Wrenn Cook
Chair of the Dance Department at Columbia College
Director of the South Carolina Center for Dance Education
Wrenn Cook is Chair of the Dance Department at Columbia College and Director of the South Carolina Center for Dance Education.  Her teaching experience spans more than thirty years:  she has taught dance in private studios and higher education settings since 1976, including 12 years in PreK-12 public schools.  Cook is a recipient of the South Carolina Dance Association’s Dance Educator of the Year (1996), President’s Service (2001), Advocacy (2003), and Honor (2007) awards.  She has been active in the development of dance standards, curriculum, and assessment at the state level since 1989 and has presented at numerous state and national dance and education conferences.  She serves on the boards of directors of several arts organizations in South Carolina.  Her national service includes serving as a member of the National Dance Education Organization’s Awards Committee for the past three years and as national coordinator for the National Honor Society for Dance Arts.  Prior to focusing her full energies in the field of dance education, she worked extensively as a professional dancer and choreographer with companies in South Carolina, Philadelphia, and New York City.  Cook holds a BA degree in Political Science from the University of South Carolina and a M.Ed. in Divergent Learning from Columbia College.

Martha Brim
Professor of Dance, Artistic Director of The Power Company
Brim has presented her work throughout the Southeast, at such venues as the Piccolo Spoleto Dance at Noon Series, the Atlanta Fringe Festival, South Carolina Dance Association festivals, as well as many cultural and educational venues throughout the South.

She also has set work on many dance companies, including Anonymity Dance Company, SC Ballet Theatre, 8' Repertory Company, Bliss, Buckley, and MacDonald, and Mary Williford and Donna Gangloff, among others. Brim has produced collaborative works like Mertle and Gertrude, Two Old Friends, an evening length work with colleague, Gayle Doherty. In 1998 she produced Sweet Dreams and Stars in My Crown, a 15-year retrospective of her choreographic work at Columbia College. In recognition of superior artistic merit, Martha received the 2001 South Carolina Arts Commission Choreographic Fellowship.

Brim has enriched the South Carolina dance community through her choreography, dancing, and teaching. Her contributions to the field are also manifested through her many former students who have gone on to exemplary careers as performers and educators. Her other professional accomplishments include establishing the SoSoHo Performance series which has brought world-class choreographers and dancers to SC since 1986. For her efforts she received the SC Dance Association Advocacy Award in 2000 for "providing a forum for communication, cooperation, and trust that has served to strengthen artistic quality, promote excellence and raise the visibility of dance as an art form in South Carolina".

Patrick Faulds
Artistic Technical director
Patrick began at Columbia College as a guest artist in 1987 and joined the staff full time in 1990, where he is currently the artistic technical director. Both an actor and designer/technician, the New York native’s theatrical career began as a stunt performer in water ski shows with the Titus Lake Ski Devils over 35 years ago.  He has since gone on to perform as an actor, magician, musician, emcee and comedian with hundreds of performances on television and stages throughout the United States, including New York, New Orleans and Spoleto in Charleston.  He graduated from Morrisville College with a degree in broadcast journalism, and has also done voice over and announcing work. In 2007, Faulds was inducted into the “Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas”.

His work as a designer/technician includes lighting, scenery, and special effects for stage, television, and commercial artists and photographers, including scenic and lighting designs for Academy Award winning director, Delbert Mann. Averaging nearly 50 different lighting and scenic designs every year for dance, opera, and theatre, his work has been seen throughout the U.S. and in Europe on large stages in major cities as well as small, local community and high school stages.   He traveled to London and Scotland in 2004 and 2007 as the designer/technical director for the musicals, “The World Goes Round” and “Quilters” at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. 

Married since 1983 to Lorraine Faulds, their daughter Sarah is a 2009 Elementary Education graduate from Columbia College. Sarah and Patrick have appeared together on television and on stage at Piccolo Spoleto in Charleston.

Marcy Jo Yonkey-Clayton
Visiting Artist-in-Residence
As a curious mover and three-dimensional writer, Marcy is constantly searching for creative ways to study, interpret, and experience dance as an educational artist.  She received her MFA degree in Dance at Texas Woman's University where she was the recipient the 2008 Excellence in Teaching Award.  She graduated Summa Cum Laude from Slippery Rock University, Pennsylvania and earned a BA degree in Dance with a concentration in Aesthetic studies as a member of the Honors Program.  Yonkey has presented research on theories of dance criticism and aesthetics at the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education Philosophy and Religious Studies Conferences in 2003 and 2004 and has presented research concerning online dance pedagogy (2006) and environmental activist dance (2008) at the National Dance Education Organization annual conferences receiving the Elsa Posey Leadership scholarship in 2008. She has performed with the Lowerleft dance co in Marfa, TX, the Zen Monkeys of Charlottesville, VA, and is currently performing with The Power Company in Columbia, SC. As a site-specific artist, she has been commissioned to perform at the Columbia Museum of Art "Arts and Draughts" events, Austin College and Ghost Town Arts Collective in Sherman, TX. In Muscle Memory Dance Theater’s 2008 PILOT festival in Fort Worth, TX. Yonkey’s current choreographic focus is on presenting dance in unconventional performance sites through producing college campus tours of dance that enliven public spaces with movement and artistic collaboration.

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