Globally-renowned choreographer joins USF dance faculty

There’s a new face, and a bold new vision, at the University of South Florida’s School of Theatre & Dance.

Jennifer Archibald, an internationally-lauded contemporary choreographer, has joined the faculty as a tenure-earning professor of hip hop, contemporary and commercial dance. Classes began today on the main campus in Tampa.

“We already have a great program here, but having someone of Jennifer’s caliber, and Jennifer’s notoriety, is enormous,” said Professor of Dance Michael Foley. “It continues to pivot us in extraordinary ways, not just for the students, but for the institution.”

The founder and artistic director of New York’s Arch Dance Company and program director of ArchCore40 Dance Intensives, Archibald has been commissioned by dance companies including the National Ballet of Canada, Ballet X, Ailey II, BalletMet, the Washington Ballet, Jacob’s Pillow, the Kennedy Center, Atlanta Ballet, Ballet West and a dozen others.

A graduate of the Ailey School, the Toronto native is an Acting Lecturer at the Yale School of Drama, and was appointed as a Guest Faculty Lecturer to develop the hip hop dance curriculum at Columbia/Barnard College. She was the first female Resident Choreographer in Cincinnati Ballet’s 40-year history.

“Embracing the whole range of human experience – from the sticky to the aspirational to the dark – and developing a movement vocabulary that blends classical ballet with hard-hitting street styles have helped make Archibald one of the dance world’s busiest choreographers,” wrote Dance magazine earlier this year.

Her choreography of Lord of the Flies, for Ballet X, premiered in May.  “No other Black female choreographer is getting full-length ballets,” she told Dance. “This is hard – convincing a ballet organization to believe in your work and to believe in it on a financial level.”

Still, she said, “What makes me wake up every morning is just to continue the work.”

Foley said Archibald will continue to accept commissions, and to work with other organizations, as she teaches at USF. “Moving into academia at the same time that you’re still very much at the height of your professional career and your creative career, this feels like the right thing,” he elaborated.

“The universities were once the Medicis for artists, where artists could be and create and share, and educate, and make their best stuff. And why not here? Why not let this be the place where you start making all of your stuff, and you take it out to the world?”