Trudy Cobb Dennard

Biography

Trudy Cobb Dennard, MFA (Master of Fine Arts in Dance) is a Faculty Emerita in the College of Fine Arts & Communication at Towson University. She earned her MFA at the University of Michigan and has studied many different styles and techniques of dance including Dunham technique with Clifford Fears and Walter Nicks, jazz with Pepsi Bethel, Bucket technique with Garth Fagan, African dance with Chuck Davis and African-American dance styles with Jawole Willa Jo Zollar. She performed with The Bucket Dance Theatre and as a soloist and with other artists under the auspices of Trudy Cobb & Dances.

Before coming to Towson University, Ms. Cobb Dennard served as a faculty member and/or quest artist at Western Michigan University, Binghamton University, University of Memphis, SUNY Brockport, Arizona State University and Wayne State University (MI). She has collaborated with composers, orchestral directors, playwrights, actors, video artists, directors and other dancers. She has directed and choreographed several musicals and received grants to support her choreography and her research. Ms. Cobb Dennard’s research interests include the documentation of the contributions of African Americans to the field of dance, with attention on the contributions of regionally based African American dance companies and, by some, their work to preserve African and African American dance forms. She collected the oral history of the late Joseph Nash, dance historian and the foremost archivist of African American dance memorabilia in the United States and has choreographed a work based on his life. She has a special interest in the role of dance in praise and worship and has worked with dance ministries in Baltimore, MD and in Kalamazoo, MI teaching technique.

From 2004-2011 she served Towson University as associate dean of the College of Fine Arts and Communication. Prior to this administrative position, she served SUNY Binghamton as associate dean for academic affairs and Western Michigan University as chair of dance. She presents workshops on arts administration, dance technique, and dance and technology, jazz dance, African and African-American dance styles. She serves as an accreditation evaluator for the National Association of Schools of Dance and developed NASD’s first New Chairs Seminar. She was on the faculty of the 2010-11 Council of Colleges of Arts and Sciences Chair Seminar for new and continuing chairs.