Best Foot Forward: 25 Years of Dance with Suzanne Ostersmith

Nicaragua, North Carolina, California, Seattle and Spokane: These are places where the artistry of Suzanne Ostersmith has literally danced across stages, as she choreographed for conferences of the American College Dance Festival, directed professional theater and taught collegiate courses.

One could suggest that Ostersmith’s era at Gonzaga has mimicked the very moves she has choreographed a thousand times: From “barre” – the warm-up while holding on to the ballet bar of program development – to the “glissade” – the slide linking motions together as with interdisciplinary achievements – to the final “rèvèrence” – the bow of respect at the end of a moving performance.

“I could never have imagined the glorious ride that lay ahead when I arrived at Gonzaga in 2000,” Ostersmith says, as she celebrates the quarter-century anniversary of GU dance alongside her own retirement.

She watched the program morph from an elective in communication studies, to a minor, to a full-fledged major, while she herself flowed through roles of adjunct instructor to associate professor in a newly developed department, and eventually the founding chair of Gonzaga Dance. Likewise, the places for her work expanded from the Martin Centre to a studio to the dream space of the Myrtle Woldson Performing Arts Center.

“Dance” in Ostersmith’s view is not only expressive art. Dance itself is also science, education, philosophy, biology, community, service and more. The programs and partnerships she developed embody those things – from bringing to life the research of biologist Brook Swanson to offering Dance for Parkinson’s to families living with this disease. There have been big-name Broadway productions with the theatre department, student-choreographed shows and annual spring concerts, and campus visits from esteemed dance leaders.

As the curtain closes on Ostersmith’s career at Gonzaga in May, she says: “With our theme of 'The First 25 Years' at the spring dance concert, it’s hard to imagine a better mic drop than celebrating all that has come before, with enthusiasm for all that can come next for Gonzaga Dance.” 

In Her Own Words: Suzanne’s Top 25 Moments

• Teaching my first class (2000)
• Founding the dance minor (2006)
• ZagDance – a free after-school program through Strategies for Dance Instruction course
• Interdisciplinary arts minor
• TEDx Talk on ZagDance (2014)

• Directing “Jesus Christ Superstar” for nine sold-out performances
• “Beautiful Weapons” school tour with Brook Swanson, biology
• Cultivating a presenting-partners relationship with the Myrtle Woldson Performing Arts Center
• Designing the Theatre and Dance Studio building
• Creating Dance for Parkinson’s 

• “Weaving Our Sisters Voices” partnership with religious studies and music colleagues
• Presenting Pacific Northwest Ballet, Mark Morris, Ririe Woodbury, Spectrum Dance Theatre, Khambatta Dance, etc.
• Creating the dance major (2018)
• The grand opening of the Myrtle Woldson Performing Arts Center (2019) and touring its debut show in Italy
• A dozen new courses and directing hundreds of productions 

• Serving as Robert and Marion Oster Endowed Chair of Dance at GU and on the national board of the American College Dance Association
• Teaching in London and touring with students in Florence
• Becoming the Theatre and Dance department (2010)
• Welcoming more than 60 registered dance majors and minors
• The Suzanne Ostersmith Dance Endowment

• Hosting the American College Dance Association Regional Conference (2020)
• Dance Science and Wellness lab with Human Physiology
• Guest Artist residency on Loie Fuller
• “Leadership and Dance” with the amazing Derek Hough 
• Hiring a second tenure-track faculty member, Cynthia Gutierrez, to take Gonzaga Dance forward