Rebecca Nettl-Fiol

Biography

Rebecca Nettl-Fiol is a teacher, choreographer, and author specializing in the integration of the Alexander Technique and somatic practices in dance training. She is the co-author of Dance and the Alexander Technique: Exploring the Missing Link and co-editor of The Body Eclectic: Evolving Practices in Dance Training (both published by the University of Illinois Press). Other publications include journal articles, a chapter Martha Eddy’s Mindful Movement: The Somatic Arts and Conscious Action, and a chapter on the integration of her teaching and research in An Illinois Sampler: Talking about Teaching on the Prairie. She is a frequent presenter at conferences nationally and internationally, including a keynote presenter at the Dance and Somatic Practices Conference at Coventry University, England; Movementis Brain, Body, Cognition conferences at Oxford University and Harvard Medical School, International Alexander Technique Congress.  She also presents regularly at the International Association for Dance Medicine and Science, the American Society for Alexander Technique, the National Dance Education Organization, and the annual Freedom to Move Conference on Dance and the Alexander Technique. She is active as a guest teacher, both for university dance programs and Alexander Technique teachers and training courses. At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Nettl-Fiol has been instrumental in establishing somatics as an integral part of the curriculum and has a keen interest in teaching and pedagogy. For several years, she was the College of Fine and Applied Arts representative in the university’s Teaching Academy, and in 2012 she received the University’s Campus Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching.

Nettl-Fiol’s choreography has been presented in New York City, Chicago, Quito, Ecuador, annually at KCPA, and at many American College Dance Association gala concerts throughout the years. Her work was selected for performances at the Harvest Contemporary Dance Festival in Chicago, and in New York at both Dance New Amsterdam and the Ailey Citigroup Theatre as part of American Dance Guild’s performance festivals, and at PS 122 as part of the FranceOff! festival. Her opera and musical theatre choreography includes over 45 productions at various venues including Interlochen Center for the Arts, Illinois Opera Theatre, Peoria Civic Opera, SUNY Potsdam, NY, Champaign-Urbana Theatre Company, Celebration Company, and Lyric Theatre @ Illinois, where she serves as the Dance Liaison.

Nettl-Fiol has a long history with Dance at Illinois, from an undergraduate student in the 1970’s, to a part time faculty member in the early 1980’s, to her current position as Professor. She served as Interim Department Head on several occasions, including a four-year term from 2001-2005. She received her MA in Dance and Choreography from The Ohio State University, certified as a Labanotation teacher and reconstructor at the Dance Notation Bureau in New York, and received her Alexander Technique certification from the Urbana Centre for Alexander Technique with Joan and Alex Murray in 1990.