Faculty

Biography

Leonard Perez – from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, has trained in Spanish dance with the Ensemble Español Spanish Dance Theater where he performed works by Spanish dance duo Angel Rojas and Carlos Rodriguez and in ballet, modern dance and Afro-Cuban folklore at the Ruth Page School of Dance. He has studied on scholarship at Northeastern Illinois University and has been awarded full scholarships to summer intensive programs at Dance Theater of Harlem, The Ailey School, River North Dance Chicago, Thodos Dance Chicago, Deeply Rooted Dance Theater, and The Ruth Page School of Dance. He danced with Milwaukee Ballet II during the 2015–2016 season where he performed works by Ron de Jesus, Michael Pink, Septime Webre, Randy Duncan, Ruth Page, Lee Wei Chao, Ilya Kozadayev, Brian MacDonald and Victor Alexander. Leonard has performed in the Chicago Dancing Festival, Jacob’s Pillow International Inside/Out Dance Festival, Dance for Life Chicago, St. Louis’ Spring to Dance Festival and The Kennedy Center. He has also danced professionally with Dayton Ballet where he performed works by Gina Patterson and Jiri Kylian and Indianapolis Ballet where he performed works by Joshua Bergasse and George Balanchine. He has danced as a guest artist with Revolution Dance Theater (Cincinnati, OH) The Black Iris Project (New York, NY), and Ballet Ashani (Durham, NC) For six seasons he danced with Memphis based BIPOC ballet company, Collage Dance Collective where he performed works by Nacho Duato, Amy Hall Garner, Darrell Grand Moultrie, Francisco Avina, Wayne McGregor, Kevin Thomas, Kevin Iega Jeff, Christopher L. Huggins, Hope Boykin, Camille A. Brown and Joshua Manculich. Leonard is currently in his first year as the inaugural Artist-In-Residence at the University of Rochester’s Frederick Douglas Institute/Department of Black Studies and the Program of Dance and Movement.