Biography
GRETCHEN WARD WARREN has been a Professor
of Dance in the College of Visual and Performing Arts
at the University of South Florida in Tampa since
1983. Prior to this, she was Ballet Mistress of American
Ballet Theatre II in New York for five years, working
closely with Richard Englund and Mikhail Baryshnikov
in the recruitment and training of young dancers from
across the country.
From 1965-76, she danced as soloist
with the Pennsylvania Ballet, touring nationally and
performing leading roles in a diverse classical and
contemporary repertoire that included works by Petipa,
Fokine, Limon, Balanchine, and Van Manen. She has
studied ballet pedagogy in England and the USSR and
has taught teaching seminars throughout the United
States and Canada, as well as in Europe. Ms. Warren
has been a member of the summer faculty at the Boston
Ballet School, at Canada's National Ballet School
in Toronto and the Banff Centre School of Fine Arts
in Canada. Among the many other schools on whose faculty
she has served are The Australian Ballet School, the
Interlochen Arts Academy, the Ballet Aspen (formerly,
Ballet West) Summer Dance School, the Kansas City
Ballet Summer School (Crested Butte), and the Ballet
Austin Academy (Texas). She has also taught at the
National Ballet School of Cuba.
Since moving to Florida, she has choreographed seventeen
ballets and been the recipient of a number of grant
awards for a variety of creative endeavors. Her documentary,
"To Dance...", a film on young men who choose
dance as a career, appeared on public television in
the spring of 1989. Her large, photographic textbook,
Classical Ballet Technique (417 pgs., 2700 photographs,
Foreword by Robert Joffrey) was published by the USF
Press in November 1989. It is now in its seventh printing
and distributed internationally. In 1999, it was honored
by Amazon.com as their bestselling title among books
on dance notation. Her latest book, The Art of Teaching
Ballet: Ten 20th Century Masters, (University Press
of Florida, 1996) profiles ten great ballet teachers
from around the world. Also a bestseller, it was recently
translated into Japanese and published in Tokyo.
In addition to her work as teacher and choreographer,
Ms. Warren is also a member of United Scenic Artists
and has designed costumes for many dance companies
including American Ballet Theatre, Pennsylvania Ballet,
Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal, and the Miami City Ballet.
She is listed in Who's Who in America, has served
as a consultant-site visitor for the National Endowment
of the Arts Dance Panel, as Ballet Adjudicator for
the Spokane Music Festival, and as President of the
Florida Dance Association. Currently, she serves as
a dance assessor for professional ballet training
institutions funded by the Department of Canadian
Heritage.
In addition to her two books, Ms. Warren has also
written for DANCE MAGAZINE, DANCE TEACHER NOW, POINTE
magazine, THE ST. PETERSBURG TIMES entertainment section,
and for public radio WUSF-FM in Tampa. In 1997, she
was awarded a Fulbright Senior Scholar Fellowship
to Australia, where she spent six months teaching
ballet, lecturing on American dance, and conducting
research on contemporary Aboriginal dance companies.
Subsequently, she wrote and directed a large dance-theatre
production "Dancing with the Wheel of Ever Returning,"
which brought Aboriginal dancers from Australia to
work with Native American and modern dancers in Florida.
Tampa's Weekly Planet designated it "Best Theatrical
Event" for 2001 in the Tampa Bay area. She is
the 2002 recipient of the Selma Jeanne Cohen Lecture
Award for International Scholarship in Dance from
the Fulbright Association and a 2003 recipient of
a Presidential Scholar Award from the University of
South Florida. Most recently, she presented the keynote
speech at the 2005 Annual Seminar for Ballet and Modern
Dance Teachers at Canada's National Ballet School.
