Arts & Entrepreneurship: Finding your Voice and Filling a Need
Angela Harris |
TEDxEmory
• April 2021
Angela Harris is the Executive Artistic Director of Dance Canvas, Inc., a career development organization for emerging professional choreographers and youth. Through Dance Canvas, Angela has been a catalyst, consultant, and resource for numerous new dance organizations and artists, both locally in metro Atlanta, as well as nationally. Angela has developed programs for the City of Atlanta's Office of Cultural Affairs and Department of Recreation, recording artist Usher's New Look Foundation, and the Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation. Angela is a graduate of The Baltimore School for the Arts and studied at Dance Theater of Harlem, School of the Hartford Ballet & The Eglevsky Ballet. She attended Mercyhurst College and City College of New York, earning a B.A. in Journalism, while on full ballet scholarship at Steps on Broadway in NYC. Angela danced professionally with The Georgia Ballet, Columbia City Ballet (SC) and Urban Ballet Theater (NYC). Her theatre credits include: Sophisticated Ladies and Degas’ Little Dancer (Marie u/s) at the Alliance Theatre; A Chorus Line (Kristine), Chicago (Mona Lipschitz), Camelot and Annie Get Your Gun at the Aurora Theatre; Hunchback of Notre Dance at Theatrical Outfit/Aurora Theatre. 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 has premiered 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). Angela was one of five Inaugural National Visiting Fellows at the School of American Ballet, the official school of New York City Ballet. Angela was awarded a Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation (SDCF) Observership to work on a new Broadway musical Lab for 'Little Dancer', under the direction of Susan Stroman. Angela has been recognized with the National Emerging Leader Award from Americans for the Arts and served on the national Emerging Leaders Council for Americans for the Arts. Locally, Angela was a member of the 2014 class of Arts Leaders of Metro Atlanta (ALMA), and on the advisory boards of the Arthur M. Blank Foundations' Audience Building Roundtable and Atlanta Artist Relief Fund. In addition to her work through Dance Canvas, Angela is on faculty at Emory University and 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 and lecturer at colleges and universities across the country.