Sandra Neels

Sandra Neels is an Associate Professor of Dance at Winthrop University. Since leaving her 10 year performance career with Merce Cunningham Dance Company in 1974, she has choreographed over 200 works in a variety of settings. She maintained her own studio in NYC; choreographed for various musicals around the country and fashion shows in NY, Toronto, Winnipeg, and Los Angeles.

She has taught at the University of South Florida, York University, The Harvard Summer Session, Hampshire College, The California Institute of the Arts (where she received the Faculty of the Year Award), the Royal Winnipeg Ballet Company and Professional Division, UNC, Ballet Hawaii, and South Carolina Governor’s School for Arts and Humanities.

She recently reunited with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company in New York by teaching company class and coaching the dancers for their July 2012 Lincoln Center Performance. Since then, Neels has become an official reconstructionist of Merce Cunningham’s work.

Ballet Spartanburg is funded in part by The Arts Partnership of Greater Spartanburg, its donors, the County and City f Spartanburg and the South Carolina Arts Commission, which receives support from the National Endowment for the arts and the John and Susan Bennett Memorial Arts Fund of the Coastal Community Foundation of SC.