Dance in Columbus

Artists & Organizations

The Growing List of Dance Artists, Companies, Presenters & Organizations in Columbus, OH

BalletMet Columbus | website

BalletMet Columbus, renowned for its versatility and innovative repertory, ranks among the nation’s 15 largest dance companies, and its Dance Academy ranks among the five largest professional dance-training centers. Since its inception in 1978, BalletMet has added 147 company premieres to its repertoire and produced 122 world premieres. It has also developed DanceReach, a series of educational and outreach programs that serve 30,000 people annually, as well as a scholarship program that provides tuition for youth based on financial need or talent.

Noelle Chun | e-mail

Noelle Chun's performance and choreography has been presented across the Mid-Atlantic through her own independent work, with the improvisational trio Like You Mean It, and through site-specific events with Foreground Dance. Past projects have been supported by grants and fellowships from the Greater Columbus Arts Council and Ohio Arts Council. Noelle considers collaboration and improvisation to be at the base of every creative process, where movers and thinkers actively contribute and make direct decisions inside of the process that engender spontaneous, subtle, and ruminative works. She has served on faculty at The Ohio State University and Ohio Wesleyan University, teaching improvisation and technique courses. Currently she spends her time delving into practices and experiments at Feverhead. She holds a BA in Anthropology and Theatre Arts from Beloit College in Wisconsin, and an MFA in Dance from OSU.

cocoloupedance | website

"when there is everything else in the world to do ….. make a dance…..make conversation… make someone happy….make art… make money….make something…create something excellent and good.. and then do it all over again."

CoCo Loupe holds a BFA & MFA in Dance/Choreography. In the past 20 years she has been an ADF freak-a-zoid, and indie dance group dreamer, pick-up performer and a university educator. Her work has been performed all over the place but not everywhere. She lives in Columbus, OH and likes it. She works on websites everyday and makes dances when she can. She also blogs at From One Foot To The Other and is the editor/curator of The Make Something Campaign Online Journal & Gallery. She is the web admin for the Dance in Columbus website and online forum and for The Columbus Dance Calendar. She is also a member of CAW: creative arts of women, OhioDance, THEY MIGHT BE DANCERS and helps run a new dance/arts space in Columbus, OH called FEVERHEAD.

Columbus Choreography Connection | website

If you are a dancer or an aspiring or established choreographer, we welcome you to our site. Columbus Choreography Connection brings to Central Ohio established and aspiring choreographers from around Ohio and the U.S. to provide unique dance workshops. We make affordable dance instruction accessible to Central Ohio through community-based workshops.

Columbus Dance Theatre | website

Columbus Dance Theatre is a contemporary ballet company performing the work of Artistic Director Tim Veach and selected guest choreographers. The company has appeared at various festivals and performances throughout the U.S. and performs multiple times each year in Columbus with such productions as Tim Veach Dance, Ten Cents a Dance, New Dance Project, and Matchgirl. CDT is a nationally recognized arts organization with a significant history of community involvement through its professional company, school, and its role as a leading sponsor of independent artists in Central Ohio.

Heroic Urges Moving Arts | website

We have been collaborators and co-artists for nearly a decade, both being trained at Otterbein College to go on to receive graduate degrees from two reputable dance programs; Christeen at NYU & Jeff at OSU.

Since our return from to Columbus from NYC, we've been continuing to compose our memoirs in the form of a tandem fictional narrative inspired by true events, altered drastically for dramatic effect. It became apparent early in our partnership that while we grew up in separate cities and had maybe crossed paths on the competition dance circuit, our lives have always been on a parallel trajectory: much like the characters in our book. This novel has become the basis for our artistic aims in dance theater & performance art,
Heroic Urges Moving Arts.

High Jinks Productions | website

Expect the unexpected. Our fantastic costumes, lively scenarios, and interactive performers enhance any event by providing a crowd-alluring atmosphere that appeals to a diverse audience. We provide you with the finest entertainment tailored to meet your specific needs. We can surprise and delight you in even more spectacular ways with our extraordinary stilt-dances and choreographed productions. Unique Stilt Characters, Juggling and Balance Acts, Aerial Work – trapeze, harness, and cradle act, Fire Performances – poi, hula hoop, staff, and fire eating, Danger Acts –walking on glass, swords, and a bed of nails, Theatrical productions -for various venues, stages and outdoor arenas, Puppetry – interactive and shows with marionettes to over–sized puppets, Custom Costume Design, Décor / Set design / Video environments

Hillel International Dance | website | facebook
Everyone is welcome! International dances with an emphasis on Israeli folk dances. We dance all year long every Tuesday EXCEPT Jewish Holidays. Come and go as you please or as it fits your schedule. We are part of the Recreational Folk Dancers of Columbus - a non profit group that includes different folk dancing groups in Columbus. Links to different folk dancing groups can be found on the RFDC website.

