Susan Pope
- Adjunct Instructor Theatre and Dance College of the Arts
- TLRN Clinical Mentor Teaching and Learning College for Education and Engaged Learning
- Adjunct Instructor Teaching and Learning College for Education and Engaged Learning
- popes@montclair.edu
- Office Hours (Fall)
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Fridays, 9 am -1 pm
Biography
Dr. Susan Pope is a dance educator, scholar, author, and arts-based researcher whose work centers embodied pedagogy, Africanist aesthetics, portraiture methodology, and multimodal forms of representation. With more than 30 years of experience in dance education, she has made significant contributions to arts education in K–12, higher education, and community settings. Her teaching career includes positions with the Newark Board of Education and the New York City Department of Education, where she also directed the SUMA/Children’s Aid Society Dance Company.
At Montclair State University, Dr. Pope serves as adjunct professor, coordinator for the Dance Education BA program, and member of the Transformative Education Network (TEN) Field Team. She teaches courses including Dance for Children, Portraiture: An Embodied Way of Writing, Social Studies and the Arts, Arts and Creativity in Early Childhood, and Black Dance in America.
Dr. Pope earned her doctorate in Dance Education from Teachers College, Columbia University. Her scholarship explores embodied learning through Indigenous and African diasporic perspectives, culturally relevant pedagogy, arts-based research, and dance as a site of storytelling, healing, and community engagement. She has presented her work nationally and internationally at conferences and panels including the Collegium for African Diasporic Dance (CADD), the National Dance Education Organization (NDEO), and the Arnhold Institute panel, Moving Forward: Transforming Dance Education Through Research and Praxis.
As a performer, Dr. Pope has danced with the Rod Rogers Dance Company and the Hudson City Repertory Dance Company. She is also a published author whose work appears in journals and books including Dance Education in Practice, the International Journal of AAHPERD, I DANCE BECAUSE…, and DANCING MY PRAYERS, a guide to combining movement and prayer in devotional practice. Her recent book chapter in The Handbook of Dance Education Research illustrates the privileges of portraiture, a qualitative phenomenological research method
Dr. Pope leads workshops for dance educators, classroom teachers, artists, and civic organizations on creative movement, culturally responsive teaching, and embodied pedagogy. She has taught creative movement internationally in Accra, Ghana, and Panama City, Panama. A certified trauma-informed yoga and meditation instructor, she also serves as a facilitator for the Dance Education Laboratory in New York and consults through her nonprofit organization, I Dance Because.
Through her work with the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC), Dr. Pope curates the Elder Stories project and frequently facilitates community engagement workshops. Affectionately known as the “elders' griot,” she has documented and preserved the stories of prominent Black elders in Newark and currently serves on the NJPAC Dance Advisory Council.