Artistic Directors

KENNETH LIPITZ has had a long international career as a dance artist/educator. 
For ten years he danced as a soloist with ballet companies of the highest echelon,
such as the San Francisco and Pennsylvania Ballets, as well as the National Ballet of
Canada.  In 1975, he turned his energies to modern dance, serving as associate ar-
tistic director/principal dancer for Winnipeg’s Contemporary Dancers and artistic
director of the Concert Dance Company of Boston.  As associate professor of
dance at UMass/Amherst, he recently retired from nineteen years of teaching at
Smith, Mt. Holyoke and Amherst Colleges as well as the University, where he also
served as artistic director of the University Dancers and was a finalist for the
UMass Distinguished Teaching Award.  He can now devote himself entirely to
NEDC.  Ken has choreographed over fifty ballets and modern dance works for
professional companies, college dance majors, NEDC and the New England Dance
Theater.  Ken has been a Guest Artist/ choreographer and director for Springfield
College, as well as public and private schools across the U.S. and Canada.  He is
also a certified dance movement specialist for the Commonwealth of Massachu-
setts.

SHELLEY ZIEBEL, artistic and administrative director of NEDC and NEDT, re-
ceived her B.Sc. in Dance from SUNY Brockport.  She began her dance career
performing children’s parts in the New York City Ballet, under the direction of
George Balanchine.  Her early training included study at The School of American
Ballet, The Alvin Ailey American Dance Center, and as a scholarship student at the
original New Dance Group Studio in NYC.  For ten years she was a principal
dancer with Winnipeg’s Contemporary Dancers and the Concert Dance Company
of Boston, performing works by many of the world’s most renowned choreogra-
phers.  Her choreography has been performed by companies in both Canada and
the U.S.A.  Shelley and husband Kenneth Lipitz, are charter members of the Pio-
neer Valley Performing Arts Charter School’s Circle of Artists.  Ken and Shelley,
married for thirty years, have a son, Hayden, 15, and a daughter, Isadora, currently a
Five College Dance Department senior dance major, and member of the Lorraine
Chapman and David Parker Dance Companies of Boston and New York City.