Bio

Tara Zaffuto Mullins is a Teaching Professor in the department, where she is the director of Dance Programs, choreographs for and directs the State Dance Company, and teaches a range of courses including improvisation and composition. Her creative work often sits at the intersection of dance, storytelling, and social inquiry, using movement, text, and digital media to engage with urgent contemporary issues.

During her time at NC State, she created Operation Breadbasket, a mixed-media dance exploring this pivotal MLK initiative; Against the Railing, a digital platform and performance work that centers the immigration stories of the NC State community; and Resume Normal Activities, an examination of gun violence in schools that was presented at the NC Dance Festival. Most recently, she developed What the Wind Remembers, a multimedia dance concert and community engagement project inspired by Isabel Allende’s The Wind Knows Your Name and other works of literature and art that illuminate refugee experiences. An excerpt from this performance will be featured at SmallPlates Dance Festival NYC.

Before working at NC State, Tara developed the education and service-based Z Mullins Dance Company. The company founded and facilitated such events as the Virginia Dance Symposium, which brought together high school dancers and professors from dance programs, and the Summer Dance Intensive, a ten-day program for high school and college dancers. She also planned and directed many community projects, such as Fitness, Food and FUN, a nutrition and fitness program for fifth-grade girls, and the Big Gig, a free youth arts festival in Miami.

Tara has a B.A. in dance from James Madison University and an M.F.A. in dance from Arizona State University, where she received the Faculty Women’s Association Distinguished Master Degree Candidate Award for her work developing arts programs for homeless youth, as well as the inaugural Herberger College of Fine Arts Fellowship.