Director of DEL at Jacob’s Pillow & DEL Institute
Ann Biddle has been a dance educator, staff developer, curriculum consultant, writer, and choreographer for the past 30 years. She is currently the Director of the Dance Education Laboratory (DEL) Institute for Professional Learning and Advancement and the Director of DEL at Jacob’s Pillow. As the Founding Faculty of the Dance Education Laboratory (DEL) at the 92nd St Y with Jody Arnhold (1994 to present) Ms. Biddle has designed and taught multiple courses for DEL including Foundations in Dance Education, DEL Essentials, Planet Dance-Multicultural Dance Education, Dancing in Early Childhood, Dance and Nature, Teaching from Transformation to Inspiration (Tina Curran), Dance and Literacy (Barbara Bashaw), Teaching Dance Technique, DEL: The Next Generation, the DEL Facilitators Training Program, Dance for Social Change, Hip Hop to the Top (Shakia Barron & Eli Kababa), Tracing Footsteps, and the DEL Essentials OPDI course for NDEO. Ms. Biddle has been a Dance Lecturer at UMASS/Amherst Dance Department, Mount Holyoke College, and Skidmore College.
As a staff developer and curriculum consultant, Ms. Biddle has partnered with numerous cultural organizations including Urban Bush Women, Doug Varone, Flamenco Vivo, Jose Limon Dance Company, Ballet Hispanico, New York City Ballet, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Movement Research, Jonah Bokaer, HT Chen Dance Center, and Robin Becker Dance Company. Ms. Biddle has taught overseas at the National University in Costa Rica as a Fulbright scholar and at the School of Performing Arts at the University of Ghana. Additionally, she worked closely with the late Alan Lomax as a Choreometrics analyst and is currently an advisor to the Global Jukebox initiative.
Biddle was an advisor and contributor to the NYC Department of Education’s Blueprint for Teaching and Learning in Dance, PreK-12, and has been an NYCDOE Blueprint professional development facilitator since 2005. She is also a scorer for the Massachusetts Dance MTEL exam. Ms. Biddle was the Director of Arts Programs at the Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter School (PVPA) in South Hadley, MA, and Director of the Dance Department from 2011-2018. She is the Director of the DEL PVPA dance mentorship program featured in the upcoming documentary film, PS Dance! The Next GENeration, Executive Producer, Jody Arnhold, filmmaker, Nel Shelby.
As a writer, Ms. Biddle’s dance teachers’ curricula and training manuals include The Essence of Cool: West Side Story, New York Export: Opus Jazz the Film (NYC Ballet), Dance Motion USA Doug Varone and Argentinian Brenda Angiel’s aerial collaboration, Richard Daniel’s Dances for iPhone film series, Wonderdance early childhood curriculum, Dance Making Inspired by Langston Hughes Poetry, Re-imagining D-Man in the Waters, the DEL Facilitators Training Manual and Robin Becker’s Into Sunlight Dance Curriculum. She is a frequent presenter at NDEO conferences and was selected to pilot the Model Cornerstone Assessments as part of NCCA. In addition, Ms. Biddle has published integrated curricular units though the NYC DOE such as Dance Units Inspired by Literary Works (2016), and The Essence of Pearl Primus through Photography and Poetry: The Negro Speaks of Rivers (2018). Ms. Biddle is currently the Project Director of the DEL Tracing Footsteps: Honoring Diverse Voices in NYC Dance History curriculum project.
She earned a B.A. in English Literature from Kenyon College and a M.A. in Dance Education from Teachers College, Columbia University. Ms. Biddle is currently a doctoral candidate in the Dance Education EdD program at Teachers College and is a recipient of the Susan Furhman and Arnhold Foundation scholarships. Her research interests include teacher education and preparation in K-12, transformational leadership, educational mentoring and coaching, and dance and social justice.