Professor
Artistic Director, IUP Dance Theater Company
Modern Dance
Choreography
Dance Education
Holly Boda-Sutton is a professor of dance at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, where she codirects the Dance program. She is the advisor for all students in the INFA Dance Track major and Dance minor programs. She is also director/choreographer of the IUP Dance Theater Company. Ms. Boda-Sutton was the 1999 recipient of the IUP Distinguished Faculty Award for the Creative Arts.
She received her MFA in dance from Texas Woman's University, specializing in both performance and choreography. Ms. Boda-Sutton also holds a MEd from Salisbury State University, Maryland, and a BA in Business from the University of Northern Colorado. She has been on the faculty at Texas Woman's University, University of Texas at Arlington, and Salisbury State University. Ms. Boda-Sutton is certified in Pilates Physicalmind Method and is also certified at the elementary level in Labanotation.
Ms. Boda-Sutton's work has been presented at the state, regional, national, and international levels. Her work has included historical reconstructions, full-length original ballets, musicals, and original choreography. She was choreographer for the grant-funded project, under Dr. Susan Wheatley, to reconstruct Maja Lex and Gunild Keetman's 1935 suite Tanze Zu Ehren von Tag and Nacht (Dances to Honor the Day and Night). This reconstruction was invited to perform at the national conference of the American Orff-Schulwerk Association, the Internationals Dalcroze conference, and the Women's Composer Symposium. The work was also funded to professionally produce both CD and video for archival preservation.
Since 2004, Ms. Boda-Sutton has acted as director/choreographer for five major collaborative projects with Rosaly Roffman and David Berlin. After the Fall, World Curator, Out of the Deep, Tryptich,and Furoshiki were full-length productions that combined the poetry, music, and visual/graphic arts with movement. Out of the Deep was invited to be part of the 2007 Regional ARTS mini-conference for western Pennsylvania and was also performed at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History's whale exhibit.
Ms. Boda-Sutton has worked with the Pennsylvania Department of Education in several capacities. She conducted a survey and created a Pennsylvania dance educators directory in 1996. She served on the writing committee for the Pennsylvania State Standards for the Arts from 1997 to 2000. Ms. Boda-Sutton was a faculty member for the Pennsylvania Governor's Institute for Arts Educators from 1997 to 2008, and served on the Steering Committee from 2000 to 2008.
She has been active professionally and has presented choreographic works at the state, regional, and national levels of the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance (AAHPERD). Ms. Boda-Sutton has been the recipient of both the PSAHPERD Professional Honor Award and the EDA-AAHPERD Outstanding Professional Award in Dance. She was awarded the PSAHPERD Dance Division–University Teacher of the Year award in 2008, and the PSAHPERD Ethel G. Enke Service award in 2012. She was also the recipient of the EDA-AAHPERD Honor Award in 2012.