Debra Collins Ryder is Recipient of the 2019 Jill Henderson Award

HARTFORD, CT – September 17, 2019 –Connecticut Dance Alliance (CDA) is pleased to announce Debra Collins Ryder as the recipient of the 2019 Jill Henderson Award.

The Jill Henderson Award is given annually to acknowledge and celebrate service to the Connecticut dance community through contributions in the areas of scholarship, education, and in-kind support to the dance field. The award is named in honor of former Connecticut Dance Alliance board president and Distinguished Achievement in Dance award recipient Jill Henderson, who spearheaded the Alliance’s Dance History Project.

Ryder will be honored during CDA’s annual awards ceremony on Sunday, October 6. Recipients of the Distinguished Achievement in Dance Award and the newly-created CDA Jump Start Award will also be recognized at the ceremony.

Ryder, a Philadelphia native who resides in Farmington, began her professional ballet career in New York City before joining the Hartford Ballet, under the direction of Michael Uthoff. She traveled extensively with the company throughout the United States, Latin America and China and was featured in many full-length ballets including The Nutcracker, Coppelia, Dracula, and Alice in Wonderland. Since 2006, Ms. Ryder has been a member of The Hartt School faculty, teaching ballet, pointe, and dance history, and has choreographed several original works. In 2013, Ryder was honored with the University of Hartford’s Sustained Excellence inTeaching Award for part-time faculty. Prior to her arrival at The Hartt School, Ryder co-directed the Eastern Connecticut Ballet and taught ballet at the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts. She graduated with honors from Virginia Intermont College with a degree in Ballet Teaching and was on full scholarship at the American Ballet Center (the school of the Joffrey Ballet). Recently, she served as Dance History Consultant for the Connecticut Dance Alliance’s exhibit Connecticut Dances: A Visual History, which opened January 2017.

The 2019 Connecticut Dance Alliance awards ceremony, reception and performance showcase will be held Sunday, October 6, from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the Carol Autorino Center for the Arts and Humanities on the campus of the University of Saint Joseph, 1678 Asylum Avenue, West Hartford. Tickets can be purchased at www.ctdanceall.org.