Is it possible to waltz through finals week? ‘Dean’ of the dance shows how

Delphine Dean is waltzing her way through finals week– not by skipping her duties as chair of the bioengineering department but by infusing her busy schedule with ballet.

At the end of each fall semester, as her bustling afternoons in the office wind down, Dean often heads for a dance studio in Seneca to rehearse for her role in “The Nutcracker.”

The shows on Dec. 14 and 15 at the Brooks Center for the Performing Arts will mark her 14th year taking part in the holiday classic.

Dean said she wants her dancing to show students that there is more to faculty members than what they see in the classroom and lab. For younger dancers, Dean hopes to demonstrate they can keep gliding, leaping and spinning as a hobby even if they don’t become professionals.

She also hopes that the faculty in her department are able to take away a message about work-life balance. Dean said she started adult ballet classes when she was still an untenured assistant professor as a way to temporarily disconnect from work, and it made her more productive.

“I enjoy dance– it’s a good break,” she said. “I get a lot of friends asking, ‘Isn’t it a big time commitment?’ But it’s funny because sometimes they run marathons, and it’s the same kind of time commitment.”

The annual production of “The Nutcracker” is presented by the Foothills Conservancy for the Performing Arts, where Dean takes ballet classes. This year she is playing Mrs. Stahlbaum in Act I’s party scene and later in the show dances in the Spanish Variation, the Waltz of the Snowflakes and the Waltz of Flowers.

Dancers who share the stage with Dean said they admire her technique and that she is willing to share her experience with them, sometimes earning applause even in practice. She has a stellar reputation on- and off-stage, exhibiting an uncommon grace in both her dance movements and her relationships with people, they said

David Munteanu, a Ph.D. candidate in biological sciences, said he first came to know Dean as a dancer and later learned that his advisor, Richard Blob, has co-authored a paper with her.

“I don’t know how she gets this skill while also being so busy,” Munteanu said. “She is an amazing dancer and actress as well, so it is really stunning to be in the presence of someone who not only is that skilled on stage, but also so successful academically.”

Dean has led and played key roles in several noteworthy programs since joining Clemson in 2007, including the University’s testing for COVID-19 and working with students to develop medical devices for rural villages in Tanzania. She holds the Ron and Jane Lindsay Family Innovation Professorship and won Clemson’s Class of ’39 Award in 2020.

Heather Motro, who graduates this month with a Bachelor of Science in environmental and natural resources, said that the first time she met the bioengineering chair, she called her “Dr. Dean,” and she replied, “Oh, no, I feel like I’m at work.”

The two Nutcracker dancers have been on a first-name basis ever since.

“She is incredibly smart, but she’s not aloof at all– she is so fun, goofy and kind,” Motro said. “She is always very helpful, pointing out choreography. We’re both very nerdy, so we get along really well.”

Dean said she danced through high school and then through college at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She picked it back up after joining Clemson as an assistant professor, taking classes through Foothills Conservancy.

Her first Nutcracker role came soon after, playing the maid in the party scene and dancing in Waltz of Flowers.

“It’s like riding a bicycle– you put the shoes on, and it comes back,” she said.

Dean’s work as a bioengineer and her passion for dance sometimes merge.

A team of students in a past Creative Inquiry course put sensors inside ballet pointe shoes to measure factors such as pressure and muscle activity, she said. And as both an engineer and dancer, Dean uniquely appreciates the evolution of materials used in pointe shoes.

“One of the things that I’ve enjoyed watching as an engineer is that these types of technologies mean that anybody can go up on pointe and actually be good and dance the way they want to,” Dean said. “I feel like when I was younger, if you didn’t have the right feet for the shoes, then that was it, they didn’t make the shoes.”

Veronica Cabanero, now a junior majoring in mechanical engineering, said she was a student at Seneca Middle School when she first met Dean and that they now know each other well enough to share a running joke about their height difference.

“She is a lovely dancer,” Cabanero said. “She lights up a room. She is always smiling and working hard, and it really makes me want to work hard.”

You have two chances to catch this year’s production, Dec. 14 at 7 p.m. and Dec. 15 at 3 p.m. Purchase tickets here.