By Melanie Bales
Next year 2015-16 the Department of Dance has the great pleasure of welcoming Ann Sofie Clemmensen as a three-year visiting assistant professor. She brings with her a bouquet of talents and fine personal qualities that have enriched and enlivened our hallowed halls since receiving her MFA in 2013. As freshmen “den mother” she has created a comprehensive and deep experience for entering students by leading the Freshmen Seminar and teaching her special approach to contemporary technique. In the seminar she brings her formidable expertise in digital technologies to the creative table while orienting her flock to possibilities in dance that they could not have imagined. As a dancer of rare and breathtaking beauty, and a teacher of seemingly limitless creativity, Sofie is able to take her students to new places of rigor and self-discovery in their work. As a colleague, she is the ultimate “go to” person, a smart and insightful problem-solver who always seems to come up with just the right solution. Her choreography has already garnered praise from many quarters — including the dancers that are lucky enough to be cast in it — and has been seen recently in New York and on the China tour. It will be so exciting to see where she takes herself, and the department, in the years to come!
