About Virginia MatthewsVirginia Matthews has had a 50 year career as a dancer, choreographer and teacher. She is the director of Downtown Dance/Art Space where she teaches Pilates mat and modern dance classes as well as hosting teachers in the West Sonoma County community offering other moving arts forms such as Yoga, Martial Arts, Capoeira, Tai Ch’i, etc. She established the studio space over 20 years ago, and at its inception it served the youth population with dance classes and a resident teen dance company, All City Dance.
Ms. Matthews continues to perform and choreograph both independently and with SoCo Dance Theater, a collective of Sonoma County dance artists of which she is a founding member. She began her performing career with The Margaret Jenkins Dance Company, followed by co-artistic director of Dances for 1 & 2, and artistic director of The Virginia Matthews Dance Company. Her dance training began under the mentorship of Bessie Schoenberg at Sarah Lawrence College and at The Merce Cunningham Studio in N.Y.C. After relocating to San Francisco in 1972, she pursued a teaching career concurrently with her performing career, training pre-professional level dancers at The Margaret Jenkins Dance Studio as well as teaching and choreographing for high school dance programs. She has taught at The College Preparatory School in Oakland and Analy High School in Sebastopol. Ms. Matthews has served on the Board of Directors of the original service organization for the San Francisco dance community, the Bay Area Dance Coalition and on The Isadora Duncan Dance Awards Committee, serving 2 terms as chairperson. She is a recipient of a National Endowment Award for Choreography, and the 2018-2019 Isadora Duncan Dance Award for Outstanding Achievement in Re-staging / Revival / Reconstruction 
|
|
