Black Dancers in American Ballet in KC

April Berry, dance director, master teacher, educator, and internationally acclaimed principal dancer with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, was born and raised in New York. Ms. Berry began her professional training in ballet at the National Academy of Ballet and Theatre Arts in New York City under the founding direction of Thalia Mara, also founder of the prestigious International Ballet Competition in Jackson, Mississippi. As a young dance student Ms. Berry was a scholarship student and a company apprentice with the Dance Theatre of Harlem under directors Arthur Mitchell and Karel Shook. Ms. Berry’s professional dance career began in ballet at the age of 17 and she has danced with ballet companies in Switzerland, the United States and Italy. She studied modern dance techniques and jazz dance at the Ailey School in New York, and trained in African Caribbean folkloric and popular dance forms at the Escuela Nacional des Arts (National School of the Arts) in Havana, Cuba

Ms. Berry has worked closely with many of the most celebrated choreographers and dance artists of the 20th century. She has danced the signature choreographies of George Balanchine, Todd Bolender, Choo San Goh, Hans Van Manen, Billy Wilson, John Butler, Lester Horton, Alvin Ailey, Katherine Dunham, Talley Beatty, and Donald McKayle, as well as in works by other renowned choreographers from the world of ballet, modern/contemporary, and jazz dance.

As a former principal dance artist with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Ms. Berry had travelled all around the world working under Founding Artistic Director Alvin Ailey and Artistic Emerita Judith Jamison. April is featured in several dance books and punlications including Ailey Spirit: The Journey of an American Dance Company by Robert Tracy, Alvin Ailey: A Life in Dance by former The New York Times dance critic Jennifer Dunning, Dancing Revelations by Thomas DeFrantz and The Black Tradition in American Dance by African American historian Richard A. Long, among others. Ms. Berry is featured in several Ailey Company videos and has performed on various television specials including two Kennedy Center Honors programs, represented the Ailey Company on two Ailey season posters, and served as guest artist with several dance companies, including the Teatro La Scala Ballet in Milan, Italy.

Ms. Berry has been actively involved in the field of dance education and community engagement since 1992. She has created award-winning dance scholarship programs and has presented at various dance conferences including the 2013 Dance/USA Conference in Philadelphia, two National Dance Education (NDEO) Conferences, several International Association for Blacks in Dance (IABD) Conferences and presented at the

2016 Colleguim for African American Dance (CADD) Conference at Duke University. She has served as an artist-in-residence, guest lecturer, and adjunct faculty member at some of the most prestigious universities around the United States and has written for Dance/USA’s online journal From the Green Room, The Society of Dance History Scholars publication, Conversations in Dance. Her service includes board member of the Dance Council of North Texas in Dallas, board member of Ohio Dance and the Greater Columbus Arts Council in Columbus, Ohio, and as grants panelist for the North Carolina Arts Council, the Arts and Science Council in Charlotte, NC, among others.

Ms. Berry was Director of Education and Outreach for North Carolina Dance Theatre, (now the Charlotte Ballet) from 2006-2013, and Director of Education and Community Programs for BalletMet Columbus, from 2001-2006. She founded and served as a dance consultant for Arts ‘n Community, a grass roots agency providing specialized services and resources to emerging and mid-size organizations around the U.S., dedicated to the art form dance.

Berry is a certified master instructor in the Katherine Dunham technique, having successfully completed all certification requirements after extensive work with American dance pioneer, Dr. Katherine Dunham. In August 2014 Ms. Berry was appointed the first Artistic Director of Dallas Black Dance Theatre, following the retirement of Founding Artistic Director Ann Williams.

Ms. Berry is Director of Community Engagement and Education at Kansas City Ballet, a faculty member in the Kansas City Ballet School, and is the Founding and current Chair of Dance/USA’s nationwide Community Engagement and Education Directors Affinity Group.