Kristina Isabelle Dance Company | website

Kristina Isabelle Dance Company has a singular mission: to engage its audiences in a contemporary dance experience that combines serious-minded, rigorously technical movement with a groundbreaking, multidimensional approach and playful, unpredictable sense of humor. Many performances literally take the art form to new heights by incorporating dancers on stilts to create perspective-altering dancescapes. The mission of Kristina Isabelle Dance Company is carried out through originally choreography, theatrical performances for the proscenium stage and outdoor venues, and educational outreach and workshops.

David Jon Krohn | website

David is a member of Actor’s Equity Association. He attended Bennington College and Columbia University in Dance and Theater. His performance combines down-to-earth storytelling (think Hal Hollbrook as MARK TWAIN, or Garrison Keeler while dancing) with a wide variety of physical skills. A long, audience-interactive setup leads to a hilarious ending in the curtain-raiser – General Pershing at the Front. He weaves his experiences as a gymnast, dancer, climber, juggler, mime and stilt-walker into his stories and bares his soul in Autobiography (all true).. He used a 15th century theatrical device to create a three-legged man and the illusion is good enough to keep you guessing. He has performed in New York City, across Ohio & the USA, throughout eastern Canada, and – as a guest artist – in Oslo, Norway and Stockholm, Sweden.

Like You Mean It | website | blog

Like You Mean It is an improvisational trio of dance artists. The performers construct a coherent piece in real time with movement, sound, and text, most often with a live DJ responding as a fourth collaborator. Much like improvisation in jazz music, these compositions can be viewed just like finished choreography. For Like You Mean It, improvisational performance is choreography, requiring the same seriousness of purpose and regular rehearsing that yields engaging dance works.

Meghan Durham/mergedance//mdmd | website/blog

Meghan Durham/Merge Dance, founded in 2004, is a Columbus based company that fosters creativity, collaboration, and community through movement and dance. Merge Dance supports physical and aesthetic inquiry through the medium of dance, and advocates access to dance for diverse populations, inviting the integration of dance and multiple artistic media in a collective excavation of meaning through art. Merge Dance acknowledges and embraces the audience as essential participants in the rendering of art and meaning.

Sara Mitchell | website coming soon

Dancer/Performer, Choreographer, Teacher/Instructor/Educator

Erin Carlisle Norton & The Moving Architects | website

The Moving Architects, under the direction of Erin Carlisle Norton, construct expert, articulate contemporary dance in which spaces advise the work from development to performance. Public discourse is at the heart of the company. To further this goal, The Moving Architects also provide quality movement classes, workshops, and residencies. Erin Carlisle Norton is pursuing her MFA in Dance beginning fall 2010, making her home between Columbus, Ohio and Chicago where The Moving Architects was founded and is based.

OhioDance | website

OhioDance is a statewide organization that inclusively supports the diverse and vibrant practice of dance. OhioDance represents a broad statewide dance constituency. It serves professional companies and dancers, college/university dance departments, dance studios, school and community dance programs, and dance supporters. It serves as the primary networking opportunity for diverse dance organizations and individuals throughout the state through a quarterly newsletter, a directory and resource guide, workshops, festivals, roundtables, performance opportunities, and a website. In addition to these informational and educational services, it provides members with fiscal agency services and representation in state and national arts activities. The organization is committed to educating Ohioans about dance and dance education, as well as facilitating advocacy activities.

OSU Department of Dance | website

The Department of Dance at the Ohio State University is a community of diverse individuals trained on a common nexus of inquiry, the rich and complex phenomenon of dance. We are a faculty of eighteen, supported by a dedicated and knowledgeable staff, adjunct educators, guest artists and visiting scholars. We are a group of approximately 125 undergraduates, pursuing studies that lead to a BFA in Dance, and a group of approximately 35 graduate students pursuing the MA or MFA degree. (more info at website)

Laura Puscas | website

Laura Puscas is a modern dancer trained in Hawkins technique, ballet, and jazz. While at the University of Notre Dame, she became known for creating immersive audience experiences typically outside of a theater setting. Transforming spaces such as art galleries or classroom buildings into walk-through dance performances, she uses unique collaborations to create narrative, full-length works. Ms. Puscas is also an experienced arts administrator, currently working as the Marketing & Development Assistant at BalletMet Columbus.

