Susan Douglas Roberts CD/FW Artistic Advisor & Founding Director

Susan Douglas Roberts (CD/FW Artistic Advisor and Founding Director)
is a performer, choreographer and Associate Professor of Modern Dance in the School for Classical & Contemporary Dance at TCU. One of the founding/artistic directors of Contemporary Dance/Fort Worth – a repertory company -- she was with the company from 1990 -2001. She is currently the Artistic Director of wild goose chase . . . through which she continues to create and present dances.

Susan has traveled widely as an artist and an educator. She has performed, taught and presented work throughout the USA – from San Francisco to NYC – in Canada, and across the oceans in Europe, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Australia. Her passion for Spanish language and culture has earned her invitations to perform, choreograph and teach in Mexico, Central and South America. Highlights of these Latin American connections include performances in the VII Festival Internacional de la Cultura Paíz (GT), Brincos International Festival (GT), Foro Performática (Cholula, MX), Festival Danza de Hoy (PY), Bento Gonçalves Dance Festival (Brasil), Ballet Impulso (Monterrey, MX) and a solo concert at the Centro Cultural Paraguayo-Americano in conjunction with the USIS in Paraguay.

As a dance-maker, Susan has collaborated with artists as diverse as Nathan Scott (mask maker and puppeteer, director of Cry of the Rooster Theatre, Seattle), Carlos Montemayor (poet, Mexico), Anabella Acevedo (literary critic, GT) and most recently, Tuba Koymen (photographer, USA/Turkey). An evening-length work created with composer Blaise Ferrandino was completed in part with support from an NEA Meet the Composer grant awarded through CD/FW. Her work Feasting Uncertainty/Festijando la duda, made in collaboration with designer Roma Flowers, was selected for performance on the 2007 Gala at the South Central Conference of the American Dance Festival.

Susan was the director of the New Century Danscene, a long-term grant project in Fort Worth/Tarrant County, that sponsored more than 350 community based programs over a seven-year period. She was the 1997 recipient of the College of Fine Arts Award for Teaching Excellence (biannual award). In fall, 2008, Susan was awarded a Fulbright Senior Specialist grant for a residency teaching composition at Taipei National University of the Arts in Taiwan. TNUA – founded by Lin Hwai-Min, Artistic Director of Cloud Gate Dance Theatre – houses MFA and BFA professional tracks, and a three-year high school dance program. While in Taiwan, Susan taught in three other universities and two other high schools as well.

Susan graduated with the MFA in Dance from the University of Illinois at Urbana/ Champaign and with the BFA in Modern Dance (magna cum laude) and BA in Spanish (cum laude) from TCU.