Karen Brown spent 22 years traveling around the world as a principal ballerina, featured artist, master teacher and lecturer with the Dance Theatre of Harlem (DTH) under the direction of legendary founder, Arthur Mitchell. From the inception DTH’s Kennedy Center Community Outreach Residency in Washington, D.C., she was a master teacher and adjudicator for the groundbreaking and innovative community-focused program. Ms. Brown’s immediate transition from active performer with DTH was to the Director of Education at the Atlanta Ballet Centre for Dance Education (ABCDE). Her background as a master teacher includes teaching classes and workshops at colleges, universities and dance schools throughout Eastern and Western Europe, North and Central America, the Pacific Rim, Egypt, and South Africa. Ms. Brown has been certified as an ABT® Teacher in Pre-Primary through Level 7. She is certified in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd years of the Vaganova Syllabus with John White in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. She is also certified in Reinforced Motor Function for Ballet Application (RMF) founded by Sean McLeod and has recently founded the En Pointe Plus Dance Mastery Institute (EPP), a division of Karenina, Inc. (founded in 1997) offering coaching sessions for dancers utilizing new computerized motion analysis technology and accelerated learning techniques. Prior to joining the University of the Arts (UARTS) in Philadelphia as Assistant Professor of Dance (2007 – 2013), Brown served for six years as Artistic Director of Oakland Ballet Company in California (2000 – 2006). Throughout her career, Ms. Brown has received numerous awards, including New York Institute of Dance and Education Harriet Tubman Freedom Award in 2010 and the New York Dance and Performance Award or the “New York Dance and Performance Award or The Bessie; for Sustained Achievement in Performance” as a company member with Paradigm, Dance Legends in Concert (NYC) in 2018. She has been an Executive Director for Garth Fagan Dance in Rochester, New York and a Guest Artistic Director of Ballet Wichita in Wichita, Kansas where she and black choreographer Sean McLeod set a new Nutcracker Ballet on the company. In celebration of Juneteenth 2020, Ms. Brown opened the Karen Brown Coaching Studio dedicated to renowned ballet dancer, close friend, former dance colleague and benefactor, the late Mel A. Tomlinson and the studio also honors the legacy of the late DTH founder Arthur Mitchell. In fall 2020, she was hired as a new Assistant Professor of Ballet at the University of Missouri Kansas City Conservatory.

For more of her background information, thekarenbrown.com.

Joshua Bodden began his ballet training at the age of 10 at the Miami City Ballet School under the direction of Edward and Linda Villella, he also attended The Harid Conservatory and Pittsburgh Ballet Theater’s year-round program on a full scholarship. He spent his summers training at the School of American Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, and North Carolina School of the Arts. Upon graduating from the Miami City Ballet School program Mr. Bodden was invited to join the Miami City Ballet dancing various ballets such as Stars and Stripes, Jewels, Scotch Symphony, Square Dance, Slaughter on 10th Avenue and Giselle. Mr. Bodden also danced with Dance Theatre of Harlem. He was a member of Cincinnati Ballet expanding his repertoire of classical and contemporary works and having the prestigious honor of being the first African American male to perform a ballet boy in Twyla Tharp’s In the Upper Room. With Kansas City Ballet, he has performed in Alice (in wonderland), Giselle, Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, Theme and Variations, Septime Webre’s The Wizard Of Oz, Melancholic in Balanchine’s The Four Temperaments, Puck in Bruce Well’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Gaston in Val Caniparoli’s Lady of the Camellias and works by Edwaard Liang, Amy Sewiert, Yuri Possokhov, Adam Hougland, Jennifer Archibald, Stephanie Martinez, Gabrielle Lamb, Haley Kostas, Andi Abernathy and Stephanie Ruch.

Company Member Whitney Huell trained at the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities under the tutelage of Stanislav Issaev and Robert Barnett. She then attended Indiana University earning a B.S. in Ballet and Psychology before joining Ballet West. With Ballet West, Ms. Huell performed featured roles in Paquita, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Petite Mort, and Jewels. In January 2011 she was one of Dance Magazine’s Top 25 to Watch and was also featured in the September 2012 issue of Pointe Magazine. With Kansas City Ballet, Ms. Huell has performed works by Amy Seiwert, Adam Hougland, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, Monique Meunier, Stanton Welch, Edwaard Liang, Val Caniparoli, Helen Pickett and Jerome Robbins and has been featured as The Lead Woman in James Kudelka’s The Man in Black, Caterpillar in Alice (in wonderland), 3rd Theme in The Four Temperaments and Jeté Woman in Forsythe’s In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated. In 2018 she was featured as the Sugar Plum Fairy in Devon Carney’s production of The Nutcracker becoming the first African American in KCB history to perform the role.