Naima Prevots | Lifetime Achievement Award
Naima Prevots, BA Brooklyn College, Phi Beta Kappa, MS University of Wisconsin, PhD, University of Southern California, is Professor Emerita from American University, where for 34 years she was Director of Dance and for three years was Chair, Department of Performing Arts. Her early influences include: classes in Dalcroze; with Graham, Nikolais, Holm, Limon, among others; performance with Cunningham as Brandeis University sophomore (1952) and with Marie Marchowsky at Henry Street Playhouse (1955, after transferring to Brooklyn College and graduating). She studied at Juilliard in 1959 and earned her MS in Dance in 1960. After moving to Washington DC in 1962 she co-founded a dance company, and was hired (1967) by American University where she was instrumental in creating the Department of Performing Arts (1973), with both undergraduate and graduate dance majors, and summer dance company residencies. By the 1970s her interests turned towards leadership, dance education, writing and criticism. She served on many boards and panels including ADG, CORD, SDHS, NDEO, NEH, NEA, NIPAD, D.C. Commission on the Art. She completed her PhD 1983. In 2000 she helped bring dance organizations together for the Millennium Conference. Writings have included dance education curriculum (Project CAREL pilot), and surveys; three books (Dancing in the Sun; American Pageantry; Dance for Export); numerous articles. Awards include: six Fulbright Fellowships; CORD outstanding publication; Pola Nirenska and university awards. She has been teaching “OPDI-106: Choreographic Explorations in Dance since 1953t” on-line for NDEO's OPDI program since 2012, and was recently published in JODE and Ballet Review.
Read Naima's Conference speech here.