MADEO Board

Dr. Donna Dragon, President

Dr. Donna Dragon, CMA, SMT and President of MADEO is a Dance Education Specialist and Associate Professor at Bridgewater State University where she specializes in providing dance curriculum for dance educators (leading to recommendation for licensure and for private sector teaching) and for artists-educators. She is the advisor for the National Dance Education Organization Student Organization (NSO) and a Chapter Sponsor for a Collegiate Chapter of the National Honor Society for Dance Arts at BSU.

Dr. Dragon began teaching dance as a business entrepreneur in Western Massachusetts. She established Donna’s School in Dance, in Springfield where she was artistic director and dance educator for hundreds of students. She earned a BA degree with a focus in Dance-Movement Therapy through the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and as part of that degree became a Certified Laban Movement Analyst (CMA) and a Somatic Movement Therapist (SMT). She took weekly dance classes and engaged in individual sessions with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, creator of Body-mind Centering® and with Linda Tumbarello in Body-Centered Psychotherapy. Dr. Dragon began a private Somatic Movement Therapy practice to help infants, children, teens, and adults with chronic pain; learning and social-emotional challenges; life threatening diseases; injury prevention and recovery; movement repatterning; life transitions; and movement efficiency for daily functional movement and athletic performance, among others. In her desire to support ‘dance for all students’, she established a second private sector business, The Center for Movement Alternatives, in Longmeadow where she developed and provided a somatics and conceptually-based dance curriculum for students of all ages and abilities.

Dr. Dragon combined interests, knowledge and skills in somatics, dance, and holistic pedagogy to earn a Master’s degree in Dance Education (M.Ed.) and a Ph.D. in Dance at Temple University. Her research focused on an historically and culturally situated history of ‘embodied practices’—practices that holistically support the integration of body, mind, spirit and emotions in somatics and dance education. She frequently presents research focused on embodied education, dance pedagogy, and somatics at the National Dance Education Organization Conferences and at local, regional, national and international conferences. As well, she mentors undergraduate and graduate students to develop and present research in dance education locally, regionally and nationally. Dr. Dragon is on the review board for the Journal of Dance Education and the Dance Education in Practice Journal.

Drawing from embodied experience, neurocognitive sciences and her training as a Somatic Movement Therapist, a Laban Movement Analyst, and as a dance performer in ballet, modern, tap, jazz, improvisation, and creative dance, Dr. Dragon specializes in developing pedagogy, curriculum, courses, and workshops that utilize the body for creating meaning, knowledge, skills and behaviors that can reflect, meditate, challenge, and change individual and group motivations, values and behaviors. She continues to develop and implement somatic and embodied education paradigms for infants to elderly people and for beginners and professionals alike in public, private, urban and rural environments and schools, corporate settings, hospitals, rehabilitation centers, psychiatric facilities, and in K-12 and higher education.

Meghan McLyman, Vice President

Meghan McLyman is a Professor of dance at Salem State University and the Chair of the Music and Dance Department, where she has been instrumental in creating the Bachelor of Arts degree in dance. The University recognized her passion for teaching with the 2017 Distinguished Teaching Award, and in 2018 she received the Arts Learning Distinguished Teaching and Arts Advocacy Award. Meghan is the co-director of Accumulation Dance (www.accumulationdance.org) with Kristen Duffy Young. They have received support for their choreography from the New England Foundation for the Arts, Next Steps in partnership with The Boston Foundation and the Aliad Fund, and Boston Center for the Arts, and have been presented by Crash Arts/World Music, The Somatics Dance Conference, The Museum of Fine Arts, The Southern Vermont Dance Festival, Salem Arts Festival, Trident Art Gallery, Art Beat/Somerville Arts Council, Dance for World Community, The Dance Complex, Green Street Studios, Across the Ages Dance Project, Tufts University, College of the Holy Cross, Salem State University, and Hollins University/ADF. Meghan graduated with a BA in dance from Point Park University, received an MA in dance and arts management from American University, and an MFA from Hollins University in partnership with the American Dance Festival. She serves on the board of Massachusetts Dance Education Organization. She a Moving For Life Certified Instructor under Martha Eddy, and is in the process of becoming a Certified Evans Teacher under Bill Evans.

