Billy Larson
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Contemporary Jazz Educator and Choreographer from Philadelphia, PA.
As a performer, Billy enjoyed a remarkably diverse professional stage career. He performed the lead role in Mia Michaels' "3 Steps From Heaven" for ASH Contemporary Dance and was featured in Mia Michaels' work presented at the APAP Performing Arts Conference in NYC. Billy performed extensively throughout Eastern Europe as the principal male dancer in the late Mark Marino's American Dance Company, traveled across the United States and Canada as Funky in Dein Perry's critically acclaimed TAP DOGS, and was a dance champion on CBS's Star Search hosted by Arsenio Hall.
No stranger to the competitive dance community, Billy is a former Mr. Dance of America for Dance Masters of America and a National Male Dancer of the Year for the American Dance Awards. In 1998, Billy was honored with the Gold Medal at the World Tap Dance Championships in Riesa, Germany. He is noted as the first American and youngest artist to receive the honor at the time.
Billy was honored to be recognized as a 2017 Distinguished Teacher in the Arts by the U.S. Dept. of Education and U.S. Presidential Scholars Program. He had previously won the award in 2011 as well, and later that year, he was chosen to present his work as a finalist in the Capezio ACE Awards for Choreography in NYC. He has been on regular faculty at the Broadway Dance Center in NYC, was a key faculty member for the Joffrey Jazz and Contemporary Summer Program, and served as one of the original founding faculty members at the Millennium Dance Complex Philadelphia.
Indulging further in his passion for teaching and mentoring, he opened and artistically directed "East Coast Movement" a versatile training facility for young dancers located in Northern New Jersey, which he culminated in 2008 and closed after the completion of an outlandishly successful third season in order to pursue new endeavors in the industry.
Today, many of his students can be found furthering their dance education at the finest collegiate dance conservatories including The Juilliard School and New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, freelance teaching and choreographing throughout North America and abroad, or performing on concert dance stages all over the world,
most notably including Philadelphia’s BalletX, The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Pacific Northwest Ballet, and Saarländisches Staatstheater in Western Germany.
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