
Patricia Scott Hobbs
Resident Choreographer, Nia-Next
Patricia Scott Hobbs, dancer/teacher/choreographer/director, started her training with Philadelphia’s dance pioneer Marion Cuyjet at Judimar School of Dance. Mrs. Hobbs holds a B.F.A. in Dance Performance from Temple University. She continued her professional training and performance at PHILADANCO with Joan Myers Brown, has performed with The Sybil Dance Company under the tutelage of Eva Gholson of temple university and performed in numerous New Freedom Theatre main stage and touring productions. In addition, she performed in the Philadelphia’s prestigious Barrymore Award Ceremony in 1996 and was a F. Otto Haas Award Nominee for emerging artists in 1997.
As resident choreographer, at New Freedom Theatre, her works have appeared for over forty years in numerous main stage and Student Season musical productions and dance concerts. Some choreographic credits include: New Freedom Theatre main stage productions: Celebrate: A Holiday Musical, New Freedom Theatre’s Black Nativity, Cooley High, Sparkle, Safety Street and Aesop Bop; Caroline or Change (Arden Theatre Company), Porgy and Bess (Opera Company of Philadelphia). New Freedom Theatre directorial/choreographic credits include: Visions of Broadway on Broad Street, Safety Street, Get Up & Get Into It! and Journey of a Gun. She has received three (3) Barrymore Awards for Outstanding Choreography for New Freedom Theatre’s holiday extravaganza New Freedom Theatre’s Black Nativity in 1995, 1997 and 2000. In New York City in the summer of 1999, Mrs. Hobbs choreographed Celebrations: An African Odyssey, a workshop of a musical being developed to move to Broadway). Her work was also presented during a cultural exchange/performance in Panama City and Las Tablas, Panama during the 4th International Karate Championship 2012.
As a teaching professional, Mrs. Hobbs has contributed to the education of students of all ages through New Freedom Theatre’s on-site and outreach programs. Mrs. Hobbs started as a dance instructor, founded the Dance Program, participated in the documentation of New Freedom Theatre’s Theatre Arts Curriculum and was the Managing Director of New Freedom Theatre’s Performing Arts Training Program. This includes training, supervising and mentoring arts education instructors as well as students in the Youth Summer Employment Program. As an arts educator in the community, Mrs. Hobbs applied her expertise as a participant on the writing committee for The Curriculum Performance Standards in Arts in Education for the School District of Philadelphia. The Curriculum Performance Standards for the Arts set citywide arts academic standards and benchmarks. In addition, she was a jazz dance instructor for Temple University – Dance Department and University of the Arts – Theater Department and a panelist for the 8th International Conference of Blacks in Dance and The National Black Arts Festival.
Presently Mrs. Hobbs works as a facilitator at two historic sites in the neighborhood of Germantown, Philadelphia, PA. The responsibilities of the facilitator include using theatre arts exercises to create safe and nurturing environments for audiences to discuss pertinent issues of the day. Example – At Cliveden House revolutionary war freedoms, civil liberties, slavery, indentured servitude and women’s rights are discussed before seeing a play about the Chew family in Cliveden House. At Historic Germantown – The Elephant on the Avenue Project uses various historic sites in Germantown, historians, artists and audience participation in the creation of arts projects to discuss race, class and community.