Dance Faculty & Staff

Specialists in dance education, the faculty provide resources for movement in the classroom and for special populations. Active in theatre, they choreograph, perform and direct for Actors, The Ingersoll Dinner Theatre, and ISU Theatre. In the field of concert dance, they co-direct their own companies, The Packtory, Counterpoint and Iowa Dance Theatre, as well as making guest appearances with Co'Motion Dance Theatre, I Works, Gateway Dance Theatre and The Bill Evans Dance Company.

Students are often provided opportunities to integrate their own interests into the ongoing professional activities of the dance faculty. They may share hands-on experiences in "Lifemoves," they may be asked to perform in the theatre or concert setting, or they may develop expertise in the related fields of public relations, theatrical or costume design, and musical composition.

tions of Iowa's moving human community.

At ISU, Janice teaches classes in ballet, jazz, modern dance, tap, social and folk dance, pedagogy, elementary and secondary movement education, and rhythmic aspects of movement. She directs the ISU Dance Tour Company and is the faculty advisor for Orchesis II and the ISU Ballroom Company. In this capacity she directs and produces Footfalls, the fall studio concert, Images of Dance, the spring studio concert, and stages the dancing for Madrigal Dinners, the medieval music/movement/culinary extravaganza produced in the Memorial Union each January. With the Tour Company, Janice presents lecture demonstrations and performances for a variety of campus and off-campus events, including university extension programs, chatauquas, and the Iowa public schools.

Janice's teaching career encompasses a vast array of experiences. She teaches for the New Visions Dance Project and represented Very Special Arts Iowa at the International Festival of Very Special Arts at the Kennedy center. She has been the owner/director of The Dance Place, a private studio in West Des Moines since 1983, where she teaches all technical styles and creative movement for children and adults. With Mary Joyce Lind, Janice is an Associate Director of Iowa Dance Theatre which links many area studios in diverse educational and performing activities. One such activity is the Summer Dance Workshop, which brings nationally and internationally-known guest artists into Iowa State to choreograph, perform and teach during June/July. She has given master classes for the Donna Reed Festival, the American College Dance Festival, the American Alliance of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance and public schools in Des Moines, West Des Moines, Madrid and Fort Dodge. In association with her work in the public schools she is the recipient of a grant to update Iowa's dance curriculum for the Iowa Department of Public Instruction.

Choreography, direction and performance in dance and musical theatre are as central to Janice's daily life as breathing and driving. At ISU, she creates dances not only for all of the concerts she directs, but also for Barjche, the gala spring dance concert, and for ISU Theatre and ISU Music. She has choreographed for the Des Moines Ballet, Adventureland, Iowa Dance Theatre, the Ingersoll Dinner Theatre, as well as for many high school swing choirs and musicals. She has helped create, choreograph, direct and produce original musical theatre productions and children's theatre. As a long-time director for the Ingersoll Dinner Theatre, Janice has directed and choreographed over 50 musicals including 1776, Tintypes, Grease, Guys and Dolls, and The Red Garter Review. As a performer, some of her favorite roles have been Cassie in A Chorus Line, Molly Brown in The Unsinkable Molly Brown, The Mute in The Fantastiks, Essie in You Can't Take it with You, and Agnes in I Do, I Do. Janice also dances regularly for Iowa Dance Theatre, Dance Co'Motion and ISU Dance.

Janice's service activities have included acting as a panelist for the Iowa Arts Council and the Nebraska Arts Council as well as giving many years of service to the Iowa Dance Council. She is the Chair for Dance Scholarship judging for the Donna Reed Festival and has served for many years as a judge for the Iowa State Fair Talent Competitions. She has been instrumental in taking dance to such diverse locations as halfway houses, special education classrooms, nursing homes and prisons.

Of ISU Dance, Janice says, "I see ISU as a community of dancers. We make connections between all forms of dance and all types of dancers. There is space here to grow and embrace dance as a lifetime activity."

Taryn Packheiser joined the ISU dance faculty in the Fall of 2005.  She has taught at the University 
of Colorado at Boulder, Vanderbilt University, Universidad de Heredia, Centro-Culural de Costa Rica, 
Boulder Valley Breakthrough Arts, Whittier Elementary School, City Arts Dance, High Point Ballet, 
Taylor Dance Academy, Ankeny Dance, The Pointe Academy, and Greensboro Ballet, among 
others.
At ISU, Taryn teaches modern, ballet, and jazz technique classes.  She 
also teaches dance composition (including music and video editing) and 
pedagogy.  As the advisor for the student organization, Orchesis 1, she 
teaches company class, books guest artists, and serves as the artistic 
director for Style, Attitude, and Class, Barjche, and the Focus grant project.
Taryn's creative life involves choreographic development, experimental 
dances for the camera, sound scoring, and a solo performance career.  
She has showcased such work in Costa Rica, New York City, California, 
Colorado, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Iowa.  As a performer, she has 
worked with Hurley & Dancers, Valerie Williams' Dance Co-motion, Nich-
walk Dance Project, 2B Dance Tribe, Eleanor Coleman Dance Ensemble, 
La Zona, Urban Impact, and Montage Showcase Ensemble, and Livestock
Theater.
In addition to an active creative life as choreographer and performer, Taryn's academic research is 
based on analyzation between two-dimensional and three-dimensional art.  This work has lead to an 
incorporation of performance art theory and practice.  Her interest in Marcel Duchamp and Andy 
Warhol provide recurring themes of the fourth-dimension, public space performance and fame 
propaganda.
Her own pick-up company, the Packtory, is a neophyte into the established 
world of dance collectives.  She is interested in providing a place to showcase and
generate art with artists from different mediums.

Tricia K. Biensen started taking piano lessons at age 5, in hometown Ames, Iowa.  By the time she was in middle school, she accompanied all of Central’s choirs.  As a teenager, she won the Iowa Music Teacher Association (IMTA) Level D, local contest.  She went on to IMTA state competition where she placed honorable mention.  She is currently an MTNA member.

After high school, Tricia was offered various piano performance scholarships at two Universities.  While pursuing various educational opportunities, she graduated in May of 2000, Drake University.  Her degree is  a Bachelor of Fine Arts, in Music Performance.

Currently Tricia is a private music instructor at Keeper’s Music in Ames, Iowa.  She also assists with the Nevada High School Chamber Choir and Theatre.  She is currently rehearsing for the performance of “Once Upon A Mattress.”

Tricia is the organist / accompanist for the First Presbyterian Church in Boone, Iowa.  She is also the accompanist for the Iowa State University (ISU) ballet, Ames, Iowa.

For special interests, she is a member of a community flute choir named Flutes and More, which performs regularly; as well as her husband, Rod Biensen’s, ballroom dance partner, involving teaching and performing opportunities.  A new addition will be added to Tricia and Rod’s family, February 24, 2007, the hopeful “Leah Harmony Biensen.”