Justin Tornow
Adjunct Assistant Professor of Performing Arts
Department: Performing Arts
Mailing address:
2800 Campus Box
Elon, NC 27244
Email: jtornow@elon.edu
Brief Biography
Justin Tornow (MFA) is a dance artist, educator, and researcher based in Durham, NC. Her artistic work is primarily collaborative and interdisciplinary, created with a core group of partners in visual art, sound design, filmmaking, and lighting design. Tornow’s solo and collaborative work has been widely presented in North Carolina, as well as New York City, Philadelphia, France, Italy, and Germany. She is a co-founder and organizer of DIDA (Durham Independent Dance Artists) and the producer of PROMPTS, a Durham-based series for artists.
Tornow teaches college-level courses and workshops in dance technique, composition, and repertory at area universities and is faulty at the American Dance Festival. She was the 2017 teaching-artist-in-residence at Tanzart Atelier in Kirschau, Germany, and 2019 artist-in-residence at The Commons at UNC-Chapel Hill, working to develop a score-based Happening that blurs the line between performer and audience, prioritizing process and personal interpretation in order to highlight performance as a responsive practice. Justin was a 2018-2019 Cunningham Dance Research Fellow with the New York Public Library, publishing original research on the pedagogy and practice of the technique titled Cunningham Technique as a Practice of Freedom. She has continued this research through workshops and series at Duke University, ACDA, and ADF, examining sustainable pedagogy methods for studio dance practices, and devising collaborative lab environments for repertory and composition courses.
Tornow teaches college-level courses and workshops in dance technique, composition, and repertory at area universities and is faulty at the American Dance Festival. She was the 2017 teaching-artist-in-residence at Tanzart Atelier in Kirschau, Germany, and 2019 artist-in-residence at The Commons at UNC-Chapel Hill, working to develop a score-based Happening that blurs the line between performer and audience, prioritizing process and personal interpretation in order to highlight performance as a responsive practice. Justin was a 2018-2019 Cunningham Dance Research Fellow with the New York Public Library, publishing original research on the pedagogy and practice of the technique titled Cunningham Technique as a Practice of Freedom. She has continued this research through workshops and series at Duke University, ACDA, and ADF, examining sustainable pedagogy methods for studio dance practices, and devising collaborative lab environments for repertory and composition courses.