Maree Remalia | website | blog

Maree is a choreographer, performer and teacher. Currently, she is participating in the first official Gaga Teacher Training program in Tel Aviv, Israel and studying to become a practitioner of the Ilan Lev Method. She earned her MFA in Dance through The Ohio State University and a BA in Education for Social Change and Cultural Studies from Prescott College. Previously, she taught third grade through the Teach for America program in San Francisco.

In her creative process, she draws inspiration from Ohad Naharin's Gaga movement language and improvisational studies she experienced at Moving on Center School for Participatory Arts; she has been deeply impacted by Bebe Miller's emergent style of dance-making and John Giffin's approach to Dance Theater. ReMalia is interested in the significance of using improvisational, sensory-based explorations as a way to cultivate self-awareness, build community and make new discoveries through movement. It is her intent to choreograph work that is reflective of diverse groups of individuals and a collaborative process. Her original choreography has been presented in Cleveland Public Theatre's Big Box and Dance Works series, MegLouise Dance Sneak Reviews, Movement Research at the Judson Church, 60x60 and the Williamsburg Free Fest.

As a performer, Maree has had the pleasure of dancing with Cleveland-based companies MorrisonDance and MegLouise Dance and previously with Southern Ballet Theatre and the Richmond Ballet. Recently, she performed in the work of Bebe Miller, Ming Shen Gu and Noa Zuk. She has enjoyed collaborations with Heather Baur, Kalindi Stockton and OSU Dance colleagues. Through these associations, she performed in the CinciFringe Fest, Cleveland Public Theatre's Dance Works series, DUMBO Dance Festival, Ingenuity Festival, New England Dance Project showcase, Ten Tiny Dances and the Yitzhak International Arts Gathering in Acco, Israel.

SOURCE | profile | email

Dance and the performing arts help shape a healthy and mobile society. It is the desire of SOURCE to faciliate this awareness by utilizing arts for activism sake.

THEY MIGHT BE DANCERS (TMBD) | website

They Might Be Dancers (TMBD) is a small collective of movement, visual, sound & video artists who live, work and create in Columbus, OH. TMBD is the resident collective at FEVERHEAD: a space for dance, art, music, theatre.

Thiossane West African Dance Institute | website

The Thiossane West African Dance Institute’s mission is to present and preserve traditional west african dance, music and culture and perpetuate its significance to future generations, while promoting physical and mental wellness.

Jessica Tupa & TUPACO Dance | website

TUPACO Dance is dedicated to providing its community with a wide range of high quality dance opportunities, through performances and outreach, while actively supporting the philosophy that movement arts and their beneficial and healing attributes should be available to everyone. We create work that is engaging and challenging while still accessible, and view dance as both an Art and an integral form of human expression.

Susan Van Pelt Petry | e-mail | website coming soon

Independent choreographer and performer. During the 80's and 90's ran The Van Pelt Dance Ensemble, based in Columbus, Ohio, and toured as a company and individual; received numerous Ohio Arts Council Fellowships as well as GCAC, OAC, Columbus Foundation grants. After a hiatus from choreographing, recent works have been in collaboration with Ric Petry's video and projection work shown at Columbus College of Art Design, Sullivant Theatre at OSU, and Dragonfly Gallery. Future plans include new solo work and a dance/film performance/installation project with Ric.

The Wexner Center for the Arts | website | blog

The Wexner Center for the Arts is The Ohio State University’s multidisciplinary, international laboratory for the exploration and advancement of contemporary art. Through exhibitions, screenings, performances, artist residencies, and educational programs, the Wexner Center acts as a forum where established and emerging artists can test ideas and where diverse audiences can participate in cultural experiences that enhance understanding of the art of our time. In its programs, the Wexner Center balances a commitment to experimentation with a commitment to traditions of innovation and affirms the university’s mission of education, research, and community service.

XClaim Dance | website

Xclaim is a Contemporary Jazz Dance Ensemble that focuses on using professional dance performance as a vehicle of expression, bringing art and vitality to the forefront of popular culture through hot choreography and real community outreach. Under the artistic direction of Mariah Layne French, Xclaim produces eclectic, captivating, Jazz Dance that fuses ethnic, lyrical, classical, hip-hop, contemporary, and musical theater styles to create innovative works that are accessible to and suitable for audiences of all ages. Performances explore topics at the core of human existence, tapping a wide range of emotion. Outreach is a fundamental element in Xclaim’s purpose. Our dancers are passionate about sharing their artistic resources and physical capabilities with those in need through compassion driven service projects, artistic educational workshops, and compelling insightful choreography. We believe that every individual deserves the opportunity to experience quality professional art and a life full of vitality. We are committed to being a group of artists that gives back to communities in tangible life-sustaining ways.