Featured Faculty

Ms. Leavey is the co-owner of The Dance Project, where she began her ballet training at the age of 4. She moved on to train at The Joffrey Ballet School, dancing under the direction of Ronald Tice, Africa Guzman, Desmond Richardson and Francesca Corkle.

Elizabeth also studied with Francois Perron at The French Academie of Ballet. Elizabeth furthered her career as an Apprentice Junior Artist and then Corps de Ballet member of Ajkun Ballet Theatre in NYC. Throughout her career, Elizabeth has performed Corps de Ballet and Soloist roles in numerous Classical and Contemporary Ballets such as Swan Lake, Le Corsaire, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, La Bayadere, A Midsummer Nights Dream, The Nutcracker, Giselle, Coppellia, Esmeralda, Don Quixote, Carmen, Red; The Odyssey of Albania, Goya and Revolution. Elizabeth's passion and love for dance is endless, which she now passes on to her students.

She has directed The Dance Project's Nutcracker since 2015, runs workshops and intensives for her dancers, provides numerous performance opportunities where benefits are donated to Cancer Research and creates original ballet and contemporary ballet repertoire for The Dance Project's triannual performances.

Erick Footman was born and raised in Queens New York. He has been working as a professional Hip-Hop dancer/choreographer for over 15 years. Erick has choreographed and performed with various artist such as, Chris Brown, Mariah Carey, Miley Cyrus, Lil Mama, Fat Joe, and many more.

Erick also performed on several T.V. shows such as, MTV's America's Best Dance Crew, MTV's TRL, BET's 106 & Park Live, Showtime at the Apollo, and Japan Network NHK'S Chick Girls Reality Show. Erick is Co-founder and head choreographer of an all male Hip-hop group Called Stryke Force Ent. Stryke Force has performed all over the country and enjoys spreading their love for Hip-hop to other dancers.

Erick Footman enjoys training and inspiring students to learn the Hip-hop culture. He continues to teach Hip-hop classes and workshops from here in NYC to as far as Tokyo Japan. Erick Footman's motivation is to continue to spread happiness, confidence and joy all over the wor through art of dance. Most recently, Erick danced back-up to Kendrick Lamar's live performance at the Grammys, 2018.

Ricardo Joel Torres Colon was born in San Juan ,PR in 1980. He started his ballet studies at the age of 9, underLolita San Miguel and Jose Pares. In 1998 Ricardo became a finalist at the prestigious Paris Ballet Competition and received a contract for the ABT Studio Company. He was then asked to join ABT's main company at the age of 19, where he danced leading roles in Giselle, Swan Lake, La Bayadere, Pillar Of Fire, Petit Mort, Ballet Imperial, Symphony in C, Midsummer Night Dreams, Without Words andClear. Ricardo has worked with Mark Morris,Twyla Tharp, James Kudelka, William Forsythes, Stanton Welch, Jiri Kylian and Nacho Duato. In 2001 Ricardo was nominated by Kevin Mckenzie for the Princess Grace Foundation Competition and received the Princess Grace Fellowship as well as the Chris Hellman Dance Award . In 2005 he became a soloist at Houston Ballet, dancing the lead roles in The Nutcracker, Gross Fugate, Eugene Onegin, Velocity, Giselle and Carmina Burana. In 2008, Ricardo joined the Washington Ballet as a Principal dancer. He had the leading roles in The Nutcracker , Drink to me Only with Thine Eyes, La Sylphide and Grand Pas Clasique. Ricardo has been working as a guest artist and teacher since 2010 with the Montgomery Ballet, Gelsey Kirkland Ballet, Alina Abreu Ballet, Ithaca Ballet. Tallahassee Ballet, National Ballet of PR and Ballet Concierto de PR.

https://www.pgfusa.org/award-winners/view/Ricardo-Torres/

Busy is an understatement! Not only is Mel one of New Yorks top dancers & emcees, an amazing gymnastics/tumbling coach for 13 years , but in the past few months, he has also been picking up more acting work! He was featured on the upcoming show, "The Get Down" and also performed some stunt work on the show Luke Cage to name a few.

As Mel aka "Dyv3rse" continues to dunk/model/dance/tumble/crowd control at the Barclay Center for the Brooklyn Nets "Team Hype" as well as New York Mets "Perk Patrol" he also continues dancing/motivating/emceeing throughout the Tri~State area for all sorts of amazing events!

Satoko Mori is originally from Tokyo, Japan. Having trained in Hip Hop, Jazz, Theater, Ballet, Waving, Popping, House and Heels, to name a few, Satoko has been active as a dancer and choreographer in and around the New York City area since 2008. Satoko has performed with and opened up for numerous artists such as Madonna, Lil Kim, d House, Ashanti, 50 cent, Fabolous, Chris Brown, Mario and Ciara. She also toured with Lil Kim in Africa and Australia. Currently, she is a back up dancer for Grammy Winning Artist, Ashanti.

Satoko has also appeared in numerous TV shows, Music Videos and Commercials such as Sean Paul 'Turn It Up', PIX 11, MTV's A-List New York, VH1, Showtime at Apollo, TV Tokyo and Fuji TV. She is credited as the choreographer for many dance shows, competitions, flash mobs and music videos. Satoko Mori teaches dance classes & workshops in Japan and New York City. She always brings her original style, experience and passion for dance.