Professor, Department of Dance and Theatre
Manhattanville College, Purchase, NY
While teaching at Manhattanville College, Ara continued to interweave dance and theatre as a choreographer, writer and performer known for her solo performance work. Her rich and varied career in contemporary dance and choreography for theatre (on & off Broadway) gave her a broad perspective which, along with the proximity of the college to NYC, allowed for the assemblage of a remarkable roster of faculty and guest artists dedicated to mentoring a new generation of dance theatre artists.
Among her favorite courses to teach were Creative Process and Composition where students begin to discover their voices in the expressive languages of dance and theatre. In Performance Seminar: NYC Now! students attended some of the finest offerings in that season of Dance and Theatre in NYC.
At M’Ville she created site specific pieces for The Lady Chapel, the magical small meditation center redesigned by Maya Lin and What You Will Come Back To on the marble stairs of Reid Hall (' the castle'), works for the dance concert and choreography for Shakespeare productions.
Ara served as Associate Director with visionary Director of Dance and Theatre, Professor Michael Posnick (1994-2012) and as Director from 2013-2016. Before joining the faculty at Manhattanville, she taught dancers and actors at Connecticut College,The National Theatre Institute (Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center), Trinity Square Conservatory, Rockland Community College and The Hartman Conservatory.