The UMKC Conservatory is please to announce that Michael Blake is appointed Assistant Professor of Modern Dance, starting Fall, 2019. Michael Blake holds an MFA in dance from Purchase College, and has a 2010 Bessie Award for Dance and Performance for his work with Paradigm Dance Project. He began his dance career in the Murray Louis Dance Company where he danced 1982–84. In 1985, Michael moved to Osaka, Japan to become the manager of Studio Dancin’. In 1986 he joined the José Limón Dance Company, dancing principal roles until 1991. Michael danced with Donald Byrd/The Group 1991–98. He has also danced with Paradigm Dance, Joyce Trisler Danscompany, Shapiro & Smith Dance, and Netta Yerushalmy. He has appeared on stage in Vinnette Carroll’s, What You Gonna Name That Pretty Little Baby? choreographed by Talley Beatty. He has performed at the Supper Club, NYC, and in a national tour of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and at the Public Theater’s rock-musical, Lenny and the Heartbreakers. He has toured with Cab Calloway in Cab Calloway’s Cotton Club Reviewand has appeared in the films The Tales of Cri Cri (Murray Louis/Alwin Nikolais), Unsettled Dreams (Donald Byrd), and in the documentary, Hanya Holm (Portrait of a Dance Pioneer). He has taught numerous workshops both nationally and internationally. He was Artistic Director of the Jazz and Contemporary Trainee Program at the Joffrey Ballet School 2011–17. Michael has taught contemporary and modern dance classes at Steps on Broadway, Peridance Capezio Center, Ballet Hispanico, and he has been a teaching artist at the Mark Morris Dance Group in Brooklyn, New York. He has served on the dance faculties of Hunter College, Purchase College, Mason Gross School of the Arts, and Marymount Manhattan College. Michael is currently an Assistant Professor of Dance at Ithaca College and a performing artist with Netta Yerushalmy's Paramodernities #5 (Fosse). He is a proud member of the Actor's Equity Association.
