Shenandoah Conservatory is pleased to announce that Robbie Cook, M.F.A., has been appointed modern dance artist-in-residence beginning fall 2015. He will serve as the sabbatical replacement for assistant professor of dance Maurice Fraga, M.F.A., for the upcoming 2015–16 academic year.
On behalf of the search committee, Chair of the Dance Division and Associate Professor of Dance Ting-Yu Chen, M.F.A., expressed that “Robbie Cook’s teaching is illuminating and reflective of his depth of knowledge and experience as a dancer, choreographer and educator. He cultivates expressive dancers and creative thinkers with a high standard. We are thrilled to have him join the Shenandoah community.”
Cook comes to Shenandoah Conservatory after teaching modern dance technique courses, dance composition, contact improvisation and Pilates at Loyola Marymount University for four years. During the summer seasons, Cook teaches classes at both the Bates Dance Festival and American Dance Festival, two of the most prominent educational and professional dance communities in the country that attract dance artists from all over the world. He has taught internationally in Uruguay, Japan, Ireland and most recently at the i-Dance 2014 Festival in Hong Kong (also performing in the festival opening), The Chadwick International School in Incheon, South Korea, and has gone twice to Universidad de Las Américas in Puebla (UDLAP), México to teach and create choreography. Cook also conducted a contact improvisation workshop for the BODYTRAFFIC Company in Los Angeles and leads scholarship auditions nationwide for American Dance Festival.
Cook’s choreography has been performed nationally and internationally in Alaska, Brooklyn, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, North Carolina, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Tokyo, Japan. He has created work on students at Pepperdine University, UDLAP in México and Idyllwild Arts Academy. This summer he will originate a new choreography for a repertory class at American Dance Festival.
As a dancer, Cook has worked with Ishmael Houston-Jones, Douglas Dunn, Liz Lerman, Edwaard Liang, Margaret Jenkins, Liz Gerring, Keith Thompson, Stacy Spence, Jan Erkert, Xsight! Performance Group, Lucky Plush Productions, Dallas Opera’s Production of Boris Godunov and Deborah Hay (Solo Performance Commissioning Project ’01 and ’07) and performed Yvonne Rainer’s “Trio A” as a duet with Hope Mohr. He played percussion with String Theory Productions at the 2014 Emmy’s Governor’s Ball in Los Angeles and has collaborated with various dance and performance artists including Rosalynde Le-Blanc-Loo, Laurel Tentindo, Holly Rothschild, Cheng-Chieh Yu, Peter Sciscioli, Noriko Kato, Sheldon Smith and Lisa Wymore.
A certified practitioner in yoga and Pilates, Cook completed his M.F.A. in dance at Bennington College in Bennington, VT and his B.F.A. in visual art from the School of The Art Institute of Chicago in Illinois.