HSA Dance Department Faculty

Dance Dept.: Faculty

Yvonne Curry has been a member of the HSA faculty since 1998. She earned her BA in Dance from Brooklyn College and also trained in ballet, modern, tap, jazz and Afro-Caribbean. She has danced with the Paul Taylor Dance Company and teaches at the Third Street Music School. She has also taught at the Preparatory Center for the Performing Arts in Brooklyn and at the Leona Laviscount School of Dance in Milan. Ms. Curry has choreographed for television in Venezuela. She is a past co-president of the
New York Coalition of Professional Women in the Arts and Media, a member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers and a member of the Board of Directors of the American Dance Guild.

Krystal Hall–Glass (Director, Dance Department), a Performing Arts High School alumna, appeared in both the film and Broadway versions of The Wiz while attending the Juilliard School of Music. Mrs. Hall-Glass toured both nationally and internationally, having worked with choreographers Michael Peters, Otis Sallid, George Faison, actors Ossie Davis and Lynn Thigpen as well as musicians Max Roach, Chris White, Roberta Flack and
Cassandra Wilson. For nine years, Mrs. Hall-Glass worked as a soloist with the internationally acclaimed Jubilation! Dance Company where she garnered a Bessie nomination for her performance in the solo Mama Rose. She has also worked as a guest soloist with Ethos Dance Theatre Company,
Seraphim Dance Theater, Creative Outlet Dance Theatre, the Hiromi Dance Company of Japan, and Andrea Woods & Company.

Mrs. Hall-Glass has choreographed for the Harlem Gospel Ensemble, Opus Dance Theatre, LaGuardia School of the Arts, Newark’s Performing Arts High School, in the repertoires of Creative Outlet Dance Theatre, Jubilation! Dance Company and Deeply Rooted Dance Theater. She was the 1991 recipient of a choreography grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Mrs. Hall-Glass, choreographic solos have been performed by members of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center, Frankfurt Ballet, Lar Lubovich
Dance Company, at Dance Theatre Workshop, Riverside Cloister Theatre, the Juilliard School, Howard University, LIU Triangle Theatre, New Jersey Performing Arts Center and Aaron Davis Hall. She has served on the faculty of Howard University, City College, SUNY Purchase and Alvin Ailey American Dance Center as well as serving as the dance director for Mind-Builder’s Creative Arts Center and currently for the Harlem School of the Arts.

Raymell Jamison trained at the Cleveland School of the Performing Arts, School of the Cleveland Ballet, School of American Ballet, Alvin Ailey Dance Center, Merce Cunningham Dance Foundation and earned a BFA degree from the Juilliard School. Ms. Jamison received the Princess Grace Foundation Award and an Honorable Mention from the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, and has been featured on the Metrochannel, Classic Arts Showcase and on PBS’s Great Performances series.

Keith Lewis graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School and attended the Cornell University College of Engineering. He studied classical ballet at the Dance Theater of Harlem and was accepted into the certificate
program at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center where he studied ballet, modern and jazz dance. He continued his training with Alfred Gallmen and performed with the Alfred Gallmen Newark Dance Theater. He also danced with Melissa Vaughn’s Eclectic Dance Theater, Nanette Bearden Contemporary Theater and Vissi Dance Theater and studied African dance with Diarra Abu. An experienced teaching artist, Mr. Lewis has worked with aspiring dancers at The New York City Mission Society, The Children’s Aid Society, Thurgood Marshall Academy, The Ailey Foundation and The New York City Ballet. He has traveled extensively across the United States as a teaching artist with the Revelations Curriculum Tour and has taught master classes at The Ailey School, City College, Adelphi University, Marymount College and Winthrop University in South Carolina. As a choreographer, Mr. Lewis was selected as a 2003 emerging choreographer for the E-Moves series at Aaron Davis Hall. His work has been performed at City Center in Ballet Arts’ annual Choreographers’ Showcase, at The Ailey School, Borough of Manhattan Community College and the Dance Now Festival in Marcus Garvey Park.

Nicole Nelson has studied at Mind Builders Creative Arts Center and LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts. She earned a BA degree in Computer Application/ Speech Theatre in Lighting Design and received the Helen Tamiris Award for Excellence in Dance and an Alvin Ailey Fellowship Scholarship. She has performed with Jubilation!, Deeply Rooted, Creative Outlet Dance Theatre of Brooklyn and Opus Dance Company.

Keisa Parrish has studied dance with Paul and Arlene Kennedy of Universal Dance Designs, Cyd Glover-Hill of Hawthorne Dance Academy/Art in Motion, attended the LA County High School of the Arts and earned a BFA degree from Fordham’s joint program with Alvin Ailey. She received
the Hal Jackson Talented Teen award and was California State Queen in 1995. She has performed with Genesis Dance Company, was a Radio City Rockette, and performed at Alvin Ailey’s Spring Gala with Ron Brown.

Frances Rhymes has taught dance at HSA for 25 years. She trained with Katherine Dunham, Syville Fort, Karl Shook, Luigi, Fred Benjamin, Don Fornseworth, and Thelma Hill. Miss Rhymes has an extensive career as a dance educator and has taught at Brooklyn College, the Dance Theatre
of Harlem and York College. Ms. Rhymes is a professor in Adelphi University’s Center for African American Studies where she has taught History of Black Dance, African Dance, History of Black Performing Arts and Black Drama Workshop. As a choreographer, she has worked with Michael Jackson, the late James Brown, Johnny Gill, Haywood Nelson, The Temptations, Jermaine Jackson, Take 6 and Ralph Carter, among others. She was the founder and director of the St. Benedict School of Dance and the Frances A. Rhymes Dance Company and created HSA’s Jazz and Ethnic dance programs.

Cynthia Shipley studied at the Peabody Conservatory of Music, the Baltimore Dance Theatre and the Dance Theatre of Harlem. She has performed with the Baltimore Dance Theatre, Maryland Ballet. Eglevsky Ballet, Metropolitan Opera (Porgy & Bess), Louis Johnson Dance Ensemble,
Dance Theatre of Harlem (national and international tours) and she is a Level IV Pilates Instructor. Ms. Shipley has taught at HSA for 14 years.

Joseph Webb is an actor, dancer, and poet who earned a BA degree in Theatre Arts from Marymount Manhattan College. He performed in the Tony Award-winning Broadway production, Bring in ‘Da Noise, Bring in ‘Da Funk with Savion Glover and has taught tap at Medgar Evers College. Joseph Webb is a Maryland Distinguished Scholar, received a National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts’ Level 1 Award and was a Presidential Scholar.

The Harlem School of the Arts is funded, in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York City Council, Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone, New York City Department of Youth and Community Development, The Carnegie Corporation, The After-School Corporation, Altman Foundation, Jean and Louis Dreyfus Foundation, United Jewish Appeal and other corporate, foundation and individual partners. HSA is a member of the National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts.