Roberta A. Lucas

Lecturer, Dance
[email protected]

Roberta A. Lucas teaches Creative Dance for Children and Performing Arts in the Elementary Classroom to dance and elementary education majors at Oakland University. She is a recipient of the Alumni Arts Achievement Award from Oakland University for her “outstanding contributions to children’s dance.”

Roberta maintains a Michigan L.L.P. and completed a M.A. in clinical and humanistic psychology at MiSPP. She is a 2015 graduate of Tamalpa Institute, Kentfield, Calif. Her work in healing and expressive arts includes residencies at Hutzel Recovery for Women, Affirmations-HIV support group, and various teen and youth programs serving at risk and special needs populations. Roberta leads “Environmental Expressions” and “Planetary Dance” workshops in community settings. She has trained nationally with Judith Jamison, Deborah Hay, Trisha Brown, Bill Evans and Anna Halprin. Dance in Michigan includes study and performances with Linda Z. Smith, The Detroit Dance Collective and Laurie Eisenhower. She founded youth dance companies, Kids Creating and M.Y. Move for School of Eisenhower Dance Detroit. Roberta was a dance specialist and subsequent director of Dance at Arts Academy in the Woods from 2002 to 2007. At Living Arts - Detroit, Roberta was the director of Detroit Wolf Trap from its inception in 2011 to 2016. There, she also created and implemented ACT I, a bilingual drama program for students pre-K – 3 through W.K.Kellogg funding in the Detroit Public schools. In 2020, she was selected for Jacob’s Pillow Curriculum in Motion Inaugural Training Institute. With Jacob’s Pillow CIM ®  teaching artist Kimberly Boyd, she collaborated on third grade residencies for students and teachers in 2017 and 2018.

Roberta continues to present as a National Master Teaching Artist for the Wolf Trap Institute for Early Childhood Education Through the Arts. Over the past 25 years, Roberta has conducted numerous classroom residencies, teacher professional development and artist training throughout the United States, including the LA Music Center, Gateway Arts-Chicago, NJPAC and The Kennedy Center. Internationally, she represented the Institute in Canada, England and Greece. She is a member of NDEO (National Dance Education Organization), ISMETA (International Somatic Education and Therapy Association) and an associate member of the USABP (United States Association of Body Psychology.)

“Integration of the arts in all aspects of education, healing and living is my motivation and passion.”