Faculty and Staff

Judith Howard is the Director of the Dance Program at Carleton College and teaches various courses including Fields of Performance, The Body As Choreographer, Meaning In Motion, Reading the Dancing Body: Topics in Dance History and Cultures of Dance as well as co-directs the Semaphore Repertory Dance Company. Before coming to Carleton she taught at Macalester College and the University of Minnesota and served as a visiting artist and K-12 consultant for the Dance Education Initiative, and Arts Courses for Educators at the Perpich Center for Arts Education in Minnesota.

Judith has made dances, performed and taught in the Twin Cities for 30 years. Her work has been presented nationally and internationally and in Twin Cities venues such as the Walker Art Center, The Southern Theater, the Tek Box, and 9 x 22 Dance Lab. In 2006, she performed and taught in Yaroslavl, Russia where her work was presented by Link Vostak. Judith was selected “Twin Cities Best Choreographer” in 2005 and is the recipient of several Jerome Foundation Grants, a McKnight Choreographic Fellowship, a Sage Award for “Outstanding Performance” with April Sellers (2006), and a Sage Award for “Outstanding Dance Educator” (2014). In 2016 she was honored with a Sage Award for “Outstanding Performer.” Her professional career accomplishments include co-founding and directing the award-winning dance company, The Flying Sisters Theater. Judith’s early dance training included studying with Erik Hawkins and Twyla Tharp. Her dance training also includes Body Mind Centering, release technique, Laban Movement Analysis, Contact Improvisation, Mask (Sears Eldredge/Lecoq), Authentic Movement and Craniosacral Therapy.

Judith holds an MFA in Performance/Choreography from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. 

Jennifer A. Bader is a Senior Lecturer in Dance at Carleton College, and was a 2014 guest choreographer for the Carleton College Semaphore Dance Company. In 2016 and 2017 Jennifer received two separate grants from Carleton College to create From the White Board, a web-based ballet book for college students that was launched in the fall of 2018.

Jennifer holds a B.F.A from the University of the Arts, Philadelphia, where she had extensive training and performing opportunities. She augmented her training in New York and in San Diego. In 1992, she returned to Minneapolis and joined the Minnesota Dance Theatre Company. While performing she also taught the Young Children’s, Adult, and Performing Arts Divisions, and was Assistant to the Artistic Director of MDT for ten years. Jennifer has also taught and performed at the Children’s Theatre, and has performed with Independent Choreographers in Minneapolis. In August of 2002 and 2004 she traveled to Yaroslavl, Russia to participate in Link Vostok’s “International Festival of Movement and Dance on the Volga.” There, she was Assistant to the Executive Director and taught ballet and modern. For eighteen years, Jennifer also taught ballet, and choreographed for First Year Dance Project at St. Olaf College. She has also taught ballet and variations at Mankato State College and taught ballet and choreographed for the St. Cloud State University dance department. In addition to teaching at Carleton College, Jennifer teaches ballet, pointe, modern, jazz and choreographs for independent schools in the Twin Cities and surrounding areas.

Andrew Carlson teaches theater history, acting, and directing at Carleton. A professional actor, dramaturg, and director, Andrew has worked with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Cleveland Playhouse, Children’s Theatre of Charlotte, First Folio Theatre, ZACH Theatre, Austin Shakespeare, American Records Company, and Children’s Theatre of Madison. He has also participated in new play development with playwrights Steven Dietz, Aditi Kapil, Allison Gregory, Kirk Lynn, David Valdes, and Lisa Loomer. He is an artistic associate with The Great River Shakespeare Festival in Winona, MN where he has worked as an actor and educator for thirteen seasons, playing roles such as Hamlet (Hamlet), Edmund (King Lear), Jim O’Connor (The Glass Menagerie), Macbeth (Macbeth), and the Poet (An Iliad).

Before joining the faculty at Carleton, Andrew taught at the University of Texas at Austin for nine years where he co-led the BA program in Theatre and Dance and was Managing Director of the Oscar G. Brockett Center for Theatre History and Criticism. With the Brockett Center, he worked on a variety of initiatives such as The American Theatre Archive Project and American Theatre Magazine’s historical almanac column. He is a co-author of the 11th edition of The Essential Theatre textbook and has published essays in Theatre History Studies, American Theatre Magazine and the Routledge Companion to Dramaturgy. An award-winning educator, Carlson received the 2016 Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award at the University of Texas.

