The Department of Theatre and Dance welcomes Noel Price-Bracey to the Dance Faculty

New assistant professor teaches advanced jazz courses and choreographs works for dance concerts

By: Scott Snyder
Monday, August 19, 2024, 4:09 p.m.

The Department of Theatre and Dance at Muhlenberg College welcomes Noel Price-Bracey as Assistant Professor of Dance with the possibility of tenure. Price-Bracey will teach courses in advanced jazz dance and create stage choreographies, including this year’s In motion Concert in February.

“I love this place,” Price-Bracey says. “The response from students has been so enthusiastic and it’s been so easy to get into the department. I love that the entire college community really values ​​the arts. That’s something I wanted to be a part of.”

Price-Bracey is a contemporary artist, activist, and educator whose interest in social change has led her to work, collaborate, and perform throughout the United States, including in Kalamazoo, Michigan; Detroit; Chicago; Seattle; and Portland, Oregon, as well as internationally, in Canada and Italy. In 2014, she founded PRICEarts LLC, a multidisciplinary arts organization with a mission to empower communities to find freedom through creative expression.

Price-Bracey received the SeattleDances Dance Crush Award in 2019 for her commitment to mental well-being through dance. In her teaching, Price-Bracey explores the dynamic tension between Western learning modalities and community-based pedagogical practices. Price-Bracey earned her Master of Fine Arts in Dance from the University of Washington, Seattle in 2024, where her research has covered embodied performance, protest, and re-enactments from the Black Arts and Black Power movements to modern social movements.

“I’m excited to share the versatility of jazz dance,” says Price-Bracey. “I want to take students on the journey that many great jazz artists of the past and present have taken.”

Price-Bracey takes a very collaborative approach to both choreography and teaching. She believes in the importance of community building and collective thinking in educational settings. “I have my experiences and I know I’m ready to learn,” she says. “I may be at the front of the room, but I’m not the only person with important embodied knowledge. I stopped believing that for a long time.”

As a choreographer, Price-Bracey works in a socially conscious and collaborative way, often exploring themes of mental health. She has created works inspired and influenced by the Black Lives Matter movement and the series of deaths of black Americans at the hands of police officers that has continued since 2014. “Collaborators and I are constantly questioning current or historical events and confronting them with people who aren’t necessarily aware of them,” she says. “I’m really excited to dive back into these socially conscious works with the students at Muhlenberg. I know they have the potential to go there.”

Price-Bracey says her work for this year’s In motion The concert will engage the dancers in an exploratory and highly collaborative process. “What has fascinated me about creating lately is the decision to let go. The intention is to come into the room and talk to the students about what they are thinking and what is on their hearts.”

Price-Bracey is originally from Detroit and travels through the Seattle area and the Pacific Northwest to Muhlenberg with her husband, Julian Bracey, and their two-year-old son.

“I’m proud,” she says. “I’m the first graduate in my family to have completed everything: college and graduate school. I want to share that perspective with the students at Muhlenberg. Knowing that I’m standing on the shoulders of my ancestors and my elders who are still here – that feels like a collective and familial victory.”

“I’m excited to get started,” she says. “I can’t wait to get home.”

About the Theater and Dance Department at Muhlenberg College
Muhlenberg offers Bachelor of Arts degrees in theater and dance. The Princeton Review has ranked Muhlenberg’s theater program among the top 12 in the country for eight years in a row, and the Fiske Guide to Colleges lists both the theater and dance programs among the best small college programs in the United States. Muhlenberg is one of only eight colleges listed in Fiske for both theater and dance.

About Muhlenberg College
Founded in 1848, Muhlenberg is a highly selective, private liberal arts college offering bachelor’s and master’s degree programs. Enrolling nearly 2,000 students, Muhlenberg College is dedicated to educating creative, compassionate, and collaborative leaders through challenging academic programs in the arts, humanities, sciences, and social sciences; select pre-professional programs including accounting, business, education, and public health; and advanced, workforce-focused postgraduate certificates and master’s degrees. Located in Allentown, Pennsylvania, about 90 miles west of New York City, Muhlenberg is a member of the Centennial Conference, competing in 23 intercollegiate sports. Muhlenberg is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.