Ellen Gerdes  holds an EdM in Dance (education) from Temple University and a PhD in Culture and Performance from UCLA.  As a scholar, she integrates her interests in dance education and cultural studies.   Her scholarship focuses on dance performance/education and its relationship to socio-politics in Sinophone spaces, including Asian America, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.  Her current book project analyzes choreography in Hong Kong during the “one country, two systems” political era and how dance artists and institutions navigate overlapping ideologies: Chinese nationalism, British colonialism, globalization, neoliberalism, and American imperialism.  Her written work has been published in Dance Chronicle, Journal of Dance Education, Cultural Studies: Critical Methodologies, Lateral: Journal of the Cultural Studies Association, and Asian Theatre Journal, among others.  

Ellen teaches in dance studio, dance-making, and dance studies courses at Swarthmore.  She has previously taught in K-12 dance settings as well as in the dance programs at Bucknell University, Drexel University, Rowan University, Temple University, UCLA, and University of North Carolina at Greensboro.  

As a dancer and singer, she has performed in Philadelphia, New York City, San Francisco, Shanghai, and Hong Kong for interdisciplinary artists such as Merian Soto, Leah Stein, Germaine Ingram, Robert Een, Maria Hassabi, and Ann Carlson.  As a choreographer, she has presented her work at the CHI Movement Arts Center, Koresh Dance Studio, Performance Garage, Studio 34, and Conwell Theater in Philadelphia.  She has enjoyed choreographing for students, including at Friends Central Upper School and for UCLA’s Chinese Cultural Dance Club.  She believes wholeheartedly in working across disciplines.  In 2006, she choreographed for the International Festival Chorus’s theatrical production of Iolanthe and sang the title role at the Lyceum Theater in Shanghai.  In 2019, she choreographed a movement duet for bass/baritone at Schoenberg Hall, UCLA.  In 2022, she served as Ann Carlson’s rehearsal director for Attune, an improvisational movement work for instrumentalists as part of the series Rehearsing Philadelphia.