\n<\/p>\n
The Juilliard School has named Melissa Toogood<\/a> as dean and director of its dance division, the school announced on Tuesday. Toogood, a Bessie Award-winning dancer who was a member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company in its final years, succeeds Alicia Graf Mack<\/a>, who is to become the artistic director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Toogood, who is Australian and lives in Sydney, will begin on July 1.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve had many types of experiences and worked with many kinds of dancers and companies, Toogood, 43, said in a phone interview. \u201cI\u2019ve always been reaching for new knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n Damian Woetzel, president of the Juilliard School, called her \u201cone of the extraordinary artists of our time\u201d and said: \u201cI\u2019ve watched her stage, I\u2019ve watched her teach, I\u2019ve watched her develop dancers at all levels, but really focusing on the younger dancers. And I have seen her develop her own leadership in that way that is inspiring.\u201d<\/p>\n Toogood, who started teaching at the Cunningham school at the choreographer\u2019s request, continued to dance in New York after Cunningham\u2019s company performed for the last time in 2011<\/a>. \u201cI had a really intense freelance career, which is challenging and uncertain, and I hope to prepare young people for all of those outcomes,\u201d she said. \u201cBecause I can speak to it personally.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Toogood stages Cunningham dances<\/a> and has performed with companies and choreographers including Kyle Abraham, Michelle Dorrance, Jamar Roberts and Pam Tanowitz, with whom she has had an 18-year collaboration<\/a>.<\/p>\n At Juilliard, she hopes to broaden her students\u2019 understanding of the roles of art and artists. \u201cI really think of art as an act of service, whether to an idea or a community or a work,\u201d she said. \u201cIf a choreographer just makes you walk across the back of the room, they wouldn\u2019t put that in a piece if it wasn\u2019t important. I want them to leave as comprehensive thinkers and understanding that there are no small parts and that kind of connection to each other and the work and every role you play, whether it\u2019s seemingly important to you at that time or not, is<\/em> important.\u201d<\/p>\n When Toogood was a student at New World School of the Arts in Miami, its dean, Daniel Lewis, told her that she would \u201cmake a great dean one day,\u201d she said. \u201cAt the time, I was really annoyed. I was like, I want to be a dancer. I want to have a career.\u201d<\/p>\n But the idea had been planted. \u201cI\u2019ve always been ambitious,\u201d Toogood said, \u201cbut over the last few years, I found myself being more ambitious for others.\u201d<\/p>\n In additional faculty and leadership news at Juilliard, Mario Alberto Zambrano, currently the associate director of the dance division, will become associate dean and director. Carla K\u00f6rbes, a leading dancer with New York City Ballet and Pacific Northwest Ballet, will start a new position as ballet chair and join the faculty full time. And Jamar Roberts, the choreographer and former Ailey dancer, will join the department as distinguished visiting faculty and serve as an Arnhold Creative Associate<\/a> at large.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n For Toogood, who will relocate to New York City with her husband and 7-year-old son, the new job is a homecoming.<\/p>\n \u201cI spent my whole adult life and career in America; I feel like an American artist,\u201d she said. \u201cI want the students to be able to go wherever in the world that they are able to contribute and to be themselves. But Juilliard is right for me now.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n