Meet the Staff - National Dance Education Organization

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Meet the NDEO Staff

	Susan McGreevy-Nichols Executive Director Susan recently moved back east to become the new NDEO Executive Director after living in Santa Monica, CA for the past 10 years. While in CA, Susan worked as an independent National Arts Education Consultant. Her consulting work included coaching	Back to About NDEO Contact Us
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. Susan also was a part time lecturer at Loyola Marymount University and California State University Dominguez Hills. 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 as 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).
	Jane Bonbright Founding Executive Director (1997-2012) Jane earned her doctorate in education at Temple University. Dr. Bonbright dedicated fifty-five years to the field of dance specializing in performance, education, research, administration, and dance/arts advocacy at national and state levels. She began her career as a professional ballet dancer and toured the United States and Europe with major ballet companies. She is founding director of the Maryland Youth Ballet (MD), home school of artists Susan Jaffe, Julie Kent, Cheryl
Yaeger, Roger Plaut, Joanne Danto, and hundreds of other professional ballet dancers .She taught for thirty-five years in professional-oriented training academies, K-12, and colleges and universities before focusing on national issues involving policy, legislation, and funding for arts and education. Dr. Bonbright served as President and Executive Director for the National Dance Association before joining NDEO as Founding Executive Director in 1998 where she worked to establish NDEO as the national service organization for dance arts in US education. Dr. Bonbright served as Project Director for Research in Dance Education (2001-2005) and Professional Teaching Standards for Dance in the Arts (2005) and many national task force commissions. As Founding Executive Director of NDEO, Dr. Bonbright worked with over 100 federal/state government agencies and arts/education associations to ensure dance arts is included in the national agenda in U.S. education. She is the recipient of CORD’s Outstanding Leadership in Dance Education Award (2005), CODA’s Alma Hawkins Award of Excellence in Dance in Education (2007), and NDEO’s Lifetime Achievement Award (2009). She is grateful to every dance educator in America who works on a daily basis to advance dance as art in education, culture, and life. Thank you!

Melissa Greenblatt

Director of Marketing and Membership

Melissa is originally from Houston, Texas and first began dancing at the age of six. At her parent’s insistence, she pursued business and graduated with a Bachelor’s of Business Administration and Marketing from the University of Texas at Austin. After graduation, she worked in the corporate world of consumer products, spending thirteen years with Procter & Gamble. She continued dancing off and on throughout college

and while working. In early 2006, she had the unique opportunity to go back to school full time at the University of Maryland, studying dance with NDEO member Karen Bradley. At a Laban workshop at Maryland, she met NDEO Executive Director Jane Bonbright and realized the opportunity to combine her marketing background with her love of dance. She joined NDEO in 2007 as the Director of Marketing. Over the past few years, Melissa’s work at NDEO has broadened to include membership, NHSDA and state affiliate development.

Vilma Braja
Director of Finance

Originally from Albania, Vilma came to NDEO after working at Chevy Chase Bank as a Branch Manager. She has completed her studies in Finance and Accounting from the University of Maryland.

			Betsy Loikow Legislative Affairs and Development Betsy grew up in Washington, D.C., and began studying dance with NDEO founder Rima Faber, performing with The Primary Movers Performance Company as a child. She continued her dance education at the Washington School of Ballet, the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange and with artists of the Beth Davis in Good Company. She performed in D.J. Foster’s 1997 children’s
	video "Time to Dance." She continued dancing and choreographing through college and graduated with a B.A. in film and political science from Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY in 2008. She has worked on both local and national campaigns in the U.S. and abroad. After graduation, she was a field organizer for the Obama campaign in Virginia and worked on the 2009 presidential inauguration. She was elated to join NDEO in 2009 to work on legislative affairs, combining her love of dance with her passion for advocacy. Betsy continues dancing on a daily basis in the D.C. area as a founding member of the Glade Dance Collective and company member of DanceAntonini.

