Until the pandemic, Joan Walton spent part of each academic break teaching dance workshops in such places as St. Petersburg and Moscow, Russia; Cincinnati, Ohio; and Denver/Boulder, Colorado, where she taught 19th century dancing, dances of the Ragtime Era and the Jazz Age.  Her energetic, focused teaching, theatrical choreographies, and morning warmups have become well known to dancers over the years.  She has the ability to communicate movement concepts with energy, humor and interest.  A keen observer of learning styles, Joan has an ongoing interest in understanding the many ways that people learn to dance.

Her classes in Ragtime, Jazz Age, Swing Era and 19th Century dance have been seen at Vintage Dance workshops across the USA, in Paris and the Czech Republic.  As Assistant Director and dancer in Cincinnati with Richard Powers' Flying Cloud Vintage Dance Troupe for 10 years, she performed on the ABC-TV mini-series North and South. 

Joan designed choreography for award-winning operas and musical theatre productions at the University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music, and other schools in the midwest.  She was a guest artist with the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra under the direction of Keith Lockhart, performing Morton Gould’s challenging Tap Dance Concerto. 

Along with free-lancing around the country, she currently teaches the lecture course Dance in World Cultures at San Jose State University, and Dance Appreciation classes at the College of San Mateo, along with Social Dance, Swing Dance, and Latin dance.  She has a Master’s degree in Dance Education from Stanford University’s top-ranked School of Education. 

Recently Stanford's Graduate School of Education celebrated its 100th anniversary, and they interviewed her about the Dance Education Master's program, a major which has since been cancelled.  

https://gse100.stanford.edu/stories/taking-a-leap-for-dance-a-cherished-ma-program?src=pic