By Steve Sucato

On June 14, 2022, Joan Meggitt was named Groundworks DanceTheater’s new Education Director. Meggitt follows in the dance steps of longtime Education & Community Engagement Director, Rebecca Burcher who made significant strides in GroundWorks’s education and community programming as well as helping to shape GroundWorks’s inclusion policies.

Originally from Plum, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pittsburgh, Meggitt didn’t grow up dancing and it wasn’t until college that she received her first dance training.

As a child, Meggitt says she grew up playing sports, most notably tennis, where she was the number one player on her high school team. She also played the piano and studied voice. 

At Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania, Meggitt studied pre-law and economics. She also continued her voice training in opera. It was her vocal teacher that inadvertently set her on a path to a career in dance. Says Meggitt, “She told me I had terrible posture and to take a dance class to correct it.” That led Meggitt to her first dance class and eventually to falling in love with the art form. After earning her BA degree in economics at Allegheny College, Meggitt completed her MFA in dance at Case Western Reserve University. 

She comes to GroundWorks with a dance education career that spans four decades including having been an Associate Professor of dance at Kent State University, where she taught for fifteen years and most recently served as the Dance Division Coordinator. Currently, she is the lead instructor of the Yes, I Can Move! dance program at InMotion, a regional health, wellness, and resource center for people with Parkinson’s and is an adjunct teacher in the Department of Theater and Dance at Cleveland State University.

Meggitt may be best known however as the founding director and principal choreographer of Antaeus Dance, a professional modern dance company in Cleveland that ran from 2001–2017. A mainstay in the Cleveland dance community with regular productions at Cleveland Public Theatre and site-specific works around the region, Antaeus Dance was a vehicle for Meggitt’s wide-ranging creative and performance talents. 

In her personal life, Meggit and husband Brian, the photograph librarian for local and global history at Cleveland Public Library, are coming up on thirty years of marriage. The pair have two cats, Oscar and Lucy (nicknamed “The Goose”) and enjoy regular walks together, reading, and eating at Ohio City French restaurant Le Petit Triangle Cafe.   

I spoke with Meggitt recently about her career and becoming GroundWorks’s new Education Director.

Thinking back, what made you decide to choreograph and then start Antaeus Dance?

I felt like I have always been creative. Choreography is problem solving. It is like a puzzle you have to figure out and I was really intrigued by that. Antaeus Dance came about at the suggestion of my now husband Brian. I had been giving dance concerts with a regular group of performers since before my MFA and Brian said why don’t you just start a company.

Where was the company’s debut performance?

We actually premiered in Estonia right after 9-11 in 2001. We got a grant for a teaching and performance residency there. We premiered in Cleveland a month later.

What about GroundWorks and the Education Director position interested you?

Looking at the job description and what I already knew about GroundWorks and the kind of work they do, the position really presented a way for me to bring all of my past experience to bear. Having been a dancer and choreographerI understood the processes and demands of the company members. With my experience in education, I felt I could step right into GroundWorks’s educational programming and help train and support the company’s teaching artists. In addition to sustaining existing programming, I was also excited about having the opportunity to develop new educational programming for the company.  

What do you feel might be the biggest challenge for you as Education Director?

In the short term, it will be getting onboard with the schedule and making sure I am up to speed with things that have to happen and when. 

Do you have a vision for the education programs GroundWorks will offer?

I think that will happen once I have a better scope of GroundWorks’s existing programs. Just in my experience at InMotion teaching dance for Parkinson’s, I would hope I could expose the company to that end of the spectrum of dance outreach. 

How do you feel the dance world in terms of attitudes and work dynamics has changed over your career?

I feel like the big thing now that is really kind of pushing the envelope for some is understanding gender, sexuality and identity particularly in more traditional and codified dance realms. I think there is room for everything as long as we make that room. Each dance company should have its own identity and it should be founded in the respect for the members of that company.

What’s the best piece of advice you have gotten from someone?

It takes as long as it takes, and also, Put the support in place before you need it. 

Photo Descriptions (top to bottom, left to right)

– Joan Meggitt. Photo by Adam Jaenke.
– Brian & Joan Meggitt at Hocking Hills. Photo by courtesy of Joan Meggitt.
– Brian & Joan Meggitt in Paris. Photo by courtesy of Joan Meggitt.
– Antaeus Dance in Burn the Heavens. Photo by Marty Horvath.
– Antaeus Dance in Mercy. Photo by Dana Rogers.
– Antaeus Dance in Molt, Photo by Bob Christy.
– Antaeus Dance in Molt, Photo by Bob Christy.
– Antaeus Dance in Molt, Photo by Bob Christy.
– Antaeus Dance in Molt, Photo by Bob Christy.
– Antaeus Dance in The World Above Us, Photo by Wade Gaagich.