Barbara Hayley, MFA

Barbara Hayley, MFA, is Professor of Dance in the Department of Theatre and Dance. She is the founding artistic director of New Orleans Dance (1987), a project-based company comprised of local professional dance artists. She is a modern dance choreographer of site-specific, community based, and concert projects.  Professor Hayley is helping expand Tulane’s vision of Social Innovation to more deeply incorporate the humanities and the arts as critical tools of effecting positive social change.

She has recently performed with Artspot Theatre Productions Rumours of War, as a build team member of How to Build a Forest, an 8-hour theatre installation piece, premiered at the Kitchen in NYC and directed by OBIE winning playwright Lisa D’Amour, and in the Southern Repertory Theatre production of Taylor Mac’s The Lily’s Revenge. Ms. Hayley received a Fulbright Senior Scholar Award in 1997/1998 for teaching and choreography in Russia. She received the Louisiana Division of the Arts Choreography Fellowship, the New Orleans Mayor’s Arts Award and numerous awards with New Orleans Dance for production and choreography. Ms. Hayley holds an MFA from New York University Tisch School of the Arts and worked in NYC for 10 years before moving to New Orleans. Her community cultural development projects include “Home, New Orleans?”, the ongoing community-based class, “Building Community Through the Arts” with Xavier University Professor Ron Bechet, and Team NOLA member of the Urban Bush Women Summer Leadership Institute since 2008.

Hayley held the Kylene and Brad Beers Professorship II and Cole Fellowship from 2013-2016.