Rebecca Valls
Assistant Director for Dance Programs
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Rebecca Valls presently teaches dance at Rice University, where she is the Assistant Director for Dance in the Recreation Center and the director of Rice Dance Theatre, and at the University of Houston, where she teaches dance theory/aesthetics classes and is a choreographer for the UH Dance Ensemble.
In Louisiana, Valls served as Company Director for Moving South Dance
Company, a modern dance company she co-founded (1981-1990). Her choreography
and collaborations with other artists were funded by numerous grants from
the Louisiana State Arts Council and performed in New Orleans, Houston,
Washington, D.C., and France. Since residing in Houston, Valls' choreography
has been presented by the Chrysalis Dance Company, Dance Month-Kaplin
Theatre, Six Contemporary Choreographers Series, Joan Karff's New Dance
Group, Diverse Works, Big Range Dance Festival, Houston Dance Coalition,
University of Houston Dance Ensemble, Weekend of Contemporary Dance at
Miller Outdoor Theatre, San Jacinto College, and the HSPVA in Houston,
and Rice Dance Theatre.
Valls is a Teaching Artist in elementary schools and facilitates the design
of movement lessons with cross-curricular links for classroom teachers
in her professional development workshops and residencies. She is the
director and choreographer of Becky Valls and Company, a performing group
with Young Audiences of Houston that integrates dance and science through
performance.
In recent years, Valls has studied 18th Century Baroque Dance with internationally-acclaimed
Baroque dancers Paige Whitley-Bauguess, Thomas Baird, and Catherine Turocy.
She holds a Masters' of Fine Arts in Choreography from Sarah
Lawrence College in New York, where her choreography was selected by the
American College Dance Festival for the national performance at the Kennedy
Center, Washington, D.C.
Christine Lidvall
Dance Theatre Coordinator
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Christine Lidvall has been a member of the dance faculty of Rice University since 1988. During this time, Lidvall has also been a teacher/choreographer for Rice Dance Theatre. Since 1997, she has been faculty advisor for the Rice Social Dance Club (formerly Rice Ballroom Dance Society). From 1983 to 1998, Lidvall served as Artistic Director of Houston's foremost modern dance company, Chrysalis Dance Company, where she continues as a member of the Artistic Team.
Before founding Chrysalis, Lidvall worked as Associate Director and Resident Choreographer for City Ballet of Houston and as a guest dancer, choreographer and rehearsal director for the modern company, Farrell Dyde Dance Theatre. During this time, she also performed for the Houston Music Theatre, Theatre Under the Stars and the Houston Grand Opera.
A free-lance teacher and choreographer, Lidvall has taught for many dance
companies and schools, including the Louisiana Dance Festival Workshop,
North Carolina School of the Arts, and the National Craft of Choreography
Conference sponsored by Regional Dance, Inc. Her choreography has been
presented by Chrysalis Dance Company, Dancers Unlimited Repertory Company
(Dallas), City Ballet of Houston, and Lake Charles Ballet Society among
others. She has created commissioned works for the Museum of Fine Arts,
Houston and the Jewish Community Center of Houston.
Lidvall is certified as a teacher of the Alexander Technique through Alexander
Technique International. In addition to offering Alexander Technique classes
at Rice, she teaches privately at Affiliates in Physical Therapy and has
taught workshops for Actors Source, the C.G. Jung Educational Center of
Houston, Ebony Opera Guild and Shepherd School Opera Workshops among others.
Lidvall graduated with a B.S. in communications from Northwestern University
and with a Masters in Dance from the University of Houston/Clear Lake.
As a former teaching artist for the Texas Institute for Arts in Education,
she received the prestigious Apple Award in 1994, as Teaching Artist of
the Year.
Tracy King Perry
Social Dance Coordinator
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Tracy coordinates the Social Dance program and is staff liaison to all student dance organizations at Rice. She studied jazz, ballet and tap with The Rubio Company in San Antonio, Texas for more than ten years, eventually teaching for the organization. After working in other industries for many years, Tracy returned to teaching dance in her spare time in 1997, and made it her fulltime job in 2001 when she started teaching at Rice. Tracy's Social Dance specialties include American style Ballroom, Swing, and Latin, as well as Country Western. She has a B.A. in English from The University of Texas at San Antonio, and a M.B.A. from the University of Houston Bauer School of Business. She has a varied professional background that includes social work, accounting, and management. Although she works with social dance, and not modern, she always helps RDT with coordinating the shows and especially with advertising and we love her for it!