Paula Peters

About Me

Paula J. Peters (MFA, Dance) is a dance artist, educator, author, and administrator based in Chicago, IL. Her teaching, scholarly, and creative research explores the many facets of jazz dance aesthetics, and pedagogy methods which serve all types of learners. Her choreography has been presented at Men In Dance, Cornish Dance Theater, University of Washington, SUNY Fredonia, University at Buffalo, MuCCC Dance Festival, Ujima Theatre Company, Teatro Zinzanni Chicago, BOOSTmeUp Festival, American College Dance Association and International Dance Day Festival, Lebanon. She has presented original research at Society for Dance History Scholars, Popular Culture Association, Dance Educators Association of Washington, New York State Dance Education Association, Dance Studies Association, and National Dance Education Organization national conferences, and her scholarship has been published in Seattle Dance Magazine, the Journal of Dance Education in Practice, in the textbook Rooted Jazz Dance: Africanist Aesthetics and Equity in the 21st Century, and she was awarded the 2021 Outstanding Dance Researcher award by the New York State Dance Education Association, and was nominated for the SUNY Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching and Learning. She was faculty at Cornish College of the Arts, Cornish Preparatory Dance, Dance Fremont, University of Washington, and Pacific Lutheran University, and served as an Associate Professor of Dance and the Dance Program Director for SUNY Fredonia (2016-2023). In addition to teaching, she served at the New York State level as the University Faculty Senator for SUNY Fredonia, advocating for fair and transparent shared governance policies between SUNY campuses and SUNY system administration. During her time at Fredonia, she revised the Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance curriculum to be in alignment with National Association of Schools of Dance educational standards and created a new Bachelor of Science degree in Dance to provide students the opportunity to pursue degrees in dance and another discipline. Prior to entering academia, she was a principal dancer with Spectrum Dance Theater in Seattle (1991-2005), performing and restaging works by choreographers of national and international prominence such as Anne Reinking, Lynne Taylor-Corbett, Claire Bataille, Frank Chaves, Dwight Rhoden, Danny Buraczeski, Donald Byrd, Margo Sappington, and Daniel Ezralow. Her core values as an educator are to ensure that students of all backgrounds, abilities, and ages develop a deep curiosity about the world around them, and how to apply the discipline, focus, and joy of effort learned in the dance classroom to every goal they pursue.