Rate My Professor Marsha Barsky

Marsha Barsky serves as Professor and Chair of the Department of Dance at Kennesaw State University. She earned a B.F.A. in Dance and Choreography from Arizona State University in 1999 (Magna cum Laude) and an M.F.A. in Performance and Choreography from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2003. Barsky holds certifications including ShambhavAnanda Eldorado yoga teacher training from Boulder, Colorado (2002), completion of the North Carolina Alexander Technique Program under Robin Gilmore (2011), and licenses as a GYROTONIC® and GYROKINESIS® trainer. Her career spans over 20 years fostering creative and collaborative dance initiatives in public and private sectors. Previously, she was Associate Professor and Director of Dance at Middle Tennessee State University, developing Tennessee's first bachelor's degree in Dance, and Director of the Vanderbilt University Dance Program. From 2008 to 2018, she directed and choreographed for Nashville-based Company Rose, presenting works at the Frist Art Museum and Southeastern venues. Barsky has taught at festivals and conferences throughout the United States, Canada, France, Switzerland, and Spain; served as Foreign Expert in Dance at Chengdu University, China (2017); and as visiting scholar at Carleton University's Kroeger College of Public Affairs, Ottawa, Canada (2020).

Barsky's research centers on the embodiment of process in dance through somatic movement practices, improvisation, and choreography, alongside contemporary approaches to dance, somatics, and holistic wellness for dancers and non-dancers. Key publications include 'Embodying the Dance Rehearsal: The Time, Space and Situatedness of Dance Making' in the Journal of Dance Education (2021) and, co-authored with Robert Barsky, 'Mikhaïl Bakhtin, Modern Dance, and the Body’s Unmediated Presence in the World' in Understanding Bakhtin, Understanding Modernism (Bloomsbury, 2023). She edited the special issue Dance in the Americas for AmeriQuests (2010). Barsky received the Tennessee Arts Commission Individual Fellowship Award for choreography (2019). She has presented research at events such as the National Dance Education Organization conferences, KSU's Research with Relevance series (2022), and international venues including Clos des Bernardines Cultural Center in France (2022). As a performer, she has danced with Desert Dance Theatre and Shelter Repertory Dance Theatre, and in works by choreographers including Isadora Duncan, Bill Evans, Pat Graney, and Ivan Pulinkala.