Artistic Discipline: Dance

“As a dancer, I know from daily experience that human beings have the capacity to heal, grow, connect, and change by engaging our bodies in mindful, creative movement.”


Allyson Yoder is a member of the 2016 AZ Creative Aging Teaching Artist Institute cohort.

The Teaching Artist Institute is a five-month training program that will introduce teaching artists to the variety of settings, programs, and partners that make up the creative aging field, and provide skills-building activities for participants to attain the specialized knowledge needed to work successfully with older adults. Inspired by ArtSage and other national models, the Institute has been developed around the philosophies of person-centered care, a process-based approach, and cultural responsiveness. To learn more about AZ Creative Aging and the Teaching Artist Institute click here.

Allyson Joy Yoder is a community-centered movement artist from Tucson, Arizona. Her creative process is collaborative, research-based, and grounded by practices in movement and improvisation, and her work is driven by a desire for transformation. Her most current project is a solo performance, Dress in Something Plain and Dark, that investigates her relationship to the Mennonite church through the lenses of gender, identity, and spirituality.

As a performing artist, she has performed and collaborated in the making of dance works by Mary Fitzgerald, Elizabeth Johnson, Kathleen Hermesdorf, Jessica Rajko & Eileen Standley, Beth Braun-Miscione, Angel Crissman, and Inkyung Lee, and participated in community-based projects led by Mary Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Johnson. Internationally, she has taught and trained in dance as a dance intern at Varium Studio in Barcelona, Spain with Performing Arts Abroad, and in Panama with Movement Exchange. In 2015, she attended the Bates Dance Festival, where she studied with Claudia LaVista, Angie Hauser, Mark Dendy, and Robbie Cook.

Allyson_Yoder-ws6aAs a teaching artist, Allyson works to expand inclusion and access to dance in the local community. She is the cofounder and instructor for Dance Mixability, an inclusive, physically integrated dance class in Phoenix, and has taught classes and facilitated workshops at the ASU Art Museum, the Mesa Arts Center, Combine Studios, the Sojourner Center, and the César Chávez Leadership Institute. In 2015, she was the youngest panelist at the Age-Friendly Annual conference, “Going Places,” where she was a panelist on Creative Aging. Currently, she is the Performance Program director for nueBOX, a residency program for emerging artists in the Phoenix metro area. In the past, she has held internships with Rising Youth Theatre and the Arizona Arts Commission.

In 2012, Allyson was awarded the Flinn Scholarship to attend Arizona State University. In May 2016, she will graduate with honors from Arizona State University with a B.F.A. in Dance and certificate in Socially Engaged Practice. Upon graduation, she plans to remain in the Valley and contribute to the growth of a vibrantly collaborative, community-centered local arts scene.

Website: https://ajymovement.squarespace.com/contact/

Banner photos (left to right): Studio photo by Mark Lipczynski. Artist headshot by Larry Hanelin.