Donna Faye Burchfield

Donna Faye Burchfield has been a professor and director of the School of Dance at the University of the Arts since 2010. In May of 2014, she received a distinguished honorary fellowship from Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance in Israel. Upon her relocation to Philadelphia, she served on the Dance/USA Philadelphia’s Advisory Committee and as a co-chair for the national conference for Dance/USA (June 2013). 

Before arriving at UArts, she worked with the American Dance Festival (ADF) for two decades, serving as dean of the international school from 2000 to 2010. She managed, designed and curated the teaching platforms, and taught for the ADF International Linkages in Moscow (U.S. State Department supported, 2000), Seoul and Shanghai. As a professor of dance at Hollins University (HU) from 1993 to 2010, she developed and directed the HU/ADF MFA (a first of its kind program), as well as the Post-Baccalaureate and combined BA/BFA degree programs in collaboration with the ADF.  She has represented the U.S. at numerous international dance platforms and conferences including International Festival de Danse Cannes. Burchfield holds a BFA and MFA from Texas Christian University where she studied with Jerry Bywaters Cochran.