Teresa Fellion

As an avid arts advocate and activist, Teresa Fellion creates work that integrates and empowers audiences with new perspectives and addresses human experiences. Many of these works are site-specific and involve innovative methods of audience interaction and storytelling. Fellion’s choreographic background includes contemporary dance which is greatly influenced by training in ballet, Graham, Central African, and Horton. Fellion’s artistic process also draws from release techniques, Murray-Louis, and organic movement approaches, and utilizes elements of Laban technique and Limon. In addition to the variety of modern styles that influence their movement, Fellion experiments with grounded release work and spirals informed by anatomical awareness and several community engagement approaches. Fellion has actively been involved with social justice since the 1990s, working with community groups, homeless shelters, soup kitchens, and protests. Since 2005, Fellion has integrated social justice into professional dance performances and educational presentations at a multitude of NYC schools and organizations. Fellion extensively collaborates with organizations in Upper Manhattan such as YWHA Washington Heights and Inwood. Fellion has put on public concerts throughout Manhattan and held numerous workshops with integrated participant performances, such as at Patrick Dempsey Cancer Center, YWHA of Washington Heights and Inwood, among others, where participants created text and movement. Fellion has shown work at Baryshnikov Arts Center, Jacob’s Pillow, The Public Theater, Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery, University of Florida, ENTPE University (Lyon, France), NYU, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Ailey Citigroup Theater, Bryant Park Summer Stage, BDF Edinburgh at EICC, Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center at Gibney Dance Center, NY City Center, Dixon Place, UME, ICA Boston, 92nd St. Y, Naropa University, Franco-American Cultural Center, CPR-Center for Performance Research, 14th St. Y, Merce Cunningham Theatre, MMAC, Ashawagh Hall, Triskelion Arts, GAP, Green Space, NYC Dance Parade Festival, KoDaFe NYC Art Festival, The Barn in New Cannan, Alpha Omega Theatrical Company, and in concerts with Phish, among others. Fellion’s work has been positively reviewed by The New York Times, NPR, The Huffington Post, The Scotsman, Oberon’s Grove, Dance Informa, Revieux, The Dance Enthusiast, TheatreScene.net, Cretus, NY-Theatre.com, The Skinny Magazine, World Dance Reviews, Edinburgh Festivals Magazine, Edinburgh Spotlight, Southampton Press, Stage Buddy, East Hampton Press, The Sun Journal, Broadway Baby, and Earth Press, among others. And has received commissions from NYC Department of Transportation’s Summer Streets, chashama at Anita’s Way 4 Times Square, Island Moving Company, Marcia Brooks/Various Works MixT Company, and The Hudson River Museum via the Jordan Matter Dancers Among Us exhibit. Her full-length choreography for Book of Saints, commissioned by Marigny Opera Contemporary Ballet won the Best of New Orleans 2018 Gambit Award for Best Dance Presentation (Full Length) for this original work. 

Teresa holds a MFA in Dance from Sarah Lawrence which she completed under the Bessie Schonberg Scholarship, as well as a Certificate from the Ailey School under a scholarship. She also completed a BA in French & English Literature, with a minor in dance from NYU as a merit scholar.

My role as an Artistic Director for BodyStories: Teresa Fellion Dance, a choreographer and educator has allowed me to develop a myriad of experiences as a teaching artist. After facing COVID-19 closures, I developed a virtual education platform for my dance company and have successfully delivered virtual dance education programming to pre-professional, professional, adult, and youth dancers. I have used my virtual dance education program to teach both technical, improvisation, and composition classes. I continued these educational initiatives in my newest appointment as the Adjunct Professor at the Arts & Education Center in New Jersey. Classes consist of in-person and online semester-long courses in technique, composition, and improvisation with Middlesex, Monmouth and Union Community Colleges, involving high school and college students. With my experience in designing and implementing both traditional and virtual curricula, I believe I am equipped to teach in any setting which has also led me to teach The Culturally Diverse Language of Dance course at SUNY Old Westbury. I have had numerous teaching experiences at colleges and have offered many master classes and workshops. I have previously taught at the Pace University Summer ARTS Program, Sarah Lawrence College, Wilson College, University of Southern Mississippi, Barnard College Liberty State Partnerships, and most recently, at StudioRepublik Conservatory in Dubai. At StudioRepublik, I directed the dance department, was lead faculty, and I also partnered with the theater and music departments. While there, I coordinated and designed curriculum and taught a full schedule of adult and youth programming and strategized community engagement planning and implementation. These opportunities have truly immersed me in the field of dance education at both a professional and high artistic level. I am an experienced teacher of modern, contemporary, ballet, Cameroonian dance, jazz, hip-hop, partnering + contact improvisation, improvisation, and composition. Additionally, I have experience in arts management, dance film, writing, anatomy, dance history, and I have become passionate about exploring the creative ways in which my students can seek their own artistic paths. One of my core philosophies in regards to teaching is enabling my students to think outside of the typical norms of physical health and for them to embrace the arts as a factor of their overall wellbeing and personal development.