Tapas Das in Blogs

Educator Moves: What You Might Have Missed in Spring 2025

From director shifts, notable awards, and beyond, here are the major dance educator moves you should know about from spring 2025.

Melissa Toogood will be the next dean and director of dance at The Juilliard School, succeeding Alicia Graf Mack on July 1. Mario Alberto Zambrano has been named associate dean and director. Carla Körbes has been named ballet chair. Jamar Roberts will join the faculty as distinguished visiting faculty and an Arnhold creative associate at large. Additionally, Bobbi Jene Smith and Karen Gayle will join the faculty.

Janie Taylor has been appointed artistic director of the Trudl Zipper Dance Institute at the Colburn School, after initially being named to the role for just the 2024–25 school year.

Jenifer Ringer has been named director of intermediate/advanced divisions and artistic programming at School of American Ballet.

James Payne stepped down as principal faculty and trainee coordinator at Ballet West Academy to join the School of Ballet Arizona as director at the end of May.

Ian Parsons has been named director of Ballet Theatre of Phoenix and its affiliated company, Convergence Ballet, succeeding founder Jennifer Cafarella Betts.

Jean Michelle Sayeg and Eric Shah have been appointed artistic directors of Pasadena Dance Theatre.

Diana Byer will step down as director of New York Theatre Ballet School this June. She will be succeeded by Melissa Sadler.

Patrick Armand has been appointed director of the Ballet Academy of the Vienna State Opera, beginning in September.

Pacific Northwest Ballet School managing director Denise Bolstad will retire at the conclusion of its summer course.

Ethan Stiefel has been appointed senior faculty at ABT’s Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School.

At School of Ballet 5:8, Selah Strong has been named assistant program director for the children’s division, and Emma Michaux has been named assistant to the conservatory and trainee director.

Jennifer Homans has been appointed the inaugural Van Cleef & Arpels Chair in the History of Dance at New York University.

Sadé Alleyne and Kristina Alleyne have been named guest artistic directors of the UK’s National Youth Dance Company for the 2025–26 season.

Bridie Gane has joined Dundee Rep and Scottish Dance Theatre’s Engage team as resident dance artist.

Lynda Davis and Clay Taliaferro will receive American Dance Festival’s 2025 Balasaraswati/Joy Anne Dewey Beinecke Endowed Chair for Distinguished Teaching, which includes a $5,000 honorarium.

The post Educator Moves: What You Might Have Missed in Spring 2025 appeared first on Dance Teacher.

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Tapas Das: Tapas Das, a young entrepreneur of our times started TWIST N TURNS in 2005. A person who is kind, generous, creative and down to earth wanted to start his own one of a kind dance academy. According to him, Dance is a language of movements that involves space, time and the human body. He was born and grew up in Kolkata, the cultural hub of India. Being appreciated in the field of dance all his life, he is extremely talented. He has been dancing since the age of four. Once he finished his high school, he learned jazz/modern and contemporary dance. His horizons were broadened even more when he started dancing Bollywood with Beat Busters for 4 years, which then was the most upcoming dance crew in Kolkata. After that exposure, he studied how to be a dance teacher, which later started helping him impart his knowledge about dance. Thus, in 2005, with the help of family and friends, he started TWIST N TURNS. Starting with a mere number of 40 students, today TWIST N TURNS currently has over 500 students. Over the time Tapas has taught and performed all over the country. He has performed in cities such as Kolkata, Delhi, Chennai, Jhansi, Jaipur, Jodhpur, and Udaipur etc. He has been an active participant in the Salsa India Congress in the cities of Bangalore and Bombay, and he has also visited various International Salsa Congresses in Europe, namely in Berlin ,Singapore, Hong Kong,Dubai. He is been also trained recently at Broadway Dance Center (New York), Alvin Alley (New York) and Steps on Broadway (New York). He is not only a dancer or teacher. He is a successful choreographer and has coordinated various shows without difficulty in our country. His leadership skills are exceptional, thus he is where he stands today. His aim in life would be to become a dance educator. He wants to share his tremendous knowledge in the right way to the right people. He is also, simultaneously running other brands like Zumba Kolkata, Bollywood Studio ArtistWala.com and India International Dance Institute.