Angela HarrisInstructor

Angela Harris is a choreographer and founding Executive Artistic Director of Dance Canvas, Inc., a career development organization for emerging professional choreographers and youth. Angela received her dance training at Dance Theater of Harlem, School of the Hartford Ballet, and The Eglevsky Ballet. Originally from Baltimore, Maryland, she graduated from The Baltimore School for the Arts and attended Mercyhurst College and City College of New York, earning a BA in journalism, while on full ballet scholarship at Steps on Broadway.

Angela has danced professionally with The Georgia Ballet (GA), Columbia City Ballet (SC), and Urban Ballet Theater (NYC). Her theatre dance credits include: Jasmine Guy's Daughters of Alpha; Sophisticated Ladies and Degas' Little Dancer (Marie u/s) at the Tony award winning Alliance Theatre; A Chorus Line (Kristine), Chicago (Lipschitz), Camelot and Annie Get Your Gun at the Aurora Theatre; Film: Scary Movie 5 (Principal Dancer).

Angela has choreographed for professional ballet companies and schools across the country. Her work has been performed by The Georgia Ballet, Ballet Lubbock, Oklahoma Summer Arts Institute and she has premiered multiple ballets at the Rialto Center for the Arts and the Ferst Center for the Arts through her company, Dance Canvas. Angela has choreographed for professional theater productions, including: The First Noel (Kenny Leon's True Colors Theater Company), 110 in the Shade (Theatrical Outfit), Little Shop of Horrors (Actor's Express), Bridges of Madison County (Aurora Theatre), Frankenstein's Funeral (Found Stages) and University productions: Ragtime (Kennesaw State University), Drowsy Chaperone (Georgia Tech).

In 2016, Angela was awarded a Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation Observership to work on Little Dancer, a new Broadway musical Lab, under the direction of Susan Stroman. Angela was awarded the Emerging Artist Award in Dance from The City of Atlanta's Office of Cultural Affairs and received a proclamation from the Atlanta City Council for her work in dance in Atlanta. Angela was one of five Inaugural National Visiting Fellows at the School of American Ballet in NYC, assisting the prestigious institution with diversity initiatives.

Additionally, through Dance Canvas, Angela has been a catalyst, consultant, and resource for numerous new dance organizations and artists throughout metro Atlanta. Angela has developed youth dance programs for the City of Atlanta's Office of Cultural Affairs, Grammy award winning recording artist Usher's New Look Foundation, and the Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation. She received the 2011 American Express Emerging Leader Award from Americans for the Arts and she also served on the national Emerging Leaders Council for Americans for the Arts from 2011 – 2014.

In addition to teaching at Emory, Angela is a ballet instructor at Dekalb School for the Arts and Academy of Ballet. She has served on the faculty of the Oklahoma Summer Arts Institute and has been a master class/guest instructor at colleges and universities across the country.

"My ballet classes are Vaganova-based infused with Balanchine’s aesthetic - “teaching students to move with musicality, control, precision, speed and expansiveness”. My classes are designed to allow students to move more freely at the barre, to develop placement and balance, while mastering shifting of weight and the quick changes of footwork needed for jumps and turns in the center. Every student’s body is different and needs individual attention to placement and turn out depending on what each body can safely execute physically. I don’t believe that any two people dance exactly alike, and although it is easy for a dancer to compare themselves to others in class, we work on identifying individual strengths.

Although technical proficiency is important, my class philosophy relies on the principle of Ballet being a “Performing Art”. I encourage students to develop the love and appreciation for the artform itself. My class focuses on musicality and dynamics at both barre and center, through combinations with accent changes and syncopated rhythms. The goal of class is not strictly for exercise, but also for artistry development."

TEDx Emory
Arts and Entrepreneurship: Finding your Voice and Filling a Need