GPS dancers and faculty were honored during the recent Tennessee Association of Dance Festival held in mid-October in Chattanooga. GPS dance teacher Laurel Zahrobsky received the 2014 Outstanding Dance Educator award, and Terpsichord president Nia Sanders was honored with a framed certificate and monetary award for her student choreography.
Ms. Zahrobsky, a former member of Terpsichord, GPS’s contemporary dance company, has been on the faculty for 11 years after a career as a professional dancer and pioneer in the field of interdisciplinary dance projects. As the primary middle school dance educator, she has developed a curriculum that incorporates creative movement, the brain dance, and basic dance technique.
According to Fine Arts Chair and Terpsichord Director Cathie Kasch, “She directly incorporates material from Global Cultures and American studies into her classes so that the dancers are learning how to think deeply about what they are learning both in dance and in other classrooms.”
Ms. Zahrobsky, who serves as assistant director for Terpsichord, teaches modern, ballet, jazz, and choreography. Her classes “produce college bound dancers who experience great success once they enter college dance departments,” says Ms. Kasch, who won the Outstanding Educator award in 2000.
For the dance festival held at four sites across Chattanooga, the student choreography showcase allowed students to submit their own choreographic works along with an essay describing their intent and artistic process. There were many applicants from around the South, and GPS dancers had two works receive the honor of being presented: On the Line, a duet choreographed and performed by Mary Lillian Tessmann and Meg Winchester, and Locked, by Nia Sanders with a cast of eight Terpsichord dancers. From this select group, Ms. Sanders was one of three choreographers, and the only student from Tennessee, honored as winners.