Bates Dance Festival Director, Natalie Gotter, Connects with Perpich Dancers

February 18, 2026

Perpich dance students welcomed a special guest to the studio on February 18th: Natalie Gotter, Director of Training Programs at the Bates Dance Festival (BDF). Gotter, who grew up in Apple Valley, now oversees faculty and class curation, as well as the overall student experience, for the summer residential festival at Bates College. Now in its 44th summer, the program draws young artists from across the country and around the world.

Perpich Dance students work with Natalie Gotter on building choreography using a technique from Bates Dance Festival

“I’m essentially on the road November through March,” Gotter said, describing her annual tour of school visits. “It’s not just about learning about what we’re doing at BDF, but a chance for me to learn what’s happening in the dance community … a touch point both directions.”

Her visit to Perpich Arts High School came through dance instructor Mary Harding, who said she immediately said yes to the opportunity.

“Every time my students get the chance to work with someone else, it’s an amazing experience,” Harding said. “So I just jumped on it.”

Harding, who has previously attended Bates and sent students to the Festival, called the experience both inspiring and affirming. “Natalie has an extensive background. She’s really an excellent teacher,” Mary said. “It’s also a really interesting kind of validation of the work that we do [here at Perpich].”

During the summer, Bates Dance Festival becomes what Natalie calls a “dance bubble” – a fully immersive community where students, faculty, and artists live and train together on campus. The festival hosts a two-week teen program for dancers ages 14–18 and a three-week professional program for ages 18 and up, serving more than 200 students each summer.

For Perpich dancers, the visit offered more than a master class, it was a glimpse into a broader national dance network and a reminder of the power of artistic exchange.

“Mutual support is so important for the arts, especially right now,” Gotter said.

Natalie Gotter, Director of Training Programs at the Bates Dance Festival

Natalie Gotter (she/her) is a dance performer, choreographer, filmmaker, educator, and researcher. She received her MFA in Modern Dance with certification in Screendance and Gender Studies from the University of Utah and BA in Communication, Music, and Dance from Tulane University. Dance offers her a way of engaging with socialization of the physically gendered body and questioning human limits, whether inherent or self-imposed, with dance offering physical and somatic insight of possibilities. Her practice centers dance as a liberatory practice of community building and reclaiming of social identity. Natalie has taught at the University of Utah, Westminster College, Utah Valley University, Salt Lake Community College, Weber State University, and most recently was an Assistant Professor and co-Director of Dance at Muhlenberg College, where she designed and co-taught dance and science workshops for Youth-in-Probation, received her certification in the Inside-Out prison abolition teaching program and was awarded the 2023 Muhlenberg Center for Teaching and Learning Teaching Award for Community Engaged Coursework. She is also a teacher for the national Dance Church organization centering movement as a community-building experience for all bodies.

As a performing artist, she has been a featured and ensemble dancer in works by Florian Alberge, John Allen, Michaela Cannon, Juan Carlos Claudio, Ashley Creek, Michael Crotty, Katherine Desimine, Jeffrey Gunshol, Earl Mosley, Fiona Nelson, Dat Nguyen, Gabrielle Revlock, and Beverly Trask. She was also a featured dancer in the Alwin Nikolais Centennial Celebration in 2011. Her choreographic works have been presented in New Orleans, Salt Lake City, Chicago, Las Vegas, New York, Philadelphia, and Minneapolis, including multiple evening-length self-produced and collaborative research based concerts: Magazine St. #22 for the Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival; LMN Mov’t No. 1, and Last Call: self-produced evening length concerts; and collaborative commissions for Megan Flynn Dance Company, Flatlands Dance Theatre, Cat+Fish Dances, Tipping Point Dance Company, Tanner Dance Company and Performing Dance Center. Her screendance works have been featured at the Going Dutch Arts Festival (Chicago), PA Dance Educators Conference (Philadelphia), Red Rocks Dance Festival (St. George), Screendance in the Landscape (Oban, Scotland), and she received the Audience Favorite Award at the Utah Dance Film Festival (Salt Lake City) in 2018.

Perpich Dance students responded to choreographic prompts from Gotter

Global, celebratory, rigorous, and engaging, the Bates Dance Festival is dedicated to offering a transformative dance experience to all who participate, whether as practitioners, enthusiasts, or scholars. Situated in Central Maine, the Festival hosts an international roster of artists in a collaborative and joyful community. Bates Dance Festival rigorously trains established and emerging dance artists through workshops, community-oriented programs, and advances the field by supporting new work. From local youth to global professionals, the Festival convenes to create, perform, and witness vibrant and vital dance works.