Kate Trammell

Kate Trammell, professor of Dance at James Madison University, holds graduate degrees in dance from Ohio State University and Temple University. She has performed and taught throughout the United States and in China, Denmark, England, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland and Portugal. She is on faculty at White Mountain Summer Dance Festival at Sarah Lawrence College and at the West Virginia Dance Festival.

Trammell has a certification in Infant Developmental Movement Education through Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen and the School for Body-Mind Centering which informs her movement work with people of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities. She teaches developmental movement classes for babies and their care-givers through JMU's Occupational Therapy Clinical Educational Services. In recent travels to China, Trammell taught creative movement and dance in university dance departments, conservatories, and orphanages in Anhui, Guangdong, Liaoning, and Sichuan provinces.

Trammell has been instrumental in creating and implementing several large-scale interdisciplinary projects at JMU, including The Year-long Dance of Arts and Sciences (featuring Liz Lerman's "Ferocious Beauty- Human Genome"), Ability in Action (featuring AXIS Dance Company), Andrea Olsen's "The Arts and Activism," and The Embodied Learning Project, with Dr. Sharon Babcock. JMU project partners have included the Institute for Innovation in Health and Human Services, The Institute for Sustainment of the Environment, the Office of Disability Services, the Office Of International Programs, and the academic units of Occupational Therapy, Adapted Physical Education, and Math Education. Community organizations she has partnered with include local school systems, daycare centers, intergenerational care centers, retirement communities, a center for adults with developmental disabilities, a sports/physical activity program for children and youth with disabilities, and a college of osteopathic medicine.

This year she is coordinating an arts and healthcare project featuring Stuart Pimsler Dance & Theatre, co-sponsored by JMU's College of Visual and Performing Arts and College of Health and Behavioral Studies in partnership with Sentara/Rockingham Memorial Hospital's stroke center.

Trammell is currently touring "Namely, Muscles," an evening-length dance theatre work by Guggenheim Fellow Claire Porter. This critically acclaimed comedic masterpiece portrays Dr. Nickie Nom, Forensic Orthopedic Autopsy Muscular Anatomical Surgical Specialist as she gives a reading from her new book of poems. Trammell performs the concert as part of a residency package that includes experiential anatomy workshops co-taught with anatomist Dr. Sharon Babcock.