Trish Casey

Trish Casey is Faculty Emeritus with the School of Dance, which she joined in 1989. She was an Associate Professor in the Contemporary Dance program and had a joint faculty appointment in the Division of Liberal Arts. As a proud alumna of both the high school and undergraduate programs at UNCSA, Casey has a long-standing relationship with the school spanning more than four decades. She declares herself to be “shaped by the wisdom, vision, practices and aesthetic values of beloved teachers along the way,” and in turn, she continues to inspire students who will impact the field for years to come.

Casey's students are encouraged to enter into a journey of life-long learning and inquiry as they build a strong technical, creative and intelligent foundation in dance. This paradigm suggests fostering patience with “not knowing,” and discovering a way of working with the whole of the self, even in such specialized circumstances, in a more mindful and curious manner.

Credentials

• Danced with the companies of Pauline Koner, Don Redlich and Marcia Plevin.
• Additional teaching credits include Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne, Australia, University of Southern Mississippi and Southern Methodist University.
• Directed creativity-based workshops for dance educators, choreographers and professional dancers in New Mexico, Texas and North Carolina.
• Special projects include “A Dance Gathering” in Dallas, Texas, which continues to serve as an annual event hosting professionals’ work from around the country, as well as “Thinking, Making, Doing Together”, a choreographic intensive for dance artists in collaboration with members of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company.
• Choreographed and co-directed dance film "Surrendering in a Champion’s World," which received an award at the RiverRun International Film Festival and was later entered into the Santa Fe Film Festival.
• Prior areas of concentrated study include Body-Mind Centering with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, Ideo-kinesis with the late Andre Bernard and Iyengar Yoga.
• Continuing education and mentorship with Irene Dowd in Neuromuscular Re-education/Functional Anatomy.

Career Highlights

• Long-standing vital connections with various alumni that are treasured both professionally and personally.
• Working on many of the original choreographies created in her time here – especially her first, Blue Moon, Grove, and Surrendering in a Champion’s World (Dance and Film version)
• Having the opportunity to travel, study and retreat to Scotland, Turkey, Brussels, Lithuania and Italy to connect, renew, converse and dream with colleagues from over 35 years of my professional life.
• Continued study with teacher and mentor, Irene Dowd.
• Served two terms on the UNCSA Faculty Council Chair, long-standing service to Faculty Council as School of Dance Representative.

Awards, Recognitions and Honors

• UNCSA Teaching Excellence Award, 1997, 2005, 2019
• UNC Board of Governors Excellence in Teaching Award, 2014