Marie Alonzo Snyder, Ed.D 

Program Director

Originally from the Philippines and raised in Rome, Italy, Marie Alonzo Snyder is a dancer, choreographer, dance educator and dance scholar who has performed and worked in the Princeton Area since 1998.  

She received her BFA and MFA in dance from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and in 1995 Marie earned her EdD in Arts Education from Teachers College, Columbia University.

As a production and program manager for Asian American Arts Center, in NYC’s Chinatown, Marie initiated, developed, and coordinated educational and cultural programs for the community and for Asians and non-Asian artists.

 D.A.N.C.E Instructors: Kim Chervenyak, Marie Snyder, Alison Maxwell 

Water Dance Residency March 14- April 10, 2008

Millstone River School – 4^th and 5^th graders.

This dance residency will consist of five days (one period each) over a period of two to three weeks. The residency’s goal is to have students explore viewing dances as a tool for self-expression and as a means to transform ideas into movement experiences that communicate on an intellectual, physical and emotional level.  Classes will focus on guided improvisational exercises, which allow students to explore individual movement vocabulary necessary to create dance “phrases”.    Fundamental elements of movement (Rudolph Laban’s Body/Time/Force/Space) as well as Motif symbols (notation also by Laban) will be introduced, identified and explored.

Poetry by Thomas Locker is introduced as a theme for the students' group works.  Qualities, movements and imagery from poems are explored and developed into ideas for the content of their dances.  This particular unit on water, in all of it's states, will foster kinesthetic, creative, and social processes.  The residency will culminate with an informance on April 10th, an opportunity to inform the audience on dance education and an opportunity for the students to experience the performance component of dance.

The residency is funded by the West Windsor-Plainsboro Education Foundation with the support of grants from Target and Middlesex County Cultural and Heritage Commission.