Contributor Matthew Powell has been working as a professional dancer, teacher and choreographer for the past thirteen years. After receiving his training at the School of American Ballet, Matthew performed with Pacific Northwest Ballet, Kansas City Ballet, the San Francisco Opera, and danced principal and soloist roles in over fifty works by choreographers such as George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Paul Taylor, Merce Cunningham, Twyla Tharp, Lynne Taylor-Corbett, Michael Smuin and more. Recently, Matthew portrayed “A-rab” in the international tour of West Side Story.
As a teacher, Matthew was a faculty member with the Kansas City Ballet School, and has taught classes at institutions such as the Universities of Iowa and Alabama, The Rock School, Marymount Manhattan, and Ballet Academy East. He has taught company class for Kansas City Ballet and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre while on tour. Additionally, Matthew served as the company ballet teacher for the West Side Story International Tour.
Matthew’s choreography received a fellowship from the New York Choreographic Institute in 2006. He has choreographed for Kansas City Ballet and worked as Assistant Director to Dorothy Danner for the Lyric Opera of Kansas City’s production of Pirates of Penzance. Most recently, Matthew has been working with Morphoses as Ballet Master, teaching at Broadway Dance Center, and freelancing as a teacher and choreographer. www.matthewpowell.net
Matthew is the author of the “Post Curtain Chat” column, which you can find under the “Interviews” tab.
Please note that any and all contributor posts on 4dancers are the opinion of the guest dance professional and are not researched or fact-checked by 4dancers.