Degrees: MA, 1980, Teachers Coll, Columbia Univ; BA, 1973, Univ Illinois Urbana

Bio:

Anita Feldman, Assistant Professor of Dance and Director of the new Dance Education Program, started tap dancing when she was five years old in Chicago with tap great Jimmy Paine. After immersing herself in modern dance while earning a B.A. in Dance Education from the University of Illinois, she moved to New York City. Over the next 25 years she gained an international reputation as a leading innovator of tap dance, choreographing pieces in collaboration with new music composers that incorporated electronics and the patented "Tap Dance Instrument," a wood and brass multi-timbre floor. Anita Feldman Tap, a company of musicians and dancers, performed at over 100 venues in the U.S., Japan and Germany at universities and festivals in both dance and new music venues, including the Colorado Dance Festival, the Boston Dance Umbrella, Dance Theater Workshop, the Whitney Museum, the American Dance Festival, the Village Gate, the Smithsonian, Seibu's Studio 200 in Tokyo, Podewil in Berlin, and performances and radio and television appearances in Frankfurt, Hamburg and Bremen, Germany. Her work was supported by numerous grants, including six National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, six New York State Council on the Arts Grants, and two New York Foundation Fellowships. Her book Inside Tap: Technique and Improvisation for Today's Tap Dancer is published by Princeton Books. She has been on the Hofstra University dance faculty as an adjunct for the last twelve years, teaching tap, kinesiology, methods of teaching, choreography, and modern dance, and in 2007 advanced to a full-time faculty position. At Hofstra she has been developing tap dance courses, modern tap choreography, and a new dance education program which is beginning in the fall of 2008. She has an M.A. in Dance Education from Teachers College, Columbia University.

Field of Study: Dance

Research Interests: Professional choreography and performance, melding tap dance with modern dance and new music.  Interdisciplinary learning through dance for K-12 students.  Dance Kinesiology.

Previous Teaching Specialization: Adjunct Assistant Professor at Hofstra University; C.W. Post; Teachers College, Columbia University; Marymount Manhattan College; Union College.