Noelle Bohaty is a tenured Associate Professor and the Director of Dance at the University of Nebraska-Kearney. She holds a Master of Fine Arts from The Ohio State University with an emphasis in choreography and performance. Her research interests include dance, theatre, text, and site-specific performance. Originally from Nebraska, Noelle has taught dance for more than 2 decades, including a year-long residency with 80+ middle and high school students from across the state at the Lied Center for Performing Arts in Lincoln – working on High School Musical! She was a guest instructor at the American College Dance Association and Lecturer of Dance at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She has taught at various pre-professional studios across the Midwest, most recently at BalletMet Academy in Columbus, OH.
To date, Noelle has choreographed and/or directed over 80 theatrical productions including Don Giovanni (The Ohio State University), Church Basement Ladies (Nebraska Repertory Theatre), Spamalot, Godspell, Wizard of Oz, Singin’ in the Rain (Lofte Community Theatre), Jason Robert Brown’s 13, and High School Musical (Lied Center for Performing Arts, Pinewood Bowl), Hairspray, Madagascar (Crane River Theatre), The World Goes ‘Round, and Eurydice (University of Nebraska-Kearney), which was an Invited Production for the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival 51. Recent premieres of original works include: how do we get from here to there?; over, Somewhere; How to Make Lemonade…or something like that; after: [shambles, math, glow]; the order of things; rubatosis, figurehead: waves to wreck and at what stakes, the devil you know, which examines the iconic life of Joan of Arc while troubling contemporary parallels of the spoils of war and the #MeToo movement. Her choreographic work has earned her awards from organizations such as Musical Theatre International, and the American College Dance Association Conference.
As a performer, Bohaty herself has appeared in numerous dance productions including Through the Dark (Minneapolis Fringe Festival), Sea of Red (N150 Lied Center for Performing Arts), Shards (Sheldon Museum of Art), Cie Blicke for Movement Arts and Design in Europe (Meliséy, France), and City of Angels (The Ohio State University). Ms. Bohaty has performed works by Melanie Bales, Susan Van Pelt Petry, Alexandra Beller, Nia Love, and David Marchant and was a principal dancer in Susan Levine’s company, SLOdance. Currently, she is collaborating with Jenna Riegel of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane company on an evening-length duet, neither: here nor there.
Bohaty graduated magna cum laude from Washington University in St. Louis, earning her Bachelor of Arts in Dance and Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology, with additional degrees in Acting and Children’s Studies (2008).
Noelle’s work seeks to provoke thought, mourn opportunity lost, and connect us to each other through the one thing we all share: bodies. Her classes follow a progression from exploring intention and initiation through floor work to driving through space with succulent fullness. Life is messy. Art-making finds the beauty in the mess. What you can’t speak, you sing. What you can’t sing, you dance.