Dance & Performance Studies Guest Artists

Each semester RWU’s Dance & Performance Studies Program welcomes a diverse roster of artists to work directly with our students via our outstanding guest artist residency program.  These internationally renowned artists offer students a range of dynamic first-hand learning experiences via master classes, repertory rehearsals, and face to face feedback – enhancing each dancer’s networking skills and professional contacts.

Working with a steady rotation of touring artists also helps RWU dancers experience the vast potential and varied paths within the field of movement studies – which helps each student develop their own identities as artists, scholars, and professionals.

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Spring 2026

Christina Robson – February 9 – 13

Christina Robson is a performer, educator, and choreographer from Boston, Massachusetts. She was an undergraduate Dance and Performance Studies major at RWU and then earned her MFA from the University of Maryland. Her extensive performance career includes long term collaborations with Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, David Dorfman Dance and Sean Curran Company where she performed historic repertory and premiered several original evening length works at The Kennedy Center, American Dance Festival, Jacobs Pillow, and The Joyce Theater. She has toured two seasons with DanceMotion USA, a cross cultural exchange partnership between Brooklyn Academy of Music and The US Department of State. Robson’s work with Monica Bill Barnes & Company includes collaborations with American Public Radio personality Ira Glass in Three Acts, Two Dancers, One Radio Host as well as This American Life Live! at NYU’s Skirball Center. Robson was a performer in the Bessie Award-winning immersive theater show Then She Fell by Third Rail Productions and has decade-long collaborative tenures with choreographers Heidi Henderson and Kendra Portier. Rachel Rizzuto, associate editor of Dance Magazine, described Robson as, “The modern dancer to watch of this next generation. Her ability to mold herself to any number of choreographers’ styles with ease and detail is truly exceptional.”  

Christina has been on rotating faculty at Gibney Dance and Peridance Capezio Center, and instructed pre-professional training programs at The Joffrey Ballet, DanceWave, and 92nd Street Y. In 2018, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company partnered with The Mellon Foundation through Arts Transcending Borders, where Robson facilitated NCAA Division 1 athletes at The College of the Holy Cross in a choreographic residency highlighting the physical negotiation of partnering with the mutual effort of team sports. Robson’s choreographic work has been presented by a range of institutions such as NYU Tisch, Barnard College, SUNY Purchase, Hartt School, The Wooden Floor, Providence Water Fire Festival, Bethany Arts, and Boston University. She is now Assistant Professor of Dance at George Mason University. Check Christina’s work out @christinajaney.

Shawn Ahern – April 6 – 10

Shawn Fitzgerald Ahern is an American choreographer and director who believes deeply in collaboration and emphasizes humanity in his work. Now based between Paris and Berlin, he engages as a freelance creator in diverse projects for both stage and film around the world. Fitzgerald has contributed to more than forty major productions across a wide range of platforms including three Grammy Award nominated dance films and multiple Academy Award winning major motion pictures. His choreographic work for Michael Gallen’s opera Elsewhere was lauded by major print media as, “fluidly physical” and, “beautifully choreographed” and the show was included on the Irish Times Best of 2021 list. As a performer, he has appeared in over one thousand live shows worldwide and his independent films have been featured and awarded in festivals across the Americas, Europe and Asia, including two premieres at Lincoln Center. 

His work as choreographic associate to Damien Jalet includes Chiroptera, which premiered on the Paris Opera Garnier façade with 164 dancers and is also featured in Jacques Audiard’s newest film Emilia Perez which premiered at Cannes Film Festival in 2024, receiving the Prix du Jury and continued on to win four Golden Globes and two Oscars in 2025. In the next two years, Fitzgerald will be directing new short films, choreographing live dance commissions in Europe and the USA, and co-directing the new Fedora Prize winning Opera, The Curing Line.  Check Shawn’s work out at www.shawnfitzgeraldahern.com

Fall 2025

Deanna Gerde – September 22 – 26

Deanna Gerde (she/her) is a dance artist and choreographer based in Rhode Island. She was born in Syracuse, New York, and received her formal dance training from SUNY Brockport and The Joffrey Ballet School in Manhattan. Deanna began her career as a freelance artist in Manhattan, and subsequently danced with Ballet Arkansas from 2017-2019. She moved on to dance with Newport Contemporary Ballet from 2019 to 2025. Her performance credits include that of Danielle Genest, Miki Ohlsen, Tristian Griffin, Simona Di Tullio, Cyrus Khambatta, John Malashock, Colin Connor, Francesca Genovese, Tania Perez-Selas, Caleb Mitchell, Yoshito Sakuraba, Amy Hall Garner, Kristopher Estes-Brown, Caroline Dahm, and more.

Deanna also teaches dance in the RI area, both in dance schools, and through educational outreach to local elementary and middle schools. She feels passionate about enriching young minds through art and community. 

As a choreographer, Deanna has presented work with Choreography Project Providence, the Newport Dance Festival, Puddingstone Festival (in collaboration with Katie Moorhead), Newport Contemporary Ballet, Cre8Dance Pittsburgh (in collaboration with Benjamin Rabe), and NCB Junior Company. Her work reflects a mindfulness towards connection, and emphasis on distinct musicality. Deanna hopes to continue to tell stories through movement that reach viewers in a way that makes them feel connected to the art, and to those around them. Explore Deanna’s website to learn more!
 

Deanna Pellecchia - October 20 - 24

DeAnna Pellecchia (RWU ’99, B.A. Dance/Performance) is an artist working in the medium of dance and choreography, hailed by The Boston Globe as “compelling, intense…a committed and daring performer.” Over the past 25 years, she has defied boundaries—dancing with horses, in trees, on stilts, underwater, and through air—while making her mark across operas, plays, fashion shows, films, rodeos, books, music videos, and more, touring and teaching in the U.S., India, Russia, and France.

Her performances have been featured at venues and festivals worldwide, including The Kennedy Center (Washington D.C.), Dance Theater Workshop (NYC), The Los Angeles Convention Center, Burning Man, The Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), and The National School of Drama (India). She has been a principal dancer with Paula Josa-Jones/Performance Works since 2000, and with Anikaya Dance Theater, Kinodance Company, Bennett Dance Company, Nicola Hawkins Dance Company, and Anna Myer & Dancers. She has also performed as a guest artist with Elaine Summers, Ann Carlson, and Heidi Latsky.

As a choreographer, Pellecchia’s work has been presented by the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, The Huntington Theatre, Charles Playhouse/Broadway Across America, and The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. In 2012, she founded KAIROS Dance Theater, a nationally touring company creating bold, interdisciplinary performances, where she serves as Artistic Director and choreographer.

Currently, Pellecchia is on faculty at Boston University’s College of Fine Arts and New England Conservatory’s Opera Studies Department. Previously, she served on faculty at Boston Ballet, Simmons College, and the Cambridge School of Weston, and has been a guest artist at Mount Holyoke College, Boston Conservatory, Massachusetts College of Art, and Russia’s Evolution Dance Project. Her foundation at Roger Williams University continues to inform her teaching and artistic practice, shaping her commitment to mentorship, experimentation, and dance as a tool for social and cultural impact.

kairosdancetheater.org | deannapellecchia.com

More about RWU’s Dance & Performance Program

• The Dance and Performance Studies Major and Minor
• Dance/Performance Web Pages
• RWU Dance Theatre Instagram

Contact

Professor of Dance and Performance Studies, Cathy Nicoli, cnicoli@rwu.edu