Alvin Ailey was an African-American choreographer and activist who founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and the Ailey School in New York City. He is credited with popularizing modern dance and revolutionizing African-American participation in 20th-century concert dance. His company gained the nickname "Cultural Ambassador to the World" because of its extensive international touring. Ailey's choreographic masterpiece Revelations is believed to be the best known and most often seen modern dance performance. In 1977, Ailey was awarded the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP. He received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1988. In 2014, President Barack Obama selected Ailey to be a posthumous recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Susan P. Stroman is an American theatre director, choreographer, film director and performer. She is a five-time Tony Award winner, four for Best Choreography and one as Best Director of a Musical for The Producers. In 2005, she directed the film version of The Producers.
Brian Ronald Macdonald, was a Canadian dancer, choreographer and director of opera, theatre and musical theatre.
Stephen George Page is the Artistic Director of the Bangarra Dance Theatre. He is descended from the Nunukul people and the Munaldjali clan of the Yugambeh tribe from southeast Queensland. In 2015 his directorial debut film Spear was shown at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival.
Judith Ann Jamison was born May 10, 1943 to Tessie Brown Jamison and John Jamison, Sr. She is an American dancer and choreographer, best known as a ballet dancer and as the Artistic Director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (AAADT) is a modern dance company based in New York, New York. It was founded in 1958 by choreographer and dancer Alvin Ailey. It is made up of 32 dancers, led by artistic director Robert Battle and associate artistic director Masazumi Chaya.
Tina Ramirez is a Puerto Rican/Mexican-American dancer and choreographer, best known as the Founder and Artistic Director (1970–2009) of Ballet Hispanico, the premier Latino dance organization in the United States.
Crystal Pite is a Canadian choreographer and dancer. She began her dance career at Ballet British Columbia and in 1996 she joined Ballett Frankfurt under the tutelage of William Forsythe. Upon returning to Vancouver she focused on choreographing while continuing to dance in her own pieces. In 2002 she created Kidd Pivot which produced her original work Double Story (2002) and Dark Matters (2009). She was also commissioned by various dance companies to create new dances, including The Second Person (2007) for the Netherlands Dans Theater and Emergence (2009) for the National Ballet of Canada, the latter of which was awarded four Dora Mavor Moore Awards.
Jeanne Robinson was an American-born Canadian choreographer who co-wrote three science-fiction novels, The Stardance Saga with her husband Spider Robinson.
Christopher House is a Canadian choreographer. For many years he has been the artistic director of the Toronto Dance Theatre.
Camille A. Brown is a dancer, choreographer, director and dance educator. She is the Founder & Artistic Director of Camille A. Brown & Dancers, and has congruently choreographed commissioned pieces for many notable dance companies, Broadway shows, and universities. Brown started her career as a dancer in Ronald K. Brown’s Evidence, A Dance Company, and was a guest artist with Rennie Harris Puremovement, and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Brown has choreographed major Broadway shows such as Once on This Island and Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert! that aired on NBC. Brown also teaches dance and gives lectures to audiences at various universities such as Long Island University, Barnard College and ACDFA, among others.
Kidd Pivot, is a contemporary dance company based in Vancouver, Canada. The company, currently comprising eight full-time dancers and several guest dancers, is led by its founder and artistic director, Crystal Pite.
Andy Thompson is a Canadian actor, theatre artist, filmmaker and teacher.
Anne Ditchburn is a Canadian ballet dancer, choreographer, and film actress, headlining films like 1979's Slow Dancing in the Big City as a dancer with a crippling disease, a film directed by Rocky director John G. Avildsen and co-starring Paul Sorvino. She also played the doomed ballet dancer Laurian Summers in the 1983 cult horror film Curtains with John Vernon and Samantha Eggar. She danced in nearly all of her film credits, and earned a Golden Globe nomination for her work in Slow Dancing in the Big City. In her time with the National she choreographed some of its most disguished pieces of the 1970s, including Mad Shadows and Kisses, while also heading side company Ballet Revue.
Michel Lemieux is a Canadian multimedia artist from Quebec, whose career has incorporated work in theatrical design, installation art, film, video, dance and music. First coming to prominence in the early 1980s as a performance artist whose work explored the integration of new media technologies into experimental pop music in a manner similar to Peter Gabriel and Laurie Anderson, more recently he has concentrated primarily on creating, designing, directing and producing multimedia theatrical presentations for events, theatrical companies and other artists.
George W. Faison is an American dancer, choreographer, teacher, and theater producer, and winner of a 1975 Tony, a Drama Desk Award, and a 1991 nominee for the Emmy Award for choreography. He was a featured dancer with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, founder of the George Faison Universal Dance Experience, and co-founder/producing artistic director of the Faison Firehouse Theater.
Maria Kong is an Israeli dance and performing arts company. The group is known for including unusual visual and auditory theatrical effects in its shows through the use of digital technology.
David Earle is a Canadian choreographer, dancer and artistic director. In 1968 Earle was co-founder and co-artistic director of Toronto Dance Theatre alongside Patricia Beatty and Peter Randazzo, where Earle choreographed new modern dance pieces. In 1996 Earle started his own company called Dancetheatre David Earle where he continues to choreograph new works, to teach, and to create with the next generation of modern dancers. David Earle has received many accolades; a member of the Order of Canada, a recipient of the Jean A. Chalmers Award for Distinction in Choreography, also an honorary doctorate degree from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario.
Rafael Bonachela is a Spanish choreographer of contemporary modern dance and is currently Sydney Dance Company’s artistic director.
