Ann Sanders Oral History, 2021

Ann Sanders has been a driving force in dance on Colorado’s western slope for decades. After a career with the Chicago Opera Ballet, Sanders moved to Boulder where she received the first MA in dance from the University of Colorado in 1970. That year she began teaching at Mesa State in Grand Junction, now Colorado Mesa University (CMU), where she developed and directed the program until her retirement in 2005. She taught a variety of classes, choreographed for dance concerts and musicals, and five of her works for students have been shown on American College Dance Festival Gala concerts. She was a founding member and Central District Representative for the ACDFA national organization. In 1998 she received the CMU Outstanding Achievement in Scholarship Award, unique for someone in the arts. Active off-campus, Sanders was a founding member of the Grand Junction Arts Commission and served on the Commission from 1990-97. She is a past member of the Colorado Council for the Arts and Humanities Dance Funding Panel and the Governor’s Excellence in Arts Panel. In 2005, Sanders received the State of Colorado Gully Sanford Award for Distinguished Service in the Arts.