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 the Mary Beth Treen Award, 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. Dr. Johnson is past Chair of the Service Organization Council for Dance/USA and currently serves on the Dance/USA Board of Trustees. From 2015-2017 she served as a Vice-Chair and Chair of the Trustees Committee. She serves as board chair and managing director for Southern Danceworks, Alabama’s oldest professional modern dance company. She 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.
Rachel Singletary Gates
Program Associate
Rachel Singletary is a dance artist who loves engaging in her local arts community in a variety of ways. A graduate of the University of Utah, she holds a Bachelor of Science in Human Development and Family Studies and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Ballet. Rachel spent her professional dancing years with with Nashville Ballet 2, Alabama Ballet, AROVA Contemporary Ballet, and Swallowtail Dance. Rachel has completed trainings and certifications in Zena Rommett Floor-Barre® Technique, Revolutionary Principles of Movement, based on the syllabus of Master Teacher Ruth Petrinovic, and Dance for Parkinson’s Disease by the Mark Morris Dance Group.
