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Monday 9am - 8pm Tuesday 9am - 8pm Wednesday 9am - 8pm Thursday 9am - 8pm Friday 9am - 7:30pm Saturday 9am - 5pm

TU Dance, 2121 University Avenue W, Saint Paul, MN (2026)

07/29/2026

CLASSES START NEXT WEEK! REGISTER TODAY!

Colorful Creatures: A Movement, Music, and Making Dream Shop

What does blue sound like? How does red move? What kind of creature might live inside yellow, green, or purple?

In this playful five-day Dream Shop, young artists will explore how colors can help us move, feel, sound, and imagine. Each day, participants will investigate different elements of dance, including body, action, space, time, energy, and tempo, using color as a creative guide.

Through movement games, drumming, rhythm-making, costume design, and collaborative storytelling, students will discover how a color can become a feeling, a shape, a sound, a creature, or an entire world.

Participants will also create their own unique instruments and build original creature-inspired costumes, bringing together movement, music, visual art, and imagination. The week will culminate in a short, informal performance where students share their colorful characters, original sounds, and movement discoveries with family and friends.

This workshop is perfect for young artists who love to move, make noise, create characters, and dream up bold, colorful worlds.

Dates: August 3-7th, 2026
Time: 9:00-11:00 am
Tuition: $295

Registration Deadline: July 31, 2026

For more information and to register, please visit https://www.tudance.org/summer/

Watch this video and meet your teaching artist, Brian J Evans!

07/24/2026

Teaching Artist Spotlight: Marcus Jarrell Willis (Advanced Program Week 2)

Marcus Jarrell Willis performed with RIOULT, Dominic Walsh Dance Theater, Tania Pérez- Salas Compañía de Danza and Ailey II. Willis performed with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater from 2008-2016, traveling around the world performing, teaching numerous masterclasses, and participating through Outreach in various communities, both locally and abroad. As a teaching artist, he has engaged with Rambert Dance Professional Program, Tring Park Performing Arts School, Kings International Ballet Academy, NDCWales Associates Programme, Dance Consortium Ailey Project UK, TU Dance, Joffrey Southwest Dallas, Centre Chorégraphique James Carles, Amsterdam Dance Centre and various training programs, universities, and conservatoires, globally. Willis is a YoungArts Level 1 award recipient and Presidential Scholar Nominee.

Willis has presented choreographic work in the 2009 TDDC Contemporary Dance Festival in NYC, The Ailey Dancer’s Resource Fund performances, The Dance Gallery Festival, The Moving Beauty Series and Gdánsk Festival Tańca in Poland. Commissions, residencies and film creations include works for Ailey II, TU Dance, NY Choreographic Institute, with dancers of New York City Ballet, Ballet Cymru, Ballet Memphis, Saint Louis Dance Theatre, Company Danzante, The Juilliard School, SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Dance, The Ailey School, New World School of the Arts, University of Minnesota, Lucia Marthas Institute for the Performing Arts, Rubicon Dance, COCA, Satellite Collective, The Dance Gallery Festival Level Up Commission in 2013 and The 92nd Y Dance Introduction Series, among others. He was named Best Choreographer for TU Dance creation, Sensible Existence in City Pages 2018 Best of the Twin Cities. The evening length expansion of Sensible Existence was commissioned as a TU Dance Project in spring 2022.

Willis was the 2018/19 Leverhulme Choreography Fellow at Rambert Dance in London, during which time he completed the evening length solo creation POM/POM, Portrait of Man/Pieces of Me and created work with selected dancers of Rambert 2. In 2021, he was appointed the role of Resident Choreographer for Ballet Cymru in Newport, Wales UK, creating new works for Ballet Cymru, Ballet Cymru 2 and Wales Summer Dance (Wales International Ballet School) during his inaugural season. In 2022, he launched the choreography initiative in partnership with Ballet Cymru, Works in Progress (WIP), which aims to bridge gaps between mid-career choreographers and venues in Wales. In the spring of 2023, he curated and produced the first performance production of Works in Progress, WIP23. Included in the production was the premiere of his creation I.M. – Inherent Multiplicity, joining the roster of choreographic works for his independent dance performance project, MJ Willis Project-Inc.

Willis joined Phoenix Dance Theatre as Artistic Director in October 2023. His full-length production, Inside Giovanni’s Room, gained a nomination for Best Dance Production at the 2025 Black British Theatre Awards. Subsequently, Phoenix Dance Theatre was nominated as Best Mid-Scale Dance Company at the 2026 Critic’s Circle National Dance Awards UK.

Willis, inspired by the breadth and depth of the human experience, remains focused on uniting people through the art of dance, with 'Nothing to Prove... Only to Share'.

