Julie Adams Strandberg

Julie Adams Strandberg, dancer, choreographer, director, writer, educator, is co-founder of Dancing Legacy and founding director of dance at Brown University where she is a distinguished senior lecturer in the department of theater arts and performance studies. In 1971, she co-founded the Rhode Island Repertory Company and in 2002 the Company reconvened to explore what mature dancers have to offer. In 1973, she co-founded The Harlem Dance Foundation with her parents, Julius J. and Olive A. Adams and her sister, Carolyn Adams. Strandberg has directed for college, community and professional theater; has designed programs for youth; and has created over 40 works for theatrical and alternative spaces.

Strandberg has served on national boards and panels, including the National Endowment for the Arts and is the author of multiple published articles. She studied with 20th century dance pioneers Alvin Ailey, Martha Graham, Melissa Hayden, Jose Limon, Donald McKayle, and Charles Weidman and is one degree of separation from George Balanchine, Katharine Dunham, Lester Horton, Doris Humphrey, Pearl Primus, Ruth St. Denis, and Ted Shawn.

Strandberg is a graduate of the Ethical Culture Fieldston Schools, has a bachelor of arts degree from Cornell University, a master’s in guidance from Bank Street College of Education, and a masters ad eundem from Brown University. In 2013 she co-founded Artists and Scientists as Partners (ASaP) at Brown University to research the relationship between arts and healing and the specific role of dance and music for people with Parkinson’s Disease and those on the Autism Spectrum. In 2015 she received the Charles Sullivan Pell Award for Distinguished Service in the Arts. Since 1965 she has been married to Josiah R. W. Strandberg, a computer programmer, who is a Captain, USNR (ret.) and holds a doctorate of Philosophy. They have two daughters, Laura Carolyn and Marie Elisabeth, a son-in-law William Nels Porter, thanks to Marie, and grandsons, Andrew Kenneth and Jackson Josiah, thanks to Marie and William.