Susan Dibble grew up in Peru, Vermont. Her father, Thomas Reilly Dibble, was a painter and her mother, Alice Pitcher Dibble, taught piano lessons and was devoted to the arts. Growing up in a small town and attending a 2-room school in the country surrounded by mountains and rivers influenced her work as an artist.
After one year at Burr and Burton Academy in Manchester Vt., Susan attended Wykeham Rise in Washington, Conn. a high school for artistically motivated teenagers. After graduating in 1972 she went to Butler University for one year and then transferred to SUNY Purchase and received a BFA in Dance. In 1976 she moved to NYC and studied with her college teacher Kazuko Hirabayashi who encouraged her to become a choreographer. She eventually met Tina Packer, Kristin Linklater and Dennis Krausnik who were creating a new company in the Berkshires in 1978.
Susan became a teacher at an early age. After many years of experience at various schools including New York University’s Tisch School for the Arts, the Denver Center Performing Arts Center, University of Ohio, University of Utah and Webster College, in 1978 Susan joined the faculty of Theater Arts Department at Brandeis University where she taught for 34 years and is now an Emeritus Professor of Theater Arts. During her time at Brandeis Susan taught movement for actors, dance, clown, and composition. She served as Chair of the Theater Arts Department for approximately 8 years. She taught movement and dance and created numerous dance theater pieces (see examples in the choreography section- Dream a Little Dream and Five Doors/One Room) that she performed on the Theater Arts Department stages with students and professional performing artists.
Susan received the 2006 Leonard Bernstein Festival of Creative Arts Award for Distinguished
Contribution to the Arts at Brandeis.
Shakespeare Honors the Three Centers of the Body is an article written by Susan Dibble in
Movement for Actors published by Allworth Press.
Susan has been teaching at the Shakespeare & Company Center for Actor Training (she served as Interim Director of Training for 2 years) and choreographing productions for 40 years. She began her career with Shakespeare & Co. when she met Kristin Linklater in 1978. Shakespeare & Co. was a goldmine for Susan. She met choreographer and movement teacher John Broome who came to the USA with Kristin and Tina Packer who were forming Shakespeare & Co. She joined the faculty at Shakespeare & Co. in 1980 and became resident choreographer in 1986. Her collaboration with Director of Training Tina Packer was a valuable experience. She discovered how the dynamic and universal language of movement and dance were an unbreakable thread weaving through the plays. Making dances for the productions directed by Tina was creatively challenging and exhilarating.
In addition to her work as movement director and choreographer Shakespeare & Co. Susan worked with a variety of theater companies including Actors Shakespeare Project, Boston Playwrights Theater, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club, Nora Theater, The Revels and The Underground Railway Theater.
Susan has been painting seriously for the past 20 years. Often her paintings correspond with the
dances she is making. She has shown her paintings in various galleries in New England including SVAC, Lauren Clark, Arlington Center for the Arts, and Dublin Arts and Muse Gallery (see section on painting)
More About Shakespeare & Co.
As a result of her collaboration with choreographer John Broome and director Tina Packer, Susan created Dibble Dance and performed her dance theater work at The Mount and in the Tina Packer Playhouse in Lenox, Ma. She gathered a large group of performers who were both members of the company and from outside community.
Her Dibble Dance productions are described as “…a marriage of imagination, drama, dance and just plain fun…with personal flair and peculiar quirks fondly embraced in a Dibble Dance spectacle.” And she states “Working with actors, there’s a lot I can do. It may be simpler stuff, but you have more of an eventful feeling. To be able to put who they are into it-it’s more like people dancing.” “…I don’t have to convince them to do anything. If I say, ‘Be a bird,’ they’ll be birds-really great birds.” Berkshire Eagle
Working with children at Shakespeare & Co.
One of the joys of making the Dibble Dance shows was working with some of the children whose parents were members of the company- my son included. In an interview with the Berkshire Eagle, I described one experience- when my son Reilly was 4, he interrupted a rehearsal saying “Mom, Mom! Do you know what this paper is for?” He had scattered balls of crumpled paper on the edge of the stage and instructed me to tell the performers to run through the path of papers. When the rehearsal had come to an end I led the dancers in a line through the paper maze like ducks in a line. He was satisfied.
I was given a gift of training with choreographer John Broome and movement teachers Merry Conway and Trish Arnold who were the founders of movement and dance training for the company. Kristin Linklater invited me to a January workshop in 1978 and from that time on I found my way on the road of wonder, new ideas, and solid training that set my teaching and choreography career in motion. In addition to serving as a teacher and choreographer for Shakespeare & Co. I was fortunate to be given the support and encouragement to present my choreography (for dancers and actors) in a program called Dibble Dance for many years.
I am indebted to the many artists and practitioners at Shakespeare & Co. for their unconditional support, love and respect for me as an artist.
Contact susanchasedibble@gmail.com for paintings pricing and availability.
Facebook & Instagram: @dibblesusan
