Former professional dancer uses her experience to influence others

Drumbeats fill the spacious studio as a group of dancers warm up their bodies. The swaying of
their legs and flinging of their arms match the energy and rapidity of the drums. By taking turns
dancing with them and observing them, ​Rebecca Gose​ stands in front of the students and leads
these swift and freeing movements.

Gose has been a professor of dance at the University of Georgia since 2001. With 40 years of
dance experience, she teaches classes that include principles of science and somatics in dance
training, issues in dance education and pedagogy and her favorite genre, contemporary dance.

“I really thought that would be a perfect place for me because you have this combination of
teaching and research and then service as well,” said Gose.

While many dancers begin at a young age, Gose did not begin dancing until she was 15 years
old. The priest at her church in Parkersburg, West Virginia, hired two local dance teachers who
taught Gose dances as part of their confirmation sacrament.

“I just really fell in love with what modern dance was,” said Gose. “I don’t know if I would’ve
had the same passion if I would’ve grown up in a studio.”

Gose attended West Virginia University in 1982 where she majored in English education. She
said she took as many dance classes as she could extracurricularly because her mother would not
allow her to major in dance, not seeing how it would afford her a future career.

After graduating in 1987, she had the opportunity to dance professionally with Garth Fagan’s
company. Fagan is recognizable as being the choreographer for “The Lion King” on Broadway.
“I was hoping to dance but I had not been dancing that many years and didn’t know quite what
was possible,” said Gose.

Gose traveled all over the world for years in her 20s and had the opportunity to perform at places
including the Joyce Theater in New York City, t​he Spoleto Festival in Italy and the Israel
Festival of the Arts.

In her 30s, Gose attended the University of Washington to earn her MFA in dance where she got
experience teaching, choreographing and preparing to work in higher education.

Barbara Powers, who attended the same MFA program and became a dance professor at UGA in
2018, said she has learned a great deal from Gose’s experience and teaching style.

“I think she’s really intelligent. The way she thinks about things is really multidimensional,” said
Powers.

Powers says that Gose has been a mentor to her in certain ways since she is just starting out in
academia and Gose has been teaching for a lot longer. Powers tries to take Gose’s contemporary
IV class at least twice a week.

“I like the way she holds space. She definitely is very concerned about the students and I think
we have that in common. We have wanting the welfare of our students to be like one of the
highest priorities,” said Powers

In the classroom, Gose enjoys the variety that comes with teaching several different classes.

“I feel like she takes a lot of attention to what we need as students and so that makes you feel
more wanted and willing to work in a class. So I think just the general aspect of her attention as a
teacher is really useful,” said Amber Thompson, a junior at UGA majoring in both dance and
English.

Thompson takes Gose’s contemporary IV class as well as the principles of science and somatics
in dance training. She said she enjoys how Gose makes the class individualized to the students
and how the class uses a lot of brainwork but feels good on the body.

The students have remained to be one of Gose’s biggest priorities as a professor, and she enjoys
how she can get to know them better with a smaller class size, typically with around 12-16
students.
 “I think as I get older it does get a little harder to feel connected to what is really fueling them,
inspiring them, but I think it’s really important to nurture our conversations before and after
class, or between times in order to get to know them and also share experiences,” said Gose.

“She’s really grounded. She’s really present and lovely as a person, and some people are a little
more prickly, she’s not prickly,” said Powers.