Karen Eliot, an associate professor of dance at Ohio State University, will give two presentations this week as part of Women’s History Month. They are sponsored by NIU’s Women’s Studies Program and the Graduate Colloquium Committee.

Tuesday’s speech, “Lives and Livelihoods: Six Women Dancers from the 18th Century to the Present,” will examine the lives and careers of several dancers across Europe and the United States. The speech will be given at 7:30 p.m. at Neptune Central’s Northeast and Southeast Meeting Rooms.

“I am interested in what is left out of the history texts since most of the time we hear only about stars or dancers who are notorious in some way,” said Eliot, a former dancer in the Merce Cunningham Dance Company.

The presentation is meant to remind everyone that history is made by the changes made daily in the dance studio as well as the bigger ones made onstage, Eliot said.

Among the dancers discussed will be Tamara Karsavina, a Russian ballerina who also was a working mother and writer; Moira Shearer, a ballerina who performed in movies during the 1940s and 1950s; and Catherine Kerr, a modern dancer and colleague in the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Eliot said.

Eliot, who has a Ph.D. in English, will give a second seminar, “Careers in English and Dance,” at 10 a.m. Wednesday at Reavis Hall, Room 211. She will discuss her experiences with the two careers and advise students who are looking to combine them.

“I think students who have multifaceted, rich lives and who hope to explore a number of different career opportunities may want to hear about my ongoing efforts to pursue both careers and my continual balancing of one lifelong interest with another,” Eliot said.