Dancer Michelle Gibson to bring energy as guest teacher; community event set for April 14

Michelle N. Gibson, a dancer, choreographer, and cultural ambassador who works with New Orleans “second line” dance traditions, will spend five days at Lawrence University highlighted by a Sunday, April 14 event at Memorial Chapel.

The community event, set for 3 p.m., is free and open to the public. Gibson will be joined by a combo featuring Lawrence music students.

“It is not a sit back and passively-be-entertained kind of performance, but a community event,” said Margaret Paek, visiting assistant professor of dance at Lawrence. “Michelle uses the second line aesthetic originating from traditional New Orleans jazz parades to educate and uplift as she gets everyone moving with her.”

In the days leading up to the performance, Gibson will be meeting with students and guest teaching several classes, including Musicians in Movement, Articulating the Solo Body, and Dance Collective Ensemble. Lawrence introduced a new dance minor in 2023.

“She has infectious, embodied energy that brings people together and builds healing, wholeness, and belonging,” said Paek, who knows Gibson from graduate school.

She calls Gibson a “force of nature” and said she’s excited for Gibson to share these dances alongside Lawrence students at the April 14 event, titled A Congo Square Gathering: A Reverence for Culture and Healing for Humanity, Down by The Riverside.

“It is a fabulous collaborative opportunity for the five Lawrence student jazz musicians who will be playing with her,” Paek said. “They will get professional experience working with a stellar choreographer, playing both pre-determined songs and improvising for her.”

Raised in New Orleans, Gibson is well acquainted with gospel, jazz, traditional funeral processions, Congo Square gatherings, the Black church, and Second Line parades celebrating community, according to her biography. Together, her dance and music experiences inform her instruction of African American vernacular dance forms.

Gibson received her BFA in Dance from Tulane University and her MFA from Hollins University/American Dance Festival at Duke University. She moved to Dallas and launched her dance career in the early 2000s and has performed all over the world. She is a consummate storyteller, employing body and mind to build a bridge between the arts and academia.

The New York Times featured Gibson and her Second Line workshops in 2022: “In Gibson’s workshops, she starts by helping students find the second line beat in their bodies, the bounce in their feet, hips, shoulders, heads. A strut shifts into a skip, because the dance has to cover ground. Gibson, who calls herself ‘sassy and saucy’ and refers to herself at ‘Mz. G,’ is an encouraging, permission-giving coach.”