Montclair State University
IN-PERSON & VIRTUAL
Sunday, 11/2
2:30-4:30pm
Derek Crescenti, Int/Adv Contemporary Modern
Saturday, 11/8
4:00-6:00pm
Stefanie Batten Bland, Int/Adv Contemporary
Montclair State University
Montclair, NJ
The Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in Dance combines a conservatory-based approach to training within a liberal arts curriculum to prepare students for their lives and careers as performing artists. We are dedicated to a program that is welcoming and inclusive of diverse viewpoints and lived experiences, including gender, sexuality, disability, age, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, race, and culture.
The Dance Division holistically educates its students by developing and cultivating a deep knowledge of dance in many facets. We seek to enhance the student’s mind/body connection and their technical facility; encourage their sense of play, creativity and critical thinking; deepen their appreciation/understanding of the historical and cultural relevance of dance in our global society; and promote their engagement as global citizens as well as their understanding of the democratic principles that enable them to be free-thinking artists. We continue to evolve our anti-biased, anti-racist stance to affect learning and teaching. We actively work to revise curriculum and course content to be inclusive of all people.
Dance is a powerful art form that encourages communication and helps us find our commonalities as well as celebrating uniqueness. In the many hours of dance classes and rehearsals, our dance majors come to know their classmates with an intimacy that very few people in other fields will ever experience. By participating fully in this spirit of team-consciousness, they develop humanity and citizenship in equal proportion to performance abilities. We believe that these qualities are absolutely vital in today’s world.
We offer ample opportunities to choreograph and perform on campus as well as off campus at locations such as the American College Dance Association conferences, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and the Joyce Theater and the 92nd Street Y in New York City. All dance majors, including Freshmen, perform every semester.
Our proximity to Manhattan allows us to attract outstanding faculty and prominent guest artists who work closely with students each semester. With Manhattan just 30 minutes away, students connect with both world-class dance productions and numerous internship opportunities.
Derek Crescenti
Derek Crescenti joined Montclair State University’s Theatre and Dance Department as an Assistant Professor of Dance in 2025. A graduate of the University of Michigan with a BFA in Dance and the University of Washington with an MFA in Dance, Derek is a bicoastal performing artist and educator originally from Michigan who brings extensive professional experience to his research and pedagogy. He previously served on faculty at the University of Washington and DeSales University.
Derek had the great pleasure of working with Donald Byrd’s Spectrum Dance Theater in Seattle, WA, touring both nationally and internationally before working as a freelance artist in New York City, performing with companies including The Bang Group, The Chase Brock Experience, Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company, Keigwin + Company, the Mark Morris Dance Group, Megan Williams Dance Projects, and Robert Mark Dance. With the repertory company 10 Hairy Legs, he performed works by choreographers Christopher Williams, David Parker, Doug Elkins, Heidi Latsky, Manuel Vignoulle, Randy James, and Stephen Petronio, and premiered new creations by Adam Barruch, Al Blackstone, Larry Keigwin, Raja Feather Kelly, Doug Varone, Megan Williams, and Yin Yue. His theater experience includes performances in Seattle Theatre Group’s Black Nativity, the 5th Avenue Theatre’s Oklahoma!, and The Public Theater’s Hercules.
Derek’s interest in re-performance in the realms of restaging, reconstruction, and reenactment inspires his work as a rehearsal director, assistant, and stager. He worked with Donald Byrd on his commissions for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (Greenwood) and at ACT Theatre (A Christmas Carol). He teaches Byrd Contemporary technique and has staged Mr. Byrd’s works at Barnard College (The Theater of Needless Talents), DeSales University (OCCURRENCE), and Spectrum Dance Theater, where he reconstructs Mr. Byrd’s works on the current ensemble. As an associate choreographer for Larry Keigwin, his work has included assisting on commissions for the Paul Taylor Dance Company (Drum Circle) and the Vail Dance Festival (Rhapsody), and staging Mr. Keigwin’s choreography on Ormao Dance Company (Cruise Control) in Colorado Springs, CO.
