Teaching
Motley is an Associate Professor of Dance at Marymount Manhattan College where she has taught Choreography & Improvisation since 2015. As a dance professor, Motley grounds her pedagogical approach with the thinking of bell hooks and Paulo Freire to generate non-hierarchical systems of knowledge exchange. Foregrounding an embodied social justice as an engine for creative processes, Motley aims to create an educational culture inclusive of disability, race, sex and gender. Motley’s teaching prioritizes the body at the center of cultural production and knowledge.
Recently, Motley taught MFA, MA and BA courses in choreography and improvisation at University of Roehampton in London, England as a 2018-2019 Fulbright US-UK Scholar Award recipient. She has been an Adjunct Professor of Dance at Manhattanville College, and Improvisation Faculty for the Certificate Program at Peridance Center. Motley has been on faculty at the Juilliard School’s Summer Dance Workshop in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2013. She has been a Guest Teaching Artist at Snow College; Bowdoin College; SUNY Purchase College, and Lafayette College. Motley has taught workshops at Gibney Dance; Dance New Amsterdam; The Playground; Peridance Capezio Center and Centro Dimensione Danza in Italy. She is a Kane School certified Pilates Mat & Equipment instructor, and uses her knowledge of anatomy and myofascial release to inform her dance teaching. She has been teaching Pilates and exercise privately and in group settings since 2004. Motley has extensive experience teaching exercise and dance populations with neurological diversity including those with Parkinson’s, Alzheimers and Dementia.
Photograph: Landon Speers