(NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ) -- Bessie Award-winning dance artist Gerald Casel has been named professor and chair of the Dance Department at Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts. Casel comes to Rutgers from the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he currently serves as provost of Porter College, associate professor of theater arts, and director of graduate studies.
For more than two decades, Casel has served as the executive artistic director of GERALDCASELDANCE, a Bay Area company centered on racial equity. GERALDCASELDANCE has been presented by Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography, National Center for Choreography Akron, Kuan Du Arts Festival, ODC Theater, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church, Movement Research at Judson Church, and Jacob’s Pillow (Inside/Out), among others.
Casel says he is eager to collaborate with Mason Gross students, faculty, and staff especially now, as various institutions undergo a period of self-reflection and attempt to nurture communities that embody inclusivity.
“At this unique moment, we have an opportunity to reimagine systems and ways we operationalize equity so that our students, faculty, and staff have a felt sense of deep belonging,” Casel says.
Grappling with issues of equity is nothing new to Casel, who has long committed himself to this work in the classroom, onstage, and out in the wider community: His research interests include somatic-based movement practices, critical dance and race studies, and U.S. post/modern dance. In 2018, he initiated and facilitated a yearlong community-engagement residency in the Bay Area known as Dancing Around Race, which involved engaging people in frank conversations about race and the dynamics of equity in the dance world. Casel’s company regularly delves into questions around colonialism, collective cultural amnesia, whiteness, privilege, and implicit and explicit power structures.
In addition, Casel says he’s eager to deepen the department’s ties to the vibrant dance community in New York City and beyond.
“I am excited to see how we can integrate our students within established networks of creative practice, critical dance research, and emerging technologies through performance,” says Casel, who served as principal dancer of the Stephen Petronio Company from 1991 to 2004 and has performed with the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, the Metropolitan Opera Ballet, and the Zvi Gotheiner Dance Company, among others. He holds a BFA degree from The Juilliard School and an MFA degree from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.
Mason Gross School dean Jason Geary says he expects that Casel will bring crucial on- and off-stage experience to enrich the department, whose alumni include the Bessie Award-winning Kyle Marshall and the Drama Desk Award-winning Stephanie Klemons, original dance captain of the Tony-winning Broadway musical Hamilton.
“Gerald’s distinguished career as a dancer and choreographer, his extensive administrative experience, and his proven commitment to fostering inclusivity in the field will be vital in helping the program attain ever higher levels of excellence and visibility,” Geary says.
Photo credit: Katherine Helen Fisher
The Dance Department at the Mason Gross School of the Arts fosters excellence at the intersection of dance performance, creative achievement, and research. As professional artist-educators, dance faculty ensure expert direction in all three areas of the curriculum: technique and performance, choreography, and theoretical studies, with a focus on cultivating a community of high-caliber, collaborative, and multidimensional dance artists. The department offers five degree programs: bachelor of fine arts, bachelor of arts, master of fine arts, master of education in dance, and dual bachelor of fine arts/master’s in dance education. Students have opportunities to audition for and perform with the department’s outreach program, University DanceWorks. In addition, they may collaborate with professional companies and choreographers in residence and participate in master classes with notable industry professionals.
Established in 1976, Mason Gross School of the Arts is the flagship public arts conservatory of New Jersey and a division of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Founded in 1766, Rutgers is the nation’s eighth-oldest institution of higher learning, a leading Big Ten public research university with more than 66,000 students, and a member of the prestigious Association of American Universities. The Mason Gross School is home to the departments of Art & Design, Dance, Music, and Theater as well as Rutgers Community Arts, Rutgers Arts Online, the Rutgers Filmmaking Center, and the Rutgers Print Collaborative. The school has an enrollment of approximately 843 undergraduates and 240 graduate students across five disciplines, supported by approximately 370 faculty and 65 staff. Students at Mason Gross hail from 21 countries. Mason Gross is one of the most selective schools at Rutgers–New Brunswick, ensuring that students have the opportunity to work closely with accomplished artists in their fields.
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a leading national research university and the state of New Jersey’s preeminent, comprehensive public institution of higher education. Established in 1766, the university is the eighth oldest higher education institution in the United States. More than 70,000 students and 23,400 full- and part-time faculty and staff learn, work, and serve the public at Rutgers locations across New Jersey and around the world.
