UR Now: Student Experience
University of Richmond students take a road trip to NYC to learn about job options
Spiders travel to the Big Apple to meet alumni in creative careers, including at NBCUniversal, Amazon Ads, and the NBA.
Department of Theatre & Dance
The Department of Theatre & Dance provides a unique liberal arts experience where students thrive by engaging across difference and critically investigating the world through creative processes.
As artist-scholars from very different disciplines, we engage with students in solving complex problems through high-impact learning experiences that develop critical thinking, an appreciation for complexity and context, and the ability to communicate clearly in a variety of languages (verbal, visual, aural, spatial, behavioral, kinesthetic). While many of our students go on to pursue a life in the performing arts, our fundamental mission is for all our students to develop as well-rounded individuals with a broad spectrum of knowledge and skills to think and act creatively in an ever-changing and increasingly challenging local and global reality.
CURRENTS
February 27-March 1, Alice Jepson Theatre
University Dancers presents its 41st annual concert, featuring works by guest choreographers Ephrat Asherie, Nicolo Fonte, and Trey McIntyre, along with new pieces by department faculty Angelica Burgos, Deandra Clarke, Eric Rivera, and Anne Van Gelder. Selected student choreography is also featured, with costumes and lighting designed by faculty members Johann Stegmeir and Maja E. White
Nevermore
The Imaginary Life and
Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe
By Jonathan Christenson
April 16-19, Alice Jepson Theatre
Directed by Julie Fulcher-Davis, this dark and dazzling, bizarre and beautiful, gothic opera tells the tale of one of the world’s most famous and fascinating writers. Through its use of stunning stagecraft, underscored verse, and haunting music, Nevermore blends fact and fiction to create a fascinating and moving theatrical experience.
Department Mission Statement
The Department of Theatre & Dance is committed to diversity, inclusion, equity, and social justice. These values are central to the department’s curriculum, scholarship, teaching, art-making practices, and programming. Each student will engage with these values through curricular, intellectual, artistic, and personal endeavors. We commit to finding strength in our diversity, cultivating multiple perspectives, eliminating barriers to participation in the field, and fostering social justice. We uphold these values in our classes, rehearsals, play selections, casting, and our collaborative artistic processes. We continuously build more inclusive and equitable theatre and dance by foregrounding marginalized peoples and histories in our planning and policy decisions. We value creative engagement at the crossroads of theatre, dance, and social justice, traditional and non-traditional theatre, and dance-making practices both on and offstage.
Accessibility to Art Fosters Community
The University of Richmond Department of Theatre & Dance believes in the power of theatre and dance to build community through art, and that access to the arts should not be limited in any way. In partnership with the School of Arts & Sciences, we have created the UR Free Theatre & Dance initiative in order to remove economic barriers and make theatre and dance accessible to everyone.
University Dancers
University Dancers/DANC 306 is an auditioned student dance company of the University of Richmond in the Department Theatre & Dance. Students receive academic credit for participating in University Dancers/DANC 306. Founded in 1985 by Myra Daleng, the company’s current artistic director is Anne Van Gelder.
Auditions are held at the beginning of the fall semester, and students study a variety of dance and movement techniques such as African, ballet, contemporary, hip-hop, jazz, modern, and non-traditional partnering in company classes (three per week), master classes, and rehearsals.
A member of UD (Danc 306) is not required to be a dance major or minor to be in the company.
Feature Stories
UR Now: University News
University of Richmond takes a top spot among study abroad programs — again
UR is ranked No. 1 among peer institutions for the second consecutive year.
UR Now: Arts
Artists-in-residence share their expertise with the University of Richmond
Spoken word artist Marc Bamuthi Joseph, along with other creatives, offers fresh perspectives and involves students in high-level commissions and public performances.
UR Now: University News
A University of Richmond theatre professor takes his curtain call
Chuck Mike reflects on his last two decades of promoting social good through artistic performances, including a play about Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.
Faculty Highlights
Weldon awarded for short film about UR play and its creative design set
Emmy Weldon, assistant professor of theatre & dance, was awarded at the 32nd Annual James River Short Film Showcase for As You Liked It! A Reflection on Waste Culture, a documentary short film about the play performed at University of Richmond and its creative set design.
Díaz and Herrera’s latest film featured in ICA Richmond program
Alicia Díaz, associate professor of dance, and Patricia Herrera, professor of theatre, presented two new short films at New Spiritualities: Film as Ritual at the Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU. The program recognized their collaborative project, ruinas/ruins, developed through long-term artistic research at the abandoned sugar mill in Central Aguirre, Puerto Rico. Díaz and Herrera collaborated previously on an award-winning dance film.
Herrera and Díaz publish chapter in collection of Puerto Rican feminist essays
Patricia Herrera, professor of theatre, and Alicia Díaz, associate professor of dance, published the chapter “Radical Imaginings of Feminist Solidarities Entre Puerto Rico y Richmond” in Porque Estamos Aquí: Puerto Rican Feminisms Against Empire.
Weldon receives Bonner Foundation award
Emmy Weldon, assistant professor of theatre & dance, received the Bonnor Foundation Spirit of Ubuntu Award, given to individuals who embody the spirit of community engagement.
Resources
Contact Us
Mailing address:
Department of Theatre and Dance
Modlin Center for the Arts
453 Westhampton Way
University of Richmond, VA 23173
Phone: (804) 289-8592
Fax: (804) 287-1841
Box office: (804) 289-8980
Interim Department Chair: Dr. Olivier Delers
Administrative Coordinator: Rhonda Jackson