Choreographing the Next Act

On a Tuesday night in spring 2023, UAA alumna Katie O’Loughlin, B.A. ’17, received an unexpected — and perfectly timed — call from Daniel Anteau, B.A. ’96, chair of UAA’s Department of Theatre and Dance, inviting her to apply for a faculty position as the department prepared to reintroduce the dance minor several years after it was cut in response to Alaska’s fiscal crisis.

Earlier that same day, O’Loughlin turned down an offer for a faculty role at a university in Texas. She was in her final year of the M.F.A dance program at The Ohio State University. With graduation on the horizon, she had applied to over 20 positions across the country but never considered UAA as an option because it didn’t have an active dance program at the time.

Although she connected with the students and faculty at the Texas program, she couldn’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t the right fit for her because of the climate and distance from her family. The program gave her one week to respond, during which time she wrestled back and forth with the decision before declining that fateful Tuesday morning.

Only hours later, she received the call from Anteau about dance returning to UAA, thanks to support from the Atwood Foundation. For O’Loughlin, the timing was too coincidental to not take the offer seriously. She applied as soon as recruitment opened and proved herself as the top candidate after a months-long competitive, national search. Accepting UAA’s offer was an easy yes.

“A lot of my family is back here in Alaska. I grew up in Alaska. I went to UAA as an undergrad,” said O’Loughlin. “It’s just a really valuable program to me. To be a part of it coming back to campus was more than just me having a job. It was me being able to give a little bit back to the community that gave a lot to me while I was here.”

Choreographing for student success

One of the most rewarding and challenging aspects of the job is adapting the program for today’s students.

“A ton has happened in 10 years that has really shaped us as humanity, as a society, as dancers, as movers,” said O’Loughlin. “I really take it as my responsibility to get to know this next generation of students, what feels relevant to them, what matters to them, while also giving them a valuable education.”

For O’Loughlin, that means considering attention spans, dance trends, AI, ethics and more to develop a curriculum that meets students where they’re at while also challenging them to learn and grow. The goal is to set students up for success in a constantly changing and evolving dance field, whichever path they choose.

“Social media and an online presence have given people a different way to show up in the dance field that allows them to be successful. You used to have to train full-time and dance with a dance company to be a successful dancer in the field, and that’s not the case anymore,” said O’Loughlin.

More avenues to succeed contributed to another major change over the past decade: the idea of a hybrid dancer. Traditionally, students would specialize in one style, such as modern, ballet or hip-hop, and there was rarely any crossover.

“Now we’re in this field where all the people who came out of these pockets started talking to each other and started collaborating, and they started teaching classes that were based in ballet and modern, in modern and hip-hop, because they started to train in multiple styles,” said O’Loughlin, who describes herself as a hybrid contemporary dancer.

Adding to the hybridization is the rise of cultural relevance in dance. More dancers are fusing their cultural background with their training, creating new styles like Afro-contemporary or Latin hip-hop, just as more cultural dance forms are integrating into academia after often being left out of the curriculum.

Finding creative ways to bring more people into the program to give students a broader dance education is a key priority for O’Loughlin, whether that’s hiring adjunct faculty, inviting guest choreographers or offering masterclasses.

Dancing with alumni

“That’s actually a huge thing about our program, and it always has been, is that the alumni really matter to our program,” she said. “Brian and Jill, who ran the program before me, were great about it. They would bring alumni back to choreograph on the students.”

For O’Loughlin, maintaining that sense of community, collaboration and opportunity is essential to the program’s success.

This March, she helped produce UAA Dance in Concert 2026, which featured UAA students and community members performing new works by 11 choreographers, including six UAA alumni. The alumni artists range from a 1990s graduate who was involved with the program before it became a minor to a 2025 graduate who studied under O’Loughlin.

The showcase is a revamped version of what was once an annual spring performance. The plan is to continue presenting it regularly, although how often will depend on program capacity and student enrollment. As the program gains momentum, O’Loughlin hopes to see more students getting involved as choreographers — an experience she found transformative during her own UAA experience.

“I walked out of undergrad with six pieces of choreography at a collegiate institution,” she said. “If you went to a larger institution, you might not get those opportunities. I was able to cultivate my work in a way that has supported me throughout my career.”

Given the resurgent program’s small footprint, O’Loughlin leverages community connections to create more opportunities for current students.

Pulse Dance Company, led by former UAA adjunct professor Stephanie Wonchala, invited the program to perform at their annual showcase, Bloom, two years in a row. Momentum Dance Collective, led by former UAA adjunct professor Becky Kendall, has also collaborated with the program on performances.

Thanks to a mini-grant from the UAA Center for Community Engagement and Learning, this year marks the second partnership between UAA Dance, Alaska Dance Theater, East High and West High to produce Emerging Voices, featuring all-student choreography and all-student dancers.

The collaboration flows both ways as UAA’s Fine Arts Building is home to two of Anchorage’s best theaters, the Mainstage Theatre and the Jerry Harper Studio, which community groups frequently rent out for their productions. The on-campus location helps make performance art more accessible for students, especially those already taking classes in the building.

O’Loughlin is forging partnerships on campus too. “I’ve been able to collaborate with faculty, like Mike Conti, the photography instructor. Twice now, we’ve done a dance photography shoot, where his photography students learn how to shoot movement, and my dance students learn how to work with a photographer.”

Beyond amplifying opportunity, the partnerships help integrate students into the community early on so that they’re already familiar with Alaska’s dance companies and directors by the time they graduate.

Creating community for Alaska dancers

“I wouldn’t be here without this program, you know?” said O’Loughlin, who occasionally teaches dance classes at local high schools. “For me, it just feels important to share that the opportunity is here.”

She’s passionate about sharing the possibilities to study dance after high school, whether at UAA or in the Lower 48. For many of the high school students she speaks with, it’s their first time learning about the myriad opportunities available — from pursuing the dance minor, taking a dance elective or joining the Dance Club at UAA to auditioning for a B.F.A. program out of state. O’Loughlin explains more about what each option entails and makes herself available as a resource for any questions.

O’Loughlin strives to make dancing accessible and relevant for all students, even those who might not see it as a career. One thing she enjoys about the dance minor is how it draws students from nearly every major and every experience level, emphasizing that dance is a way of approaching life in a certain way. More than fancy footwork, dance teaches students how to move improvisationally, how to think on their feet and be present, and how to work with people in the moment.

“Dance doesn’t have to be the scary thing that only some people do,” said O’Loughlin. “We all have bodies; we all can move. You can find ways to integrate dance into your own life and interconnect it with your field if you dig deep enough.”

Impacting the next generation

“Students have really shown up,” said O’Loughlin. The community-building so central to her own experience as a dance minor at UAA remains at the heart of the program.

Last May, the program graduated its first three dance minors since relaunching. All three are still in Alaska and active in the community, helping to teach and uplift the next generation.

“It feels really good just to be back and offering those skill sets again, and then having those students go back into the community,” she said. “It’s a wonderful cycle of coming in, and then hopefully coming out stronger and for the better, and then impacting those next generations of dancers, of students, and just of people in general.”