Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts will celebrate its 113th Commencement exercises on Saturday, May 19, 2012 beginning at 11 a.m. in the Amsler Campus Center Gymnasium. Among those honored this year will be Sandra Burton, Lipp Family Director of Dance and chair of the Dance Department at Williams College, who will receive an honorary doctor of fine arts.
Sandra Burton is a dancer, choreographer, educator, and arts presenter, her study, research, and travel focus on traditional and contemporary forms from Africa and the Diaspora.
Ms. Burton has choreographed productions for Williamstown Theater Festival, as well as works for PlayMakers Repertory Theater, the Goodman Theater, the Henry Street Settlement, and the Williams College Theater Department. She is the choreographer for composer Craig Harris’s productions of God’s Trombones and visual artist Carrie Mae Weem’s film Coming Up for Air.
Ms. Burton was a member of the Chuck Davis Dance Company, and a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) dancer/educator for the Artist in Education program. Her dance choreography has been performed at Dance Theater Workshop, Judson Memorial Church, Theater 4/Negro Ensemble Company, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA), and venues in Nicaragua, Brazil, and the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. She served on the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Department of Education’s Arts Curriculum Framework Committee and serves on the Board of the New England Foundation for the Arts. She also has served on the board of Jacob’s Pillow Dance and is a Trustee Emerita of the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.
She co-founded an annual conference held at Williams College, entitled Stalwart Originality: New Traditions in Black Performance, and serves as Co-Artistic Director of Kusika, a traditional African dance and percussion company.
Burton holds an MFA in dance and choreography from Bennington College.