Anne Flynn Walrus Talk

Professor Anne P. Flynn

M.A.
Pronouns: she/her

Positions

Professor Emerita of Kinesiology

Faculty of Kinesiology

Full Member

Hotchkiss Brain Institute

Contact information

Email

flynn@ucalgary.ca

Web presence

UCalgary contacts

Phone number

cell: +1 (403) 714-7042

Preferred method of communication

all inquiries: flynn@ucalgary.ca

Background

Educational Background

Master of Arts Liberal Studies Movement Studies, Wesleyan University, 1986

Bachelor of Arts Dance, State University of New York, Brockport, 1977

Biography

Dance Education

Dance Studies

Dance and Health Promotion

 

Anne Flynn, Professor Emerita, was a member of the dance faculty from 1978-2015 and continues to work as a dance and movement education advocate.  She joined the university as the contemporary dance specialist in the Dance Education Route in the Faculty of Physical Education and worked with dance faculty in the Faculty of Fine Arts to develop the collaborative B.A. Dance degree launched in 1996.  Holding a joint appointment in the Faculties of Kinesiology and Fine Arts, she was instrumental in the creation of the five-year combined B.Kinesiology/B.A.Dance in 2013, the only degree of its kind in Canada. She served as Chair of the Division of Dance from 2002-2007, Artistic Director of Dance Montage for over twent-five of its fifty years, and Manager of the Dance program's Urban Dance Connect (UDC), a broad ranging downtown community-university initiative, from 2005-2013. UDC created partnerships with the CIty of Calgary, The Alex Senior's Health Centre, The Salvation Army Centre of Hope, the Calgary Board of Education, the Art Gallery of Calgary, the Golden Age Club and the YWCA.

Flynn danced with Denise Clarke throughout the 1980’s, showing work in Canada, New York, and Berlin.  She and Clarke performed in the inaugural season of Decidedly Jazz Danceworks (DJD), as well as in other works created by DJD’s co-founder Vicki Adams Willis.  Flynn’s exposure to the field of dance studies at Wesleyan University resulted in a shift of focus and she began publishing Dance Connection Magazine with Heather Elton and Lisa Doolittle (1988-1996).  She is Co-Editor with Lisa Doolittle of Dancing Bodies, Living Histories (Banff Centre Press, 2000) receiving the 2001 Gertrude Lippincott Prize for their joint publication “Dancing in the Canadian Wasteland”.  The two continued working together until 2017 on several SSHRC funded projects (Foothills and Footsteps: New Writing in Dance Studies (1999); and Assimilating Bodies: Regulation and Resistance in Canada's Choreography of Nationhood (2003-2007), publishing in numerous anthologies and giving many conference presentations nationally and internationally about the role of dance in Canada’s nation-building project.

As a Co-Investigator on a national SSHRC Partnership Grant (2013-2018) studying Arts for Social Change, Flynn developed multi-organizational partnerships to create Dancing Parkinson’s YYC at Decidedly Jazz Danceworks (https://www.decidedlyjazz.com/outreach/dancing-parkinsons-yyc/), and the University Heights Dance and Movement program for senior citizens.  Both programs continue to thrive.

Flynn became President of the U.S.-based Congress on Research Dance (CORD) in 2015 and oversaw its merger into the Dance Studies Association (DSA) in 2017 (https://dasa.memberclicks.net/about).  She served as President and Past-President of DSA from 2017-2020 for which she received the Dixie Durr Award for Outstanding Service to Dance Research.  She has also served on the boards of the Alberta Dance Alliance (President 1987-1990), Dance Connection Magazine (President 1991-96), Dancers’ Studio West (President 2000-2004) as an Advisory Board member for the Canadian Society for Dance Studies (2000-2011) and DanceCollectionDanse (2007-current).


In 2022 she convened students in kinesiology and dance to create the Dance and Health Study Group and launched its first project, ESDF+, a collaboration with East Side Dance Festival and the Faculty of Kinesiology, in 2023.

 

 

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Awards

  • Dixie Durr Award for Outstanding Service to Dance Research, Dance Studies Association. 2020
  • Gertrude E. Lippincott Award for best English language article, Society for Dance History Scholars. 2000
  • Panasonic Best Video Award For “Dance: For Our Children", Association for Media and Technology in Education in Canada. 1998
  • Best Video in the under 15-minute category for "Dance: For Our Children", Association for Media and Technology in Education in Canada. 1998
  • Rose L. Strasser Achievement Award, Department of Dance: State University of New York, Brockport. 1977