Partnering Dance and Education: Intelligent Moves Changing Times Paperback - 1998

Judith Lynne Hanna has spent a half-century dancing, researching, writing, and teaching others about dance in community centers, schools, and universities. After teaching English and social studies for the Los Angeles City School System, she held positions at Michigan State University, American University, Fordham University, and the University of Texas at Dallas. She has conducted field research on dance and other subjects in countries around the world. Currently, she is a Senior Research Scholar at the University of Maryland and an expert court witness nationwide on cases concerning freedom of expression through dance.

Hanna has long been a leading advocate to make dance an essential component of children's education. In 1972, at Gill/St. Bernard's Upper School in Bernardsville, NJ, she offered an interdisciplinary dance-centered course. Between 1989 and 1993, Hanna worked for the United States Department of Education, where she was able to assess what is happening in dance education throughout the United States.

Hanna received her PhD in anthropology from Columbia University in 1976. She has explored how knowledge in the arts, humanities, and social and behavioral sciences helps us understand dance. Her books include To Dance Is Human: A Theory of Nonverbal Communication; Dance, Sex, and Gender: Signs of Identity, Dominance, Defiance, and Desire; The Performer-Audience Connection: Emotion to Metaphor in Dance and Society; Dance and Stress: Resistance, Reduction, and Euphoria; and Disruptive School Behavior: Class Race and Culture. Hanna's articles have appeared in Dance Teacher Now, Ballet Review, Stagebill, Education Week, Dance Magazine, Anthropology and Education, and The Washington Post.

Hanna's numerous awards include a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship and the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance's Anderson Award for significant publications.