Valerie Pullman

Valerie Pullman has been director of the Darien Dance Center a 650 student dance school and performing arts center in Darien, CT for the past 15 years. She received a BA in dance performance and choreography from Bennington College and her MA from Columbia University in dance education. Val's professional experience includes performing and choreographing with the companies of Jeff Duncan, resident company at Dance Theater Workshop (NYC), The Yard, a performing arts colony on Martha's Vineyard, as well as her own company in New York City and Connecticut. She has taught on the faculties of Florida State University, Iona College, University of Bridgeport and Empire State College (SUNY). Val is currently an adjunct at Manhattanville College and a guest master teacher at Yale University, working with the "Yaledancers", Yale's resident dance company. She has been teaching modern dance at Brant Lake Dance Centre in the Adirondacks for the past 7 summers. Val has studied with and her teaching has been influenced by the foll owing exceptional dancers: Carla Maxwell (Jose Limon), Michael LaSalata (Merce Cunningham), Adam Battelstein (Pilobolus), Martha Whitman (Anna Sokolow), Ted Thomas (Paul Taylor), Fritha Pengelly (Doug Elkins), Andrea Woods (Bill T. Jones), Kelly Holcombe (Momix), and Toni Pierce (Alvin Ailey). Val is the artistic director of two performing groups through the Darien Dance Center... the DDC Junior and Senior Dance Companies.They have been invited to perform at The Kitchen and Dancewave's Kid's Cafe in New York City, Artspace in New Haven, National Dance Association's Dance Gala in Newport, RI and most recently Dancefest 2003 at the Rich Forum Stamford Center for the Arts in Stamford, CT. Val has been the recipient of several individual artist's grants in choreography from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts.