Sherry Jerome-Wilkinson

A photo of Sherry Jerome-Wilkinson

Professor of Dance; Dance Program Coordinator

Dance

318G Porter

734.487.2849

[email protected]

Biography

Sherry Jerome, associate professor of dance, received her early ballet training in Arizona, studying under Mary Moe Adams and Constance Stine. She passed Royal Academy of Dancing levels through the majors elementary examination and spent summers at Ballet West Summer Dance Camp. She received her bachelor of fine arts degree in ballet with university honors from Texas Christian University where she was the senior scholar in the Department of Ballet and Modern Dance. She received her master of fine arts degree in dance, as a scholarship student, from New York University's Tisch School of Arts. While in NYC, Professor Jerome danced with the Second Avenue Dance Company, working with choreographers David Allen, Shapiro and Smith and others. Professor Jerome has studied with such ballet notables as Fernando Schaffenberg, Li Chou Cheng, David Howard, Maggie Black, Bruce Marks and William Christianson. Her modern training includes studying with David Hochoy, Danny Clark, Deborah Jowitt and the many guest artists of the NYU faculty.

Professor Jerome danced professionally with the Carol Rioux Dance Ensemble, Ballet Long Island and, for many seasons, with the Saint Louis Ballet. She has danced in a variety of principal and soloist roles in such ballets as The Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, Cinderella, A Midsummer's Nights Dream, and others. Locally, she has also performed with People Dancing under the direction of Christina Sears Etter. Besides numerous Ann Arbor concerts with People Dancing, she traveled, in 2005, with the company for a concert series in New York City.

Her teaching experience includes professional ballet studios across the country, Chandler High School in Arizona and Bowling Green State University. At BGSU, she served as an instructor of dance and as the artistic director of the University Performing Dancers. She continues to offer master classes in a variety of settings, including American College Dance Festivals. At EMU, she is the ballet specialist and teaches ballet levels I–IV, Pointe and Variations and beginning ballet, as well as lecture-based dance courses. Jerome teaches a classical ballet class that mixes Vaganova, Bournonville and RAD concepts with emphasis on core strength, alignment and proper use of arms and heads. She continues to update her teaching through study at the National Ballet School's Teacher Training Seminar (2000, 2001, 2004), with Alonzo King (2004), Nadia Potts and Igor Perry (2007), and locally with Christina Kamueller. In 2006, two EMU students, coached in classical ballet variations by Jerome, placed first and third in the Michigan Arts and Letters Competition.

Jerome's choreography has been presented across the country from Arizona to New York City. She has choreographed full-length ballets, restaged numerous classical works, set her own original choreography and choreographed modern pieces. With Kevin Miller, she co-founded the successful ballet/orchestra collaborative concert series which occurs each December at EMU. For this concert series, her credits include Peter and the Wolf, Sleeping Beauty Prologue, Cinderella, La Boutique Fantastique, Coppelia, Swan Lake Act II, Midsummer Night's Dream, Sleeping Beauty Acts I–III, and The Firebird. For her choreography, she has received the Graduate Studies and Research Award, the Artistic Recognition Award and the College of Education Dean's Award for Distinguished Contributions in the Scholarship of Discovery. Jerome's research interests are in the areas of dance pedagogy and presentation. Previous conferences where she has presented her research include the CORPS de Ballet International Conference, the World Dance Alliance International Conference, MAHPERD State Conference and the National Dance Association Conference.

For three years, she served as a national board member of American College Dance Festival. In Michigan, she has served as an adjudicator for the Michigan Arts and Letters Competition (2000), the Michigan Dance Council, the Michigan Humanities Council and the State of Michigan Council for the Arts. From 2003–2006, she served as the EMU Dance Program Coordinator and she has served on department committees, the CAS strategic planning committee and the university general education vetting sub-committee.

Education

  • BFA Degree, Ballet, Texas Christian University
  • MFA, Dance, New York University's Tisch School of Arts.