Description:

Marsha Fay Knight (MFA University of Utah) is a Professor at the University of Wyoming where her primary responsibilities lie in the teaching of ballet and pointe technique, historical dance, choreography, and dance pedagogy for over 35 years. Marsha’s early training began in Richmond, VA, with continued training at the University of Utah under Willam Christensen, Toni Lander Marks and Li-Chou Cheng. Full-evening productions include Coppélia, Pulcinella, and Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth and additional musicals. Marsha’s contemporary ballet, Of a Mind, was selected for presentation at the Kennedy Center through the adjudication process of the American College Dance Association.

Marsha directed the 8th production of The Nutcracker this past December; a Department of Theatre and Dance offering that takes place every fourth year. The ballet involves 115 cast and crew members and the UW Symphony Orchestra in five performances including an elementary school show and outreach workshops.

Conceived/directed by Knight and produced by the Department of Theatre and Dance in April 2017, Six Songs from Ellis is a full-evening dance/theatre piece composed of oral histories of immigrants and refugees who passed through Ellis Island. A subsequent tour reached ten Wyoming communities with 29 related workshops and presentations. All content was edited from the Oral History Collection at Ellis Island. Compilation was the result of Marsha’s 2016-17 sabbatical research in NYC and seminal production. Additional sabbatical activity included establishing plans with Dance Theatre of Harlem as Eminent Artists in-Residence at UW Fall ’17, teaching in NYC at Ballet Academy East and Dance Theatre of Harlem’s School, and continuing research in Baroque and Renaissance dance practice. She observed a month of classes at the Moscow Arts Theatre May 2017, as well as at the Vaganova Ballet Academy, St. Petersburg.

Marsha served on the Executive Committee of the American College Dance Association as VP for Nominations and Elections from 2012-2018. She is the 2018 recipient of UW’s President’s Speaker Series and a recipient of a 2018 Governor’s Arts Award from the Wyoming Arts Council.