Drawing from a multitude of influences, Derek has developed a unique choreographic style born from his work within an amalgam of lineages of contemporary and modern dance with an eye on both concert and commercial contexts. He has presented original works at the Lehigh Valley Dance Exchange’s SpringUP Dance Festival, Men in Dance Choreographer’s Showcase, Miller Symphony Hall in collaboration with the Allentown Symphony Orchestra, the Seattle International Dance Festival, Ten Tiny Dances at SteelStacks in Bethlehem, PA, and University of Washington’s Chamber Dance Company. A member of Impact Dance Adjudicators, his teaching and adjudication work spans multiple arts festivals and competitions, including Axis Dance Competition, Diva Dance Competition, Edge National Talent Competition, Just Dance Invitational, New Jersey State Teen Arts Festival, Starbound National Talent Competition, and Youth America Grand Prix. He continues to teach in New York City, most recently at The Taylor School of Paul Taylor Dance Company.
Derek examines historical lineages of dance and their relationship to the present through his creative and scholarly research, and shares work aimed at inspiring the mover in all of us while continuing to develop a dance pedagogy relevant to today’s performing artist. His research has led to presentations at the National Dance Education Organization’s National Conference (2024, 2025), where he explores how to transmit lineages to new dancers and expand access points of inquiry when learning about historical repertoires and dances of the past. His recent article, “Joining the Dance: Exploring Meaning-Making in Pedagogies of Restaging” will soon appear in the Journal of Dance Education. Derek believes that the joy of dance and its lasting impact emerge from deep connections to community and developing relationships that inspire our creativity. His classroom aims to encourage a sense of belonging and care for those we move with and in relation to.
Stefanie Batten Bland
Beginning in New York City, followed by over ten years in Europe before a return to Soho several years ago, Stefanie Batten Bland’s career has taken a geographically circuitous path to her present status as a Jerome Robbins Award honoree. Unguarded by abstraction and undeterred by convention, the emotional content of Stefanie Batten Bland’s work is directly accessible; its social and philosophical message is visceral. Her work, interdisciplinary dance installations, integrate movement with visual and music arts. They are site-specific and designed to embrace space and community within.
In 2008, while head choreographer of the Paris Opera Comique, in France under direction of Jérôme Savary, Stefanie founded Company SBB so that she might better investigate the human condition and relationships within our natural world. Her pieces, a passionate response to world issues with an optimistic belief in community, radiate with profound humanity, generosity and keen observation of human nature. They have been acknowledged with great acclaim.
In addition to dances commissioned by the Second Avenue Dance Company (New York City), Modlin Center for the Arts (Richmond, VA), Zenon Dance Company (Minneapolis, MN), Transitions Dance Company (London), Alvin Ailey ll Company (New York City) and Frontier Danceland (Singapore), Batten Bland’s work for her own troupe, Company SBB, has been seen in the United States, Europe and Asia.
While the majority of her creative efforts are committed to creating site specific installations, Batten Bland has created nine films that have been seen in international festivals in Europe, South America, the United States and South Africa. She has also choreographed for Guerlain Perfumes, Van Cleef & Arpels, Louis Vuitton, SYTYCD-Poland and the French Presidential Gala of Cannes in 2012.
Awards include: 2016 Jerome Robbins Award, 2016 Schonberg Fellow The Yard, 2015 Kevin Spacey Foundation Artists Choice Award, 2014/15 Alvin Ailey Foundation New Directions Choreography Lab Fellow, 2014 Joffrey Ballet Choreographer of Color and a 2010-2012 Baryshnikov Arts Center Resident Artist/Jerome Robbins NEW Fellow.
As a performer Batten Bland danced for Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, Sean Curran Company, Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, Angelin Preljocaj and Julie Taymor, Compagnie Georges Momboye, Compagnie Linga, Pal Frenak, Pina Bausch Tanz Theater Wuppertal and Punch Drunk.