From 1996-1998, I pursued my MFA in Dance Performance and Choreography at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in the Department of Dance. At the time, the MFA program had a conservatory training focus with an emphasis on technique and artistry. Opportunities to make work and perform on the main stage were an essential part of the program.

Tisch Dance lives at 111 Second Avenue in the heart of the East Village. At that time, many of the institutions, cafes, shops, and artists who had set up camp during the 70s and 80s still had their long-term leases. The fabric of rebellion, funk, punk, edge, and grit was intact, though in jeopardy. In hindsight, and in witness of so much change to that neighborhood in recent decades, I realize how fortunate I was to mingle in the East Village community during the 90s. It was impossible to go to a cafe or run an errand and not meet an actor, musician, or performer. These encounters made me feel part of a larger movement of art and performance percolating within feet of a studios where I was training and making my own work.

When I moved to NYC in 1994, I knew I had found home. What I didn’t know was that the doors at 111 Second Avenue would be the ones I would go in and out of the most over the next three decades. Content below is a special walk down memory lane, performing and choreographing in the Fifth Floor Theatre 1996-1998.