Email:

rmhallen@iu.edu

Department:

Ballet

Robin Hoover Allen is visiting lecturer in music in ballet and codirector of the Jacobs Academy Ballet Program at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where she has served on faculty since 2018.

Her teaching responsibilities at the university level include ballet pedagogy and classical and contemporary ballet technique, and her area of special interest within the Jacobs Academy is teaching creative movement classes for young children with a pre-ballet focus. A certified yoga instructor, Allen also teaches Mindful Movement through Yoga, a class specifically for musicians which she developed for the Jacobs School.

Allen is an alumna of IU and holds Bachelor of Science degrees in ballet and in human biology, and a Master of Science degree in ballet. She received further training in the Paul Taylor technique, and with Susan McGuire, Marcus Schulkind, Mark Morris, and Violette Verdy (for whom she also served as grant writer, personal assistant, and archivist for Harvard).

Allen danced professionally with contemporary ballet companies in Massachusetts and Rhode Island and taught with Boston Ballet's Children’s Program; CityDance, Boston Ballet’s public school outreach program; and New Bedford Ballet. In New York City, she partnered with Marijeanne Liederbach, director of the Harkness Center for Dance Injuries, to manage her specialty clinic for professional dancers and Broadway artists (PT Plus Physical Therapy at City Center).

In 2004, Allen returned to IU to serve as executive assistant to the Society of the Friends of Music. She also taught for the IU Contemporary Dance program in its pre-college program and as a guest teacher in contemporary ballet. In 2008, she founded her own ballet school, Bloomingdance, which was in residence at Harmony School. Since 2017, she has been a senior faculty member with Jacobs Academy Ballet.