Rodney A. Brown, Assistant Professor
By Leisa DeCarlo
New to our department, Assistant Professor Rodney A. Brown choreographed a work that was integral to the China Project. The piece, DOTS, illuminated the potential of dance not only as a sensory manifestation of movement exploration, but also a platform for education. As the movement vocabulary stemmed most vividly from that of contemporary lexicon, Brown employed both abstract and literal gesture and word to create a work enriched by the pedagogy of action module on HIV education. The piece proved reflective of Brown’s personal passion to connect art, performance and education through The Brown Dance Project, of which he is both the founder/director and choreographer.
His research and activism with HIV/AIDS education has fueled the opportunities for national and international work, significantly creating MODULE (2013) and publishing Education Options in Dance Composition, a manuscript online. His recent credits include participation in the White House Initiative Conference on African Americans in Atlanta, presenting at the University of Michigan’s Community Engaged Learning Symposium and a fellowship and funding from their Center for World Performance Studies, new commissions and presentation of creative research with Dayton Contemporary Dance Company (DCDC), SMAG, DCDC2, and Moving Collective. He has presented at the Kentucky Governors’ School, and secured Diversity and Inclusion funding at Ohio State. Independently, Brown has performed nationally with concert dance companies, university/college and community programs, and globally, traveling to South Africa and Europe.
Mitchell Rose, Assistant Professor
By Leisa DeCarlo
Mitchell Rose joins the faculty of Ohio State Dance to lead the department’s dance film program. His most recent project, Globe Trot has garnered over six awards and counting. Called “a rare and wonderful talent” by The New York Times, Rose has created 25 films that have won 67 awards. His work is screened around the world on television and in locations as diverse as the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Smithsonian, inflight entertainment and the CBS JumboVision in Times Square. Prior to his career as a filmmaker, Rose specialized in comedic choreography, touring for 15 years with his company to Spoleto Festivals in the United States and Italy, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival and various New York venues. His passions for dance and visual media finally merged in his creation of Modern Daydreams, a work dedicated to the exploration of dance film and has since won 19 awards. His program, The Mitch Show, which displays his films and integrates audience-participation performance pieces, has taken him to Kosovo as a U.S. State Department Cultural Envoy. Rose’s witty and intentional collaboration of film technique and dance movement provides audiences with an accessible and enriching art experience.
Hannah Kosstrin, Assistant Professor
By Amy Esther Schmidt
Ohio State Dance welcomes Assistant Professor Hannah Kosstrin as our newest scholar, who will amplify the department’s offerings in history and gender studies while leading the area of documenting and advancing the archive of dance. Having received her BA in Dance from Goucher College, Kosstrin is also an alumna of Ohio State, earning both her PhD in dance Studies with a graduate minor in women’s history in 2011, and her MA in dance with concentrations in dance history and Labanotation, including teacher certification. For the past four years, she has been a visiting professor at Reed College. Her work has appeared in Dance Research Journal, The International Journal of Screendance and Dance on Its Own Terms: Histories and Methodologies.
Kosstrin’s book Honest Bodies (under contract with Oxford University Press) examines Anna Sokolow’s choreography from the 1930s-1960s in the U.S., Mexico, and Israel. She is also project director for KineScribe, a mobile dance notation app supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities Office of Digital Humanities. Kosstrin has received additional grants from the Dance Preservation Fund, the Melton Center for Jewish Studies, the P.E.O. International Sisterhood, the Coca-Cola Critical Difference for Women Graduate Studies Grant for Research on Women, Gender, and Gender Equity, and the Greater Columbus Arts Council. In 2009 Hannah received Society of Dance History Scholars’ Selma Jeanne Cohen Award. She has served on the boards of both SDHS and CORD, where she is the current Treasurer, and is a member of the Dance Notation Bureau Professional Advisory Committee.
