Sayward Grindley

Sayward Grindley

Assistant Teaching Professor of Dance
grindleys23@ecu.edu
252-328-6332
112 Messick Theatre Arts Center
Mail Stop 553
East Carolina University

Sayward Grindley is a dance educator and master teacher throughout NC, and currently at Teaching Assistant Professor at East Carolina University. Recently, she was the K-12 Dance and Visual Arts Consultant at NC Department of Public Instruction, supporting and leading all arts educators in NC, by overseeing the content standards, creating professional development, and serving on the state Social Emotional Implementation Team and the Global Education Committee. Sayward has been teaching at the college level since 2012, in courses including ballet, modern, contemporary, jazz, pedagogy, pointe, improvisation/composition, dance education, pedagogy, kinesiology, dance appreciation/history, and more. Teaching future dance educators and performers, Sayward has been on the Dance Faculty at Elon University, Meredith College, East Carolina University, and Appalachian State University. She has guest taught at High Point University, UNC Greensboro’s Masters in Dance Education Program, University of South Carolina, Jacksonville University, Tulsa Ballet, NC Dance Educator’s Organization Conference, American College Dance Festival, Florida Dance Festival, American Dance Festival, and public schools throughout NC.

Sayward held Education and Management positions with Carolina Ballet and Sarasota Ballet, and she also danced professionally with Sarasota Contemporary Dance and as a freelance Guest Artist with many choreographers throughout the country, and in several musicals. She previously directed her own ballet school and professional modern dance company. Sayward holds an MFA in Choreography from Jacksonville University-White Oak and a dual BFA in Dance Performance and Dance Education with K-12 certification from East Carolina University. She taught middle and high school dance in the public schools in Florida where she also helped write the Florida Sunshine State Standards for Dance. She also assisted with K-12 state dance standard revision in Colorado and NC. Sayward also has strong research interests in areas of neurodiversity, multi-lingual learners, project-based-learning, and Universal Design for Learning. She has recently started the Dance for PD (Parkinson’s Disease) Teacher Training program through Mark Morris Dance Group and will complete her training in April at The Kennedy Center. She is excited to continue to study and implementing these adaptive and inclusive practices to the breadth of her teaching.