Pictured with Joan Palladino are (L-R) Maurice Hines, Jay T. Jenkins, Derick K. Grant, and A.C. Ciulla, during the Dean DancExtravaganza.
Joan Palladino has given 40 years to Dean, but has received so much more in return
By Jennifer Fiorentino
If you were to look back on Joan Palladino’s distinguished career, you’d probably come to the conclusion that she is a very lucky person. While she will probably agree with that assessment, Joan attributes her success to simply being born at the right time and in the right place.
“I grew up in a small town (in Connecticut) that was very focused on the arts,” she said. “My mother was also very artistic, so it was probably no surprise I became a dancer.”
As Dean of the Dean College School of Dance, Joan recently marked a milestone in her career – 40 years as part of the Dean family, which were publicly acknowledged in December. But she has hardly spent those four decades locked within the walls of academia. Quite the contrary. Joan Palladino has spent that time seeking out new experiences, forging new relationships, all in an effort to help the dance program at Dean evolve. The result, a world-class education in a discipline Joan strongly believes should be as essential to anyone as are sports.
“Life is movement and movement is life,” she said. “Not everyone is cut out to pursue a career in dance, but that doesn’t mean dance doesn’t have a place in everyone’s life.”
Joan’s odyssey began when she herself was a college student. She attended Springfield College in western Massachusetts and spent her summers as a student of the prestigious Jacob’s Pillow Dance, founded by Ted Shawn, the “Father of Modern Dance.” Papa Shawn, as Joan refers to him was a mentor to her during those years, helping her hone her skills and perfect her craft. During her college years, Joan also took advantage of the study abroad programs, performing in 11 European countries as a result.
Although just barely in her twenties, Joan had already established a solid reputation for herself. It was that reputation, which prompted a proposition from then-Dean Junior College, for Joan to start a dance program there. At the time, she said she was weighing options and trying to decide whether to settle in Boston or New York. She sought to pursue a career in directing and performance. Teaching was not the direction toward which she found herself gravitating.
“I finally told them (Dean) I would give them a year or two - but nothing more,” she said, with a knowing laugh.
Joan wasted no time in making a name for herself and the dance program at Dean. She was approached by several local television stations in Boston and Providence about scheduling regular appearances during several weekly talk shows focused on dance. Each time, she would discuss the arts along with other guests. The time would also be used for performances – both her own and that of her Dean students. The program provided Joan with a springboard to affiliations with the National Endowment for the Arts, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and other such organizations.
While she said it’s difficult to identify a single “high point” in her 40 years at Dean, Joan hails the birth of the Dean School of Dance and establishment of the baccalaureate of dance degree among her proudest moments. After nearly five years of planning, a period that included painstaking research and debate, the “baby was born” on March 7, 2000. Later that year, she was named Dean of the Dean School of Dance.
“There are no words to describe how incredible that day – that experience – truly was,” said Joan.
Prior to that time, Joan started spending time during the summer in the Caribbean, initially visiting St. Croix and aligning herself with the Caribbean School of Dance. She would offer her expertise and guidance and enabled the school to build a diverse dance company of its own. From there she visited the island of Montserrat and focused her efforts among other islands of the British West Indies. She is credited as a co-contributor to several published books on dance history and is currently working on a book about Caribbean dance history and a photo book on Montserrat.
Joan has studied with a number of world-renowned pioneers of dance. She befriended such dance legends as Mikhail Baryshnikov, Gregory Hines, and his brother Maurice. Although both of the Hines’ appeared at Dean on separate occasions, she said it had always been a dream of hers to get both brothers to share the Dean spotlight together. Sadly, that dream came to an end last year when Gregory passed away suddenly. Still, Joan does little to mask her pride when she reflects on the world-class performances to have graced the Dean stage during her tenure, most recently, the Dean DancExtravaganza, during which Maurice Hines not only performed, but lent his talent to teach the students of the Dean School of Dance as well.
She never carved a path for herself or set in stone a plan for which direction her life would take. Instead, Joan chose to live her life seeking out new experiences, improving herself, and imparting her wisdom to others. As a result, she has left a legacy that extends far beyond the confines of Franklin, Massachusetts. She will never take credit for the success of any one of her students.
“I have directed, performed, and created, and being at Dean has made it all possible for me,” she said. “I don’t look at what I’ve done as a job. It’s my life and it’s the best one I could have ever dreamed possible.”
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