Janet Schroeder: Percussive Dance Scholar, Performer, Teacher

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Janet Schroeder, MFA, PhD, is a percussive dance artist, scholar, and teacher, with a particular interest in tap dance, Appalachian clogging, and body percussion. She maintains her physical practice of these rhythmic dance forms throughout the U.S. and Mexico, creating and presenting choreography as well as taking and teaching classes. From 2005-2010 Schroeder toured with music and dance company Rhythm in Shoes. She holds a BFA in musical theatre from Ohio Northern University, an MFA in dance from The College at Brockport, SUNY, and a PhD in dance studies from The Ohio State University where she was a Presidential Fellow.

Photo Credit: Jessica Cavender.

Percussive Dance Performer and Choreographer

As an artist, Janet practices a variety of percussive dance forms including rhythm tap dance and Appalachian flatfooting and clogging. She is currently a member of the Columbus, Ohio-based tap dance company, Movement Afoot, and she previously toured the country with the dance and music company Rhythm in Shoes. Janet’s choreography is inspired by the potential of the body to make music.

Click here to browse some videos of Janet’s work.

Dance Scholar

Janet holds a BFA in musical theatre from Ohio Northern University, an MFA in dance from The College at Brockport, SUNY, and a PhD in dance studies from The Ohio State University where she was a Presidential Fellow.

Her current research project is a comparative analysis of tap dance and Appalachian step dance, which specifically foregrounds the cultural values of “innovation” and “ongoingness” in presentations of the forms on the concert dance stage from the late 1970s to the present. Additionally, her analysis addresses these dance forms as ethno-racial projects and examines their roles in cultural representation to explore the stage as a site of ethnic and racial formation where different iterations of Americanness are on display.