STEPHAN LAURENT, Professor and former chairman of the Department of Dance at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana, joined the Butler dance faculty in 1988 after six years as the artistic director of the Des Moines Ballet, for which he produced and choreographed a number of full-length classical and contemporary works. He was the recipient of the 1986 Iowa Outstanding Artistic Achievement Award. Many of his ballets are now on the repertoire of the Butler Ballet, for which he continues to choreograph actively, including the award-winning original full-length contemporary ballet The Willow Maiden: a Fantasy Dance Adventure. His areas of teaching expertise include ballet technique, choreography, dance history, theory/philosophy of dance, and dance production. Prof. Laurent also teaches a First-Year Seminar in the Core Curriculum of Butler University, entitled Spellbound: The Quest for Magic in Speculative Fiction and the Arts.
    Prof. Laurent was for many years a member of the Board of Directors of the National Association of Schools of Dance and has worked both nationally and internationally on accreditation matters. He also served as an adjudicator and master teacher for a number of organizations nationally and internationally, including the National High School Dance Festival, the National Society of Arts & Letters, the Overture Awards, the Prelude Awards, the Hong Kong Academy for the Performing Arts, and the Newtown High School for Performing Arts in Sydney, Australia. He has also served as a consultant.