& OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS
Crystal Michelle Perkins
Photography by Stephanie Matthews
Crystal Michelle Perkins is a choreographer, teacher and performer who served as the Associate Artistic Director of the internationally renowned Dayton Contemporary Dance Company (DCDC). She was a dancer with DCDC’s professional touring company for nine seasons. She served as resident choreographer, and was charged with maintaining an extensive repertory of masterworks by beloved African American choreographers, including works by Donald Byrd, Donald McKayle and Dianne McIntyre.
In 2014, she received the Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council and the Josie Award, which recognizes exceptional performance in the art of dance. Ms. Perkins holds a MFA in Dance from The Ohio State University, and a BFA in Dance Performance from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX. She is a member of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters inaugural class of Leadership Fellows, and a member of the OhioDance Board of Trustees.
As a choreographer, performer, and researcher she has traveled both nationally and internationally, including to Ougadougou, Burkina Faso where she began The Beautiful Archive Project, an audio archive centered on the perception of black female embodiment in contemporary dance performance. The cornerstone of her choreographic research, the collection operates as the foundation for Boxing Up Beautiful, an intermedia performance investigation of those same ideals.
Ms. Perkins has collaborated with the Dayton Philharmonic, Blackbird String Quartet, The University of Dayton’s Department of Music, and the Khalid Moss Jazz Trio. The later created an original composition for her ensemble work entitled Unrested and Unfaithful, which sits in DCDC’s permanent repertoire. The Descent of this Water: Rain (2014), an embodied reflection on the process of migration for people of color in the American south, was commissioned by the Dublin Arts Council as a site-specific collaborative community project. Ms. Perkins has created dance works and taught master classes for DCDC, Cutno Dance, SMAG Dance Collective, and Stivers School for the Arts Dance Ensemble. She has been a guest artist for the New Orleans Ballet Association/NOLA, the Augusta Ballet Company, Compton Dance Theatre and The Moving Architects. Currently she is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Dance at The Ohio State University, where she teaches contemporary movement practice.
Susan Van Pelt Petry
Photography by Stephanie Matthews
Susan Van Pelt Petry is a choreographer, solo performer, and arts advocate. In addition to concert dance work, she has choreographed for operas, site specific projects, and film. During the 80’s and 90’s Susan was the Artistic Director of The Van Pelt Dance Ensemble in Columbus, Ohio and was a guest artist at universities and residencies. Highlights include a residency at Headlands Center for the Arts in California, teaching at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts and at the Taiwan National University of the Arts, and serving as company teacher and rehearsal director for the Cloud Gate Dance Company of Taiwan.
Susan has received eight Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Awards over the years, The Greater Columbus Arts Council’s Raymond J. Hanley Fellowship in 2013, and OhioDance’s award for Contributions to Dance Education in 2016. In 2018, The International Festival for Contemporary Dance in Mexico City invited her to a program of performers over 40. Opera credits include Opera Columbus’ 2018 Madama Butterfly and 2017 Carmen with director Crystal Manich, and OSU’s 2016 Dido & Aeneas, directed by A. Scott Parry. In 2017 with grants from Critical Difference for Women, Greater Columbus Arts Council, and The Puffin Foundation, she performed my one-woman show, The Linen Closet and Other Collections. Recent projects include the video series 19ChoreOVIDs, created about and during the pandemic and shared widely through WOSU’s Broad & High series and Urban Arts Space Hybrid Gallery.
Petry has been associated with The Ohio State University off and on since 1983 in a range of positions including Visiting Artist, graduate student, lecturer, staff, Assistant Dean, Chair, and Professor, and currently for her last year before retiring is Interim Chair in the Department of Dance. She has been on the board of directors of OhioDance, National Association of Schools of Dance, Strategic National Arts Alumni Project, and currently with Columbus Dance Alliance. At Ohio State, she has worked closely with the Global Arts and Humanities Discovery Theme and the Second Year Transformative Experience Program.
Photography by Stephanie Matthews
Photography by Stephanie Matthews