KIMBERLY KARPANTY, Associate Professor, teaches modern and jazz dance technique, jazz dance history, dance composition, dance mechanics and other related academics. She has served as the Artistic Director of the Kent Dance Ensemble since 1996. Ms. Karpanty holds a Master of Fine Arts in Choreography and Dance Technology from Arizona State University and an M. A. in Dance and Dance Education from New York University. She performed professionally in New York City for over ten years, and taught modern and jazz dance in New York City on the faculties of Dance Space, Inc., Steps on Broadway, the 92nd Street Y, the Spence School and the Steffi Nossen School of Dance. She danced with Rondo American Dance Theatre in works by Anna Sokolow, Manuel Alum, Moses Pendleton, and Murray Louis, and was a soloist with Linda Nutter & Dancers. She was a founding member of the collaborative, interdisciplinary group StraightJacket/Danza en vano, the 1993 recipient of the U.S./Mexico Fund for Culture Grant. More recently, she has performed works by Jennifer Tsukayama, GarnerGutierrez-Garner Dance, Tommy Parlon Dance Projects and Cliff Keuter. Karpanty is a founding member and co-director of Travesty Dance Group, which tours nationally and internationally. Her professional training includes extensive time in the Limon and Taylor schools, Hawkins, and Horton/Lewitsky techniques. She is also a part of the Lynn Simonson jazz dance legacy, and a certified trainer in Core Dynamics Pilates. Professor Karpanty has been an invited guest teacher at numerous universities and dance festivals including North Carolina School of the Arts, Hope College, Richard Stockton College, the Florida New Arts Festival, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Arizona State University, the Steffi Nossen Dance Company, the Akron Dance Institute, and annually at the American College Dance Festival Regional Conferences. Her choreography has been performed throughout the US and abroad in Argentina, Mexico, Costa Rica as part of the 2004 Jazz Dance World Congress. Additional honors for her work include two consecutive awards from the Dance in Education Fund, Inc. (NY), and commissions for choreography from the Northeast Ohio Dance Ensemble, Richard Stockton College (NJ), Arizona State University, Instinct Dancecorps (AZ) and Rayn Dance Theatre (AZ). Her research areas include jazz dance history, dance science, and interactive performance.