angels, Secular Games, Cave of the Heart, Phaedra, Maple Leaf Rag, and Chronicle. She is a régisseur of Martha Graham’s repertory, such as Steps in the Street, serves as custodian of Jane Dudley’s The Bird as Prophet.

Dankmeyer collaborates in the lecture/performance The Legacy of the New Dance Group, which has been presented at Loyola University Chicago and at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. As a principal dancer in Deborah Zall’s In the Company of Women, a collective dedicated to the revival and presentation of dramatic solo characterizations by Zall, Dankmeyer has interpreted three solo works: Amanda, based on Tenessee Williams’ “The Glass Menagerie,” La Bonne Dame: Remembering George Sand, and a version of Anna Sokolow’s Kaddish created especially for Zall.  Her repertoire of historic reconstructions includes works by Jane Dudley (Time is Money, The Bird as Prophet), Mary Anthony (The Devil in Massachusetts), Anna Sokolow (Lyric Suite, Kaddish) as a guest artist with the Sokolow Dance Theater, and works by Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn for Williams College Museum of Art/Jacob’s Pillow Dance We Must exhibition. 

As Artistic Director of Dankmeyer Dance Company, a collective founded to explore the creation and performance of new work, Dankmeyer presented two seasons at NYC’s Dancespace Project (2002, 2006) and has presented work elsewhere in NYC, Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out, and beyond. Dankmeyer is also a founding member of 360º Dance Company, a company dedicated to reviving modern dance masterworks to be performed on programs alongside vibrant, contemporary commissions. The company debuted in Oslo, Norway and has performed at the NY Live Arts and the Ailey Theater in New York City.

Dankmeyer is a faculty member of the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance in New York City, and has also taught Movement for Actors at the Neighborhood Playhouse School for the Performing Arts. She has been Artist-in-Residence at Jacksonville University in Jacksonville, Florida and at Williams College. She co-founded CoDa (Contemporary Dance Ensemble) with co-Artistic Director Janine Parker.