				Meghan Wlodarczyk Special Programs Born in Indiana and raised in South Carolina, Meghan joined NDEO staff in early 2011 to focus on expanding technology infrastructure, programming for Performing Arts Organizations, and online education. She received her BA in dance education and her BFA in dance, performance, and choreography from Columbia College in South Carolina. While at Columbia, she became interested in dance for the camera and decided to pursue a MA at Arizona State University with an emphasis in
	dance technology. Upon graduation, she taught at Cactus High School in Peoria, Arizona before moving to the Washington, DC area. In addition to her work with NDEO Meghan is currently a Dance and Perspectives teacher at A. Mario Loiederman Middle School and teaches ballet classes at a local studio called Ballet Petite.
				Lori Provost Administrative Assistant Lori joined NDEO in July 2012. She grew up in New Jersey and attributes her passion for dance education to her early training at Vineland Regional Dance Company, Pennsylvania Ballet, Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet, and Washington Ballet. Lori holds an MA in Dance Education from New York University with a concentration in American Ballet Theatre ballet pedagogy, an MA in Communications from Regent University, and a BA in English
	from Liberty University. Lori is also certified in ABT’s National Training Curriculum Levels Primary thru Level 7 and partnering. She enjoys teaching various populations and genres of dance. Her past teaching credits include: 92Y Harkness Dance Center, Liberty University, and Dance Theatre of Lynchburg. Outside of her work at NDEO, Lori also teaches ballet classes at BalletNova in VA and is the director of the dance program at the Melvin J Berman Hebrew Academy in MD. Lori is thankful for her work at NDEO, as it combines her love for writing, people, and life-long learning. Her main duties include project management and marketing for DELRdi, Awards, Scholarships, and Board Elections, as well as course editing for NDEO’s Online Professional Development Institute.
				Helene Scheff, R.D.E. Conference Planner First and foremost a teacher, Helene teaches master classes in Ballet, Tap, Character and Flamenco at various venues in Rhode Island. She is Administrative Director Emeritus, of a state-wide, in-school dance program called "Chance to Dance," which is celebrating the 25th anniversary of bringing quality dance education to school children in the state. Helene is a certified Dance Proficiency Coach/evaluator in the state of Rhode Island. Among other past credits: dance and technical theatre consultant
	and teacher at Roger Williams Middle School in Providence, RI; choreographer for South County Player's Children's Theatre in Wakefield, RI; chair for 2002 NDEO annual national conference; project director for Dance Alliance's Performance Arts Medicine Seminar (2003 and 2004); and presenter at numerous NDA, NDEO, MAHPERD, NHAPHERD and AAHPERD conferences. She is a published author with Human Kinetics and with two colleagues has written Building Dances (Editions I and II) Building More Dances, Experiencing Dance: from student to dance artist, Dance About Anything, and Exploring Dance forms and Styles with video clips of 44 dance genres through time and countries. Helene received the Inaugural National Registry of Dance Educators Curtain Call Dance Educator Award in 2008 for her outstanding contributions to the profession.
				Anne Dunkin, Ph.D. DELRdi Coordinator Anne Dunkin began working with NDEO in 2001 as a field researcher for the Research in Dance Education Project and became actively involved in developing the Dance Education Literature and Research descriptive index (DELRdi), which she currently coordinates. Her PhD is in dance history and theory from the U of California, Riverside and her MA is in human development education from the U of Maryland, College Park. She has directed dance studios in suburban Washington, DC, and Los Angeles, CA, and was assistant director of Raoul Gelabert’s Studio in NYC for several years. Through Qwindo’s Window, a
	dance company she co-founded and directed, she worked with state and county level education departments throughout twenty-six states presenting dance programs to children and their teachers. This included two residencies at the JFK Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC. Additionally she taught pre-service teachers at California State U, Fullerton for ten years. She has authored several journal articles, and Princeton Book company published her book, “Dancing in Your School: A Guide for Pre-School and Elementary School Teachers,” in 2006. She is currently preparing a dance history book for young readers.