Joy McEwen

Joy McEwen, a limited term lecturer at Purdue University in the Patti and Rusty Rueff School of Design, Art and Performance is teaching Modern Dance 10100.

From 2013-2021, Mrs. McEwen was Director of Auxiliaries and Golduster Dance Team Coach with the Purdue “All-American” Marching Band. Mrs. McEwen has also been an instructor at Purdue University in the College of Health and Human Sciences in the Department of Health and Kinesiology and a guest choreographer in the Purdue Dance Program. She is a past winner of the Indiana Dance Educator of the Year Award, presented by the Indiana Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (IAHPERD).

She began her professional career in New York City at the Erick Hawkins School of Dance. Shortly after, she was invited to join the Hawkins Company. Hawkins, a modern dance pioneer, was known as the “poet of modern dance” and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Arts from President Bill Clinton. During her years with the company, she was able to tour venues such as the American Dance Festival in North Carolina and the Jacob’s Pillow Festival in Massachusetts, in addition to an annual season in New York City at the Joyce Theater.

While in New York City, Mrs. McEwen co-founded The Wellspring Project (Dance), which continued the Hawkins legacy by commissioning original works. She has also performed with companies such as the Nancy Meehan Dance Company, LIFEDANCE/Gloria McLean and Dancers and Valerie Green Dance Entropy. Highlights of her time in New York included performing at Lincoln Center, La Mama Experimental Theatre Club, The 92nd Street Harkness Dance Center, St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery and dancing alongside Mikhail Baryshnikov. Ms. McEwen also had the opportunity to perform and teach in Portugal, Switzerland, the former Yugoslavia, Canada, Yeshiva University (NY), Hunter College (NY), and Marymount Manhattan College (NY) and as a guest artist at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas.

Mrs. McEwen received a Master of Fine Arts: Performing Arts- Concentration in Dance, from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Peck School of the Arts. She began her formal dance education at Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan. Following her years there, she attended the University of Michigan, where she received a BFA in Dance.