Who We Are
Crystal Michelle Perkins
Assistant Professor, The Ohio State University
Associate Artistic Director, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company
Crystal Michelle Perkins is a choreographer, teacher and performer who served as the Associate Artistic Director of the internationally renowned Dayton Contemporary Dance Company (DCDC). Previous to her appointment, she was a dancer with DCDC’s professional touring company for nine seasons. She served as resident choreographer, and was charged with maintaining an extensive repertory of masterworks by beloved African American choreographers, including works by Donald Byrd, Donald McKayle and Dianne McIntyre. In 2014, she received the Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council and the Josie Award, which recognizes exceptional performance in the art of dance. Ms. Perkins holds a MFA in Dance from The Ohio State University, and a BFA in Dance Performance from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX. She is a member of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters inaugural class of Leadership Fellows, and a member of the OhioDance Board of Trustees.
As a choreographer, performer, and researcher she has traveled both nationally and internationally, including to Ougadougou, Burkina Faso where she began The Beautiful Archive Project, an audio archive centered on the perception of black female embodiment in contemporary dance performance. The cornerstone of her choreographic research, the collection operates as the foundation for Boxing Up Beautiful, an intermedia performance investigation of those same ideals.
Ms. Perkins has collaborated with the Dayton Philharmonic, Blackbird String Quartet, The University of Dayton’s Department of Music, and the Khalid Moss Jazz Trio. The later created an original composition for her ensemble work entitled Unrested and Unfaithful, which sits in DCDC’s permanent repertoire. The Descent of this Water: Rain (2014), an embodied reflection on the process of migration for people of color in the American south, was commissioned by the Dublin Arts Council as a site-specific collaborative community project. Ms. Perkins has created dance works and taught master classes for Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Cutno Dance, SMAG Dance Collective, and Stivers School for the Arts Dance Ensemble. She has been a guest artist for the New Orleans Ballet Association/NOLA, the Augusta Ballet Company, Compton Dance Theatre and The Moving Architects. Currently she is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Dance at The Ohio State University, where she teaches contemporary movement practice.
Fen Kennedy
Assistant Professor, University of Alabama
Dr Fen Kennedy is an Assistant Professor of Dance at the Universty of Alabama. Their research - creative and theoretical - examines how the various articulations of our social and cultural values, and how those values can be challenged and changed. Kennedy holds a PhD in Dance Studies from the Ohio State university, and prior to joining the faculty at UA they lectured at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, London. They also served as the rehearsal director for Nutshell Dance Company, and performed with Aegis Live Arts. As an immigrant to the United States, first generation student and transgender/queer advocate, Kennedy is broadly known for their work with social justice and their commitment to inclusive approaches to dance and to the University system.
Kennedy's work can be read in Dance Chronicle, The Journal of Dance Education, The Activist History Review, and Politics as Public Art: The Aesthetics of Political Organizing and Social Movements [Forthcoming]. They are an editor for The Activist History Review and the co-editor ofRevolutionary Aesthetics: Making Art in the Face of Political Polarization. Kennedy also maintains the popular dance blog "The Headtail Connection. https://headtailconnection.wordpress.com
Kennedy's choreography has most recently been commissioned for The Ohio State University school touring company, C for Courtside Galley TN, and the Alabama Repertory Dance Theatre. In addition to their concert dance work Kennedy teaches, organizes, DJs and dances as part of the social partner dance community.
Benny Simon
Assistant Professor, Ohio University
PhD Candidate, The Ohio State University
Benny Simon, MA, is an Assistant Professor of Instruction and Director of the Summer Dance Institute in the School of Dance at Ohio University. He received an MA in Dance Education from New York University and is currently a PhD candidate in Dance Studies at The Ohio State University where his research explores the intersection of dance and technology as a model for imagining sustainable futures. Benny continues a decades-long teaching and choreographic practice and has held faculty and teaching artist positions at Dance Space Center, Dance New Amsterdam, BalletMet, Gibney Dance, The Mark Morris Dance Center, Peridance Capezio Center, The 92nd Street Y, Ecole de Danse de Québec, and at New York University and Brandeis University. His work has been presented at Syracuse University, The Davidson Theatre in Columbus, OH, the Upstart Festival at the Brooklyn Artists Exchange, Triskelion Arts, and most recently at Ohio University’s Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium.
In addition to his teaching and artistic pursuits, Benny previously served on the board of Dance New Amsterdam and Alexandra Beller/Dances. He has held managerial positions as Senior Vice President of Technology at 360i and Director of Marketing at Gibney Dance. In 2018 he founded the Simon Family Scholarship, which subsidizes the cost of training for emerging dancers and created the DANCE ‘n TELL network. Most recently, Benny presented the paper, “Kissing Drones: Dance Composition in Dronified Spaces” at the Conference for Research on Choreographic Interfaces at Brown University.
Tammy Sugden Carrasco
Assistant Professor, SUNY Brockport
Tammy Carrasco is a dance artist originally from Chapel Hill, North Carolina and an alumna of Walnut Hill School. She received her BFA in Contemporary Dance from University of North Carolina School of the Arts and her MFA from The Ohio State University (OSU) where she received a University Fellowship. She has studied with Bebe Miller, Susan Rethorst, Jennifer Nugent and Ishmael Houston-Jones, among others. Carrasco worked as School Operations Coordinator at American Dance Festival in Durham, NC. She served as Rehearsal Director, choreographer and performer for the OSU Repertory Company, which she toured to local schools and China. Carrasco is Lead Dance Instructor at North Carolina Governor’s School East at Meredith College.
Her work has been presented at Movement Research at Judson Church, Gowanus Art and Production, and Performance Garage, as well as the dance festivals OhioDance and Rochester Fringe 2015. She and her collaborator, Sarah Levitt, are recent recipients of Columbus Dances Fellowship from the Greater Columbus Arts Council. They continue to create work together through long-distance collaborations. Tammy is thrilled to join the dance faculty at SUNY Brockport and make Rochester home. She teaches contemporary, ballet, composition and improvisation, and continues to create new works in academic and professional settings.