Studio Stories: Reminiscing on Twin Cities Dance with Jane Skinner Peck - Season 11, Episode 133

JANE SKINNER PECK  is a researcher, choreographer, dance historian, teacher, writer/playwright and performer. She has worked across  the U.S., Canada, and France for over thirty years.   She found that dance history enables her to combine her love of history with her love of dance. She has extensive training in both modern dance and dance history, directing performances with her company Dance Revels Moving History since 1990. Jane’s period choreography conveys varied past cultures and economic classes of the Upper Midwest as well as Europe in a most immediate and authentic way.  She has created work for St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, MN History Center, Sibley Historic Site, Mpls. Institute of Arts,  Macalester College, NY Baroque Dance Company, Carleton College Theater, U of MN , Luther College.  Her work has been seen at the Long Island NY Fringe Festival, Long Island University NY , Winnipeg's Festival de Voyageur, Ordway Center for the Arts, Walker Art Center, and Intermedia Arts among others. Jane studied Renaissance and Baroque dance in California, NY, and France. She studied French-Canadian dance with Jean-Paul Cloutier of Winnipeg, Manitoba, and Metis dance with Sandy Poitra of the Turtle Mountain Ojibwe Reservation of North Dakota.         Jane’s dance theater shows involve characters, stories, and live music. Dance Revels toured Jane’s show of MN Metis history through dance throughout MN schools and museums for 15 years.  Since 2015 she annually writes and directs new History Alive! Lanesboro Pop-up Plays , with her original scripts about small town history, dance, and music staged in the streets  of historic Lanesboro, MN.        Jane is a highly regarded dance educator, having taught school residencies for 20 years and has mentored teachers in the arts across the state for years through the Perpich Center for Arts Education. She is a frequent grant recipient and has taught at Winona State University, U of MN, UW Madison, Gustavus Adolphus, and Bemidji State. An historian, she is published by MN Historical Society.