Our Visiting Professor of Theatre & Dance
This fall, one of the new faces you’ll see on campus belongs to Professor Francis Nii- Yartey from the University of Ghana, Legon’s School of Performing Arts. He joins the Theatre and Dance program for the academic year as a visiting professor.
Prof. Nii-Yartey is a dancer and choreographer who has served as the artistic director of the Ghana National Dance Ensemble and the National Dance Company of Ghana. He was recently a Visiting Cornell Professor at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania.
Prof. Nii-Yartey has traveled extensively around the world conducting workshops, lecturing, and choreographing. He has also choreographed components of the international football tournaments that Ghana has hosted since 1999. His written scholarship and his choreographic works investigate the ways in which dance can both reflect and shape social change.
Prof. Nii-Yartey’s presence should enhance the Theatre and Dance department’s strong relationship with the Theatre program at UNH under Professor David Kaye, whose connections with the University of Ghana helped us to secure this remarkable guest professor.
The timing is particularly propitious since KSC is hosting the American College Dance Festival Association New England Conference March 9-12, where Prof. Nii-Yartey will lead dance workshops for a national audience.
He is also working with PeggyRae Johnson on a collaborative theatre event currently titled Turning the Tide, to premiere this fall, November 17-20, at 7:30 p.m. in the Alumni Recital Hall. His choreography will be featured in next spring’s An Evening of Dance, April 13-16, 7:30 p.m. in the Redfern’s Main Theatre.
