Helene Scheff, RDE, was a dance educator and administrator for 55 years in all sectors and venues, including K-12, higher education, and the private sector. She coauthored several dance books and conducted presentations at local, regional, national, and international conferences and seminars. Scheff was a member of the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance. In her leisure time she enjoyed viewing dance and theater and spending time with her family, including her 10 grandchildren and one great grandchild.
Helene Scheff passed away in 2023.
Marty Sprague is a dance educator with over 30 years of experience. She has taught all levels, from early childhood through higher education. Sprague teaches dance at the Juanita Sanchez Educational Complex High School in Providence, Rhode Island, and has been an associate professor at Brown University and an associate professor and clinical supervisor for Roger Williams University education department.
Sprague has been involved in program and curriculum development, professional development, policy development, and advocacy support for arts education in Rhode Island. Marty holds an MA in dance education from the Teachers College of Columbia University and a BFA in dance from Boston Conservatory. She was the founding artistic director of the Chance to Dance program. She has written and reviewed dance standards at the district, state, and national levels. Marty has been honored by Dance Teacher magazine as 2004 Dance Teacher of the Year for K-12 and by the National Dance Education Organization as the 2005 Dance Educator of the Year for K-12. Marty is currently serving on the executive editorial board for NDEO’s Journal of Dance Education and for the Arts Education Policy Review.
She is coauthor, with Helene Scheff and Susan McGreevy-Nichols, of Building More Dances, the second edition of Building Dances, Experiencing Dance, Dance About Anything, and Exploring Dance Forms and Styles.
Susan McGreevy-Nichols is the executive director of the National Dance Education Organization (NDEO). She taught at Roger Williams Middle School in Providence, Rhode Island, from 1974 to 2002. She was the founder and director of the inner-city school's nationally recognized dance program in which more than 300 off the school's 900 students elected to participate. The program treated dance as a core subject; emphasized the creating, performing, and responding processes; and integrated the arts and other core subjects. She developed a cutting-edge reading comprehension program using text as inspiration for original choreography created by children. After retiring, she moved to California, where she taught part-time at California State University at Dominguez Hills and Loyola Marymount University and was a teaching artist in schools in Los Angeles and Alameda counties.
She is a founding member of the NDEO and a former treasurer and board member; she served as president before becoming the executive director. She also has served as president of the National Dance Association (NDA).
Susan has received numerous NDA presidential citations and an Eastern District Association (EDA) of the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education and Dance (AAHPERD) Merit Award in Dance. In 1994 she was named Rhode Island's Dance Teacher of the Year, and in 1995 she was honored both as the NDA National Dance Teacher of the Year and as an EDA Outstanding Professional. She received AAHPERD's Honor Award in 2000.
Susan is the coauthor of five books: Building Dances (1995), Building More Dances (2001), Experiencing Dance (2004), Dance About Anything (2006), and Dance Forms and Styles (2010).
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