Fernadina Chan
Artistic Dean
Chair, Dance Department
Fernadina Chan is the founder, artistic dean and the co-chair of the dance department of Boston Arts Academy. A 30-year veteran dance educator in the Boston Public Schools, Ms. Chan has taught at English High School for 20 years before helping to found Boston Arts Academy. In addition, she founded and directed the All City Dance Company, an after-school program for BPS high school students. Before moving to Boston, she was on the faculty of the State University of New York in Binghamton.
She received her B.A. in Physics from Southern Illinois University and M.A. in Dance from the University of Illinois. A Conant Fellow, Ms. Chan received her M.Ed. from Harvard Graduate School of Education in 1993. In April 2008, she became a certified GYROKINESIS® instructor, and is now apprenticing to become certified GYROTONIC® teacher.
She has been a panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and a member of the Massachusetts Department of Education Arts Curriculum Framework Committee. She had served on the Board of the Boston Dance Alliance.
In 1999, the Massachusetts Alliance for Arts Education named her the "Distinguished Arts Educator in Dance". Ms. Chan was awarded a Surdna Arts Teacher Fellowship to explore dance and technology at Arizona State University in the summer of 2001. She was also honored with the Topf Center for Dance Education's 2001 Terpsichore Award and a Dance Belt Award in 2002 for her service to the dance community. In October 2005, she was named Teacher of the Year by the International Network of Schools for the Advancement of Arts Education.
As an artist, Ms. Chan's performance and choreographic credits include television, film and stage in Hong Kong, the US, and Canada. She founded the East/West Dance Theater in 1977 and was its Artistic Director until 1988. Mandala Folk Dance Ensemble and the MJT Dance Company have performed her works, and her collaboration with modern dancer Jen-Jen Lin was one of seven winners of Dance Umbrella's 1993 "Boston Moves." Her most recent works including the commission of Vision for the inauguration of President Elizabeth Chen of New England College of Optometry and her latest work Jia Zi created during her BAA Artist Teacher fellowship focus on experimentation with technology.
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