Dr. Nancy Moses, Advocacy Director

Dr. Nancy Moses is Professor Emerita of Bridgewater State University Dance after serving for 33 years developing and nurturing dance at the institution.  Taking a scattered group of dance classes in Physical Education and in Theater, she crafted an academic program that has evolved into a Dance Major.  Through the years she was able to create a curriculum that led to licensure for teaching dance in the public schools, a service that no other public institution in Massachusetts has provided.  Although the single dance professor for 20 years, in the following 10 years she was able to add three additional faculty lines, new studios and rehearsal facilities, an official major and a stand-alone Department of Dance.  Through grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities and the New England Foundation for the Arts, she has been able to secure additional funding for expanded dance programing.

As a life-long advocate of dance education, Dr. Moses has promoted dance through many professional organizations where she has served as officers and on multiple boards   She has been a member of the National Dance Education Organization and was the founding President of the Massachusetts state affiliate, MADEO.

Laura Netherwood, Communications Co-Director

Laura Netherwood MBA, BS (Elementary Education/Communication Studies: Concentration in Dance Education) has been a dedicated dance educator for Springfield Public Schools since 2008. Throughout her time in the classroom, Netherwood has developed a concept-based approach to teaching elementary dance education focusing on creative movement, self-expression, and social emotional development through dance. Over the years Netherwood has expanded her dance program beyond the school day, creating the Kinesthetic Connection after school dance program. The non-profit program provides opportunities for both current and former students (ages 8-Adult) to continue their dance education, participate in performances, and practice leadership skills through mentoring and student coaching.

Netherwood’s passion for dance education is not only limited to her students. She is a strong advocate for the arts, and continuously seeks out opportunities to help enhance the ubiquity of dance education in public schools as a stand-alone academic area of study, or as an integrated unit of arts education. Outside Springfield Public Schools, Netherwood has developed and directed additional dance programs in both private and public educational settings. In 2013, she participated on the MTEL Dance Licensure revision committee, was the first dance educator to receive the Harold Grinspoon Excellence in Teaching Award in 2018 and became the only Dance Ambassador for the newly revised 2019 Massachusetts Arts Frameworks. In 2021, Netherwood received the Arts|Learning Distinguished Dance Educator Advocate Award, and most recently was the recipient of the Western Mass News Surprise Squad Award (2023), awarding educators that go above and beyond within the Western Mass community.

Dr. Thelma Larkin Goldberg, Events Director

Thelma Larkin Goldberg, PhD, founded The Dance Inn, an independent private sector dance studio serving more than 400 students weekly, in 1983. She teaches at dance teacher events and at tap festivals such as the Boston Tap Party and she mentors future tap dance educators through her work with the American Tap Dance Foundation’s Tap Teacher Training Program. She received the 2015 Dr. Michael Shannon Dance Champion Award from the Boston Dance Alliance for “her sustained excellence in teaching and passionate advocacy for the art of tap dancing.” Her research centers around the experience of the tap dance educator in the private sector dance studio and she shares teaching resources, including videos, books, rhythm cards, and a Tap into History poster through Thelma’s Tap Notes (www.thelmastapnotes.com). Thelma recently joined the dance faculty at Dean College in Franklin, MA where she is implementing a syllabus that integrates tap history with technique and choreography lessons.

Kelly Host, Secretary

Kelly Host (Conca) has been dancing for 28 years. She graduated from Bridgewater State College in 2009 with degrees in Elementary Education and Communication Arts & Sciences with a concentration in Dance Education. While at BSC, she studied modern, jazz, tap, ballet, hip-hop, contemporary, African dance, ballroom, folk, square, and creative dance. She was Vice President of the BSC Dance Company, choreographed and performed in many shows including Winterdance, POPS, and Kaleidoscope, co-produced the directed study production “Final Curtain Call,” and was also a founding member of the Kinetic Edge Hip Hop Team.

After college, Kelly opened for musical artist Trey Songz as a back-up dancer for soloist Stephanie Petronelli. She then became the director of her own dance company, Complete Sensation, for three years before joining BSC Alumni group Intensity Dance Company and charity-focused dance group Dance2Save, where she performed on stage and at Celtics Games. She joined DanceWorks Boston in 2018 and is currently on Kinetic Synergy Dance Company as a dancer and a choreographer. Kelly has a passion for dance and could not imagine her life without it.