Sandra Noll Hammond’s career in dance has embraced ballet, modern dance, and baroque dance performance; teaching, choreography, and administration in university dance programs; and research, lectures, and publications on ballet technique and history in national and international venues.  Her professional training was primarily with Antony Tudor, Margaret Craske, Thalia Mara, and Arthur Mahoney, with a major influence from Martha Hill when Hammond was a student at Juilliard.

She has performed with Ballet Repertory Dancers in New York, the Connecticut Opera in Hartford, Pacific Ballet in San Francisco, and the Arizona Dance Theatre.  As a baroque dance specialist, she performed nationally with early music ensembles.  At the University of Arizona and the University of Hawaii, Hammond taught ballet technique, dance history, and historical dance forms.  She was Director of Dance at both institutions.

Her publications include two college text books, Ballet Basics (now in its 5th edition, with recent editions in Korea and Finland), and Ballet: Beyond the Basics (re-issued in 2010 by Waveland Press).  Her research into the history of ballet technique has appeared in articles for Dance Chronicle, Dance Research Journal, Dance Research (London), Journal of Social History, International Encyclopedia of Dance, and Le Dictionnaire de la Danse.  She has contributed numerous chapters in edited books, including: “Dancing La Sylphide in 1832:  Something Old or Something New?” (In La Sylphide, Paris 1832 and Beyond. Dance Books, Great Britain, 2012); “In the Dance Classroom with Edgar Degas: Historical Perspectives on Ballet Technique” (In Imaging Dance. Visual Representations of Dancers and Dancing. Olms Verlag, Germany, 2011); “The Rise of Ballet Technique and Training: The Professionalization of an International Dance Form,” (In The Cambridge Companion to Ballet. Cambridge Univ. Press, 2007); “International Elements of Dance Training in the Late Eighteenth Century” (In In Search of the Ballerino Grottesco: Gennaro Magri and his World, Univ. of Wisconson Press, 2005); “Sor and the Ballet of His Time” (In Estudios sobre Fernando Sor/Sor Studies, Instituto Complutense de Ciencias Musicales, Madrid); “Dances Related to Theatrical Dance Traditions” and
“T B’s Technical Terminology” (in The Extraordinary Dance Book T B. 1826, Pendragon Press, 2000).

A brief list of venues where Hammond as guest artist has presented her work (as dance teacher, lecturer, and/or conference presenter of research)  include UCLA, UCSB, Stanford University, California State University at Long Beach, York University, Indiana University, Mills College, Jacksonville University, Towson University, Boston College, Boston Conservatory, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, San Francisco Early Music Society, and internationally in Copenhagen, Paris, London, Ghent, Toronto, Leuven, Sydney, Turku, Helsinki, Mexico City, and Merida, Yucatan.  She has been an annual guest instructor and lecturer for the New York University/American Ballet Theatre graduate program in ballet pedagogy since its inception in 2009.

Hammond has served on the Board of Directors and on the Editorial Board of the Society of Dance History Scholars.  She is the recipient of research grants from the University of Arizona, the University of Hawaii, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.  She received the President’s Citation for Meritorious Teaching at the University of Hawaii, and in 2009 she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from CORPS de Ballet International, of which she is an Honorary Member.