Bio
April Berry is a dance director, master teacher, educator and former internationally acclaimed dancer with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Berry has been actively involved in the field of dance education and community engagement for more than 30 years. She has created award‐winning education programs as Director of Community Engagement and Education for Kansas City Ballet, as Director of Education and Community Outreach for North Carolina Dance Theatre (now Charlotte Ballet) and as Director of Education and Community Programs at BalletMet Columbus. Ms. Berry has served on the dance faculty at Kansas City Ballet, Charlotte Ballet and at BalletMet Columbus in Ohio, and has served as adjunct faculty in the Department of Dance at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Her teaching experience includes guest instructor and lecturer at various universities and dance institutions in the U.S., including the School at Jacobs Pillow, and as a lead teaching artist representing several U.S. ballet organizations in various school systems around the country. Berry has presented at various conferences, including the Dance/USA Conference in Philadelphia, two National Dance Education (NDEO) Conferences, International Association for Blacks in Dance (IABD) Conferences, and the Collegium for African American Dance (CADD) Conference at Duke University. She authored “Building Bridges for Ballet’s Future” for Dance/USA’s online journal From the Green Room, has served on grants panels for the Missouri Arts Council, North Carolina Arts Council and the Arts & Science Council in Charlotte, and was the Founding chair of Dance USA’s Community Engagement and Education Directors Affinity Group. Berry’s professional training in ballet began in New York at the former National Academy of Ballet and Theatre Arts and at the Dance Theatre of Harlem. Subsequently, Berry studied modern dance techniques and jazz dance at Alvin Ailey American Dance Center (now the Ailey School) in New York and traveled to Cuba to study Caribbean folkloric and popular dance forms at the Escuela Nacional des Arts (National School of the Arts). A former principal dance artist with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (AAADT), Berry worked under the direction of Founding Artistic Director Alvin Ailey and Artistic Director Emerita Judith Jamison. Berry is featured in numerous dance books and several AAADT videos, performed on two televised Kennedy Center Honors Programs and served as a guest artist with several ballet companies, including the Teatro La Scala Ballet in Milan, Italy.