Andrew is a member of Actor’s Equity Association, the labor union representing professional actors and stage managers in the United States.

Daphne McCoy has been dancing and teaching dance for most of her life. She has a BA in Music Theatre from the University of Central Oklahoma and an MFA in Modern Dance from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She is also a certified Alexander technique teacher. Currently, Daphne is a member of the dance faculty at Carleton College where she teaches Modern dance technique and choreographs for Semaphore Dance Company.

For the past 18 years Daphne has been teaching dance technique and theory at many colleges and universities across the nation including, Illinois Wesleyan University, Illinois State University, Miami University, Earlham College, Bowdoin College, Colby College and Bates College. Daphne has taught all techniques including ballet, modern, tap, jazz, musical theatre dance, movement for the actor, dance history, dance appreciation, the Alexander technique, improvisation and composition.  

After graduate school, Daphne was the co-Artistic director of Impact III a modern dance company in Champagne, IL for 3 years.  Some of her professional, and collegiate choreographic credits in theatre, music theatre and opera choreography include “Wild Duck”, “Good Person of Szechwan.” “Cabaret,” “Big Love,” “Jesus Christ Superstar,” “Music Man,” 42^nd Street,” “Anything Goes,” “HAIR,”  “Metamorphosis,” “Attempts on her life,” “Hamletmachine,” “La Traviata,” “Marriage of Figaro,” “Venus,” ”Top Girls,” ”Tartuffe,” “Putting it Together,” ”Skriker,” “Godspell,” “Tarzan,” “Man of La Mancha,” “You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown,” ”Spelling Bee,” and “Fiddler on the Roof”.

Throughout her career as a professor of dance, Daphne has had her modern dance choreography represented at the American College Dance festivals in many regions of the nation including here in Minnesota at the Mankato ACDFA in 2013.

David Wiles teaches Acting, Voice, Dramatic Literature, Argument and Inquiry Seminars and directs Carleton Players productions. His productions include Polaroid Stories, The Exonerated, Romeo and Juliet, Going to St. Ives, Angels in America and Race.

His acting credits include appearances at Yale Rep, Shakespeare & Company, the Aquila Theatre Company, The Guthrie Theater, Ten Thousand Things and Park Square Theater.  He studies with Patsy Rodenburg. His article, “Burdens of Representation: The Method and the Audience,” appears in Method Acting Reconsidered. “Beyond Race and Gender: Reframing Diversity in Actor Training Programs” appears in The Politics of American Actor Training.

He holds a BA in History from the University of Cincinnati and a MFA in Acting from Yale.

Mary Ann Kelling‘s costume designs have been seen in Minneapolis at Park Square Theater, The Illusion Theater and Pangea World Theater.  She is the resident Costume Designer at Carleton College, Northfield, MN where she is also the Supervisor for the costume shop and a Lecturer in the Department of Theater and Dance.  She has taught and designed for theater &/or dance at The University of Tulsa, The University of Michigan-Flint and California State University, Long Beach. 

Mary Ann has designed costumes and make-up for theatre and dance in the Los Angeles area; Chicago, IL; Harrisonburg, VA; Northfield, MN; Detroit, MI and Flint, MI. Mary Ann’s liturgical textiles work can be seen throughout Minnesota. Her art work in photography, watercolor and drawing has been shown in galleries in Port Huron, MI and Flint, MI. Mary Ann has a BA in studio art from St. Olaf College, MN, and an MFA in costume design from California State University in Long Beach.

Mary Easter, Rae Schupack Nathan Professor of Dance and the Performing Arts, is a poet and writer as well as a dancer and choreographer. Mary received a bachelor of arts degree in music and French in 1962 from Sarah Lawrence College, a Master of Arts from Goddard College, and studied at the Eastman School of Music. She has presented her dance work in Minnesota and nationally for over 25 years, receiving a Bush Artist Fellowship in Choreography, a Minnesota Dance Alliance McKnight Fellowship, a Diverse Visions Video award from Intermedia Arts, and a McKnight Artist Fellowship for Interdisciplinary Artists. She has also served as director of Carleton’s African-American studies program.

Ruth Weiner is the Class of 1944 Professor of Theater and the Liberal Arts.  She earned her B.S. and M.A. from the University of Wisconsin. Ruth teaches acting, directing and contemporary theater, and is also a faculty director of Players productions.