Nancy Newell

Nancy Newell has been teaching dance for more than 40 years and has a background in theater from Northwestern University. She has taught internationally as well as throughout the United States. During her career, she has choreographed more than 30 musicals. Newell is a driving force in the D.C. metropolitan dance community. Most recently she spearheaded the Metro-DC Tribute to Gregory Hines. In 1998, Newell was curator of the Smithsonian series, The Women of Tap with special guest Ann Miller. In 1999 she coordinated the Smithsonian series, The Legends of Tap with Rusty Frank, Fred Kelly, and special guest Baakari Wilder. She co-sponsored the 1999 DC MetroTap Festival and has sponsored the Washington, D.C.- area TAP FEST program for the past nine years. In 2002 and 2003, Newell performed and taught Master Classes in the Czech Republic where she represented DC in the The Prague, DC, Philadelphia Tap Festival. In 2006 she returned to Prague to help celebrate National Tap Dance Day with tap dancers from around the world. In 2004, Newell traveled to Bergerac, France to teach workshops at Ecole de Danse Desha/Simone Moulin and then to Kiev, Ukraine, to teach master classes at Volodomyr Shpudeiko's Jazz Tap Dance Studio. Newell opened DC Dance Collective in June of 1999 as a center for creativity and collaboration. She was honored to be nominated for the 2007 Metro DC Dance Award (MDCDA) in the category: "Outstanding Achievement in Dance Education".