Alanna Morris–Van Tassel
Gibney Dance Teaching Artist
Primary Academic Program: Dance
Biography:
Named one of
Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch” in 2018, Brooklyn native Alanna Morris–Van Tassel is an award-winning dancer, choreographer, and producer based in St. Paul, Minnesota. Her work “excavates cultural retention and fragmentation as it relates to Afro-Caribbean diasporic identity” and is influenced by ancient wisdom traditions of the East and West. She is the founder and artistic director of AMVTP (Alanna Morris–Van Tassel Productions), established in 2017 to produce dance, education, and community-building initiatives. She has been a featured performer and guest artist with Minnesota-based TU Dance, founded by Toni Pierce-Sands and Uri Sands; adviser to Springboard Danse Montreal; dance instructor at several venues in and around St. Paul; and co-organizer of 2020’s Juneteenth Movement protest, a collective movement practice for and by Black artists in the Twin Cities area. Commissioned works include
Yam, Potatoe an Fish!, for which she was named Minneapolis City Pages’ Artist of the Year and Best Choreographer, and
Black Light, a work-in-progress that explores the nobility of Black-ness, divine feminine expression, and primordial creativity. Awards and honors also include a Jerome Foundation Travel/Study Grant, McKnight Fellowship for Dancers, and residencies at Emerging Artists Program @ Tofte Lake Center (Jerome Foundation), Brooklyn Ballet School, Creative Outlet Dance Theater in Brooklyn, and Catharsis Creative Residence: Art on Purpose in Arima, Trinidad. She is a graduate of New York City’s Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts and received a bachelor of fine arts degree from The Juilliard School. At Bard: Spring 2021.
Contact:
Website: https://alannamvt.com