Rosemary Johnson
Executive Director
Rosemary W. Johnson is Executive Director of the Alabama Dance Council, a statewide dance service organization working in partnership with the Alabama State Council on the Arts. Dr. Johnson has a 26-year history as a performing arts presenter – 10 years as a multidisciplinary presenter and 16 years as a dance presenter and producer of the Alabama Dance Festival. She is the 2017 recipient of South Arts’ Mary Beth Treen Award, which is presented annually during the Performing Arts Exchange to a respected member of the performing arts presenting and touring community. Dr. Johnson is currently serving as the lead consultant/facilitator for the South Arts’ Dance Touring Initiative, a three-year program offering professional development and block-booking opportunities to dance presenters in the Southeast. She is past Chair of the Service Organization Council for Dance/USA and currently serves on the Dance/USA Board of Trustees. Dr. Johnson has served on the Board of Trustees for the Alabama School of Fine Arts and as administrative consultant for the Alabama Ballet. She was a participant in the 2004 Leadership Forum at Jacob’s Pillow and regularly attends the National Performance Network’s Annual Meeting as a colleague. Dr. Johnson was recipient of the 2004 Artist Fellowship in Arts Administration from the Alabama State Council on the Arts, and has served on the NEA’s grant review panel for dance, and on grant panels for South Arts, Alabama State Council on the Arts, and 3Arts in Chicago.
In addition to her arts administration experience, Dr. Johnson is a professional music educator and performer with a Doctor of Musical Arts in piano performance. Before coming to the Alabama Dance Council in 2002, Dr. Johnson served as Fine Arts Director and music instructor at Wallace Community College in Selma, Alabama. After opening a new theatre at the college in 1992, she founded WCCSpresents, a multi-disciplinary season of artist residency programs that promoted arts education and community arts development. She was selected in 1998 as a host coordinator for one of eight national sites in Chamber Music America’s Chamber Music Rural Residencies Program, which placed talented, emerging artists in rural communities for nine-month residencies for three consecutive years.
Kerri-Noelle Humphrey
Director, Programming
Kerri-Noelle Humphrey is a 2022 ASCA Arts Educator Fellowship Recipient. She also works as a teaching artist for the Greater Birmingham and North Alabama Arts Education Collaboratives. She is the former Co-Artistic Director of AAA Dance at the Academy for Academics and Arts. In 2019, she was selected as the AAA Middle School Teacher of the Year. She is the founder of Dance Your Voice and Dance Africa festivals, free community outreach dance workshops that celebrate diversity through dance. Her current research, Dancing the Diaspora: Discovering the Influence of Traditional and Tribal African Dance in the History of African-American Social and Concert Dance in the Caribbean and the United States was listed on Dancemagazine.com and DanceTeacher.com in What to Read and Watch During Quarantine: Recommendations from Master Teacher Katiti King.
She has been a presenter at the National Dance Education Organization’s annual conference and the Alabama Institute for Education in the Arts Summer Institute.
She holds an Alabama Professional Educator Certificate in Dance (P-12). Her academic achievements include a BS, Mathematics from Howard University, an MBA from Barry University, and an MA, Dance Education from the University of Northern Colorado, Greeley.
Rachel Gates
Program Associate
Rachel Gates enjoys engaging in the Alabama dance community in a variety of ways. She has lived and danced in Birmingham, AL since 2011 wearing many costumes. Her interests have led her to complete trainings in Zena Rommett Floor-Barre Technique®, Revolutionary Principles of Movement, Dance for Parkinson’s Disease, and she has been lucky enough to work with the Alabama Dance Council, Alabama Ballet, NS Dance Studio, Beverly’s Dance Unlimited, Magic City Performing Arts, and AROVA Contemporary Ballet. Rachel holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Ballet and a Bachelor of Science in Human Development and Family Studies.
