Douglas Baker is a professional dance accompanist whose hobbies include composition, dance, video games, languages, and various modes of art and craft. He received his BA in Piano and Japanese at the University of Iowa and was a Fulbright scholarship recipient to Japan in 2015 researching the works of late composer Taijiro Goh (1907-1971). Douglas is currently employed at the university's Department of Dance as well as the Youth Ballet and Community Dance School.

 

Douglas started his dance journey back in 2017 both through the Youth Ballet and Community Dance School and the Department of Dance. Since 2022, he has participated in student and faculty works as a dancer. He's collaborated on dance works as a composer for just as long, having created over 30 compositions for students and faculty, as well as for the Community Dance School. 

 

Pursuing and MFA in Dance with an emphasis on performance, Douglaswants to dig deeper into the intersections of dance and language and how frameworks of language acquisition and fluency exist (or are absent) in different forms of dance. With ballet in particular, Douglas is looking at how the mode of extemporaneous speech may reveal overlooked ways of engaging with the art form.

 

Photo Credit: @mirandadmeyer