Advanced Program instructors include Hassan Ingraham, Marcus Jarrell Willis (second week only), Laurel Keen, Leslie Parker, Anna Pinault (first week only), jess pretty, and Abdo Sayegh Rodriguez!

Click to download the daily schedule: 2026 Advanced Intensive Daily Schedule. For level placement, please contact us at [email protected] or (651) 724-9708.

Advanced Summer Program Dates: August 3-15, 2026
Registration Deadline: Advanced: July 31st, 2026 (single-week enrollment available)

For more information and to register, please visit https://www.tudance.org/summer/

07/23/2026

Just a HOP, SKIP, JUMP & a Box of Crayons!

Summer Programming at TU Dance Center!
CREATIVE MOVEMENT (August 3-7)

Colorful Creatures: A Movement, Music, and Making Dream Shop
What does blue sound like? How does red move? What kind of creature might live inside yellow, green, or purple?
In this playful five-day Dream Shop, young artists will explore how colors can help us move, feel, sound, and imagine. Each day, participants will investigate different elements of dance, including body, action, space, time, energy, and tempo, using color as a creative guide.

Through movement games, drumming, rhythm-making, costume design, and collaborative storytelling, students will discover how a color can become a feeling, a shape, a sound, a creature, or an entire world.

Participants will also create their own unique instruments and build original creature-inspired costumes, bringing together movement, music, visual art, and imagination. The week will culminate in a short, informal performance where students share their colorful characters, original sounds, and movement discoveries with family and friends.

This workshop is perfect for young artists who love to move, make noise, create characters, and dream up bold, colorful worlds.

Dates: August 3-7th, 2026
Time: 9-11am
Tuition: $295
For more information and to register please visit: https://www.tudance.org/summer/

07/22/2026

The Deadline to Apply is Approaching!
Application Deadline: July 30, 2026

The Toni Pierce-Sands Choreographic Initiative honors the vision and legacy of TU Dance’s late Founder and Artistic Director, Toni Pierce-Sands, by nurturing the next generation of choreographic voices. Designed for emerging to mid‑career artists, the initiative supports choreographers interested in experimentation, research, and the creation of new 10–15 minute ensemble works for the full CULTIVATE, A Trainee Program (between 6-10 dancers), or for TU Dance Company projects.

The selected choreographer for the 2026-2027 Season will be creating for CULTIVATE, A Trainee Program.

Selected choreographer(s) receive a comprehensive package of artistic and logistical support, including: Rehearsal space and dancers to work with, a $3,500 artist stipend, Travel and housing support for out-of-town artists, a $2,000 budget for costumes and scenic elements, Archival documentation of the completed work, and an opportunity to showcase their work within a professional dance company.

For more information and to apply, please visit: https://www.tudance.org/tpsci/

07/20/2026

Community, connection, and celebration! 💙

TU Dance was honored to attend the retirement luncheon at Hallie Q. Brown, celebrating the many individuals whose dedication has strengthened this vibrant community over the years.

Our partnership with Hallie Q. Brown continues to be a meaningful part of our work. Through our Adult Seniors programming—including our popular Line Dancing classes with Hassan Ingraham—we are proud to create spaces where movement, music, and community come together. It's a joy to share in moments of celebration while continuing to build relationships that support lifelong wellness, creativity, and connection.

Thank you, Hallie Q. Brown, for your continued partnership and for all you do to enrich our community. We look forward to many more opportunities to dance, connect, and celebrate together!

07/18/2026

Teaching Artist Spotlight: Leslie Parker
(Advanced Program)

This class session is an improvisation. The focus of the class is primarily the individual body as a site/map for exploration. It is an embodied practice that expands capacity for a more nuanced, rigorous, and sensory approach to space, time, and energy to integrate the thinking-body with real-time presence, and to play with physical range while increasing flexibility of the spine for a deepening in awareness of strength and endurance. In this class, empathetic exchanges using collaboration in movement studies are significant to amplify grounded power, intuitive connection to the body and place, navigating dissent, and honing clarity in timing and rhythm.

Leslie Parker is a dance artist, director, choreographer, improviser, and performer born in the traditional homeland of Indigenous people, mostly the Dakhóta and Ojibwe people, also known as the Twin Cities, Minnesota. She has home art bases in both Brooklyn, NY(traditional homeland of Lenapehoking people) and in St. Paul, MN. Her deep roots in the territory also known as the St. Paul, Rondo community led her to a dance practice that emphasizes an organic aesthetic in experimental movement derived from the Black and African diaspora. Parker’s informal training began with learning from local organizers and activists. Parker holds a BFA from Esther Boyer College of Music and Dance, a MFA in Dance from Hollins University in partnership with the Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts and the Dresden Frankfurt Company in Frankfurt, Germany. She studied Senegalese dance forms at the Centre Culturel Blaise Senghor de Dakar in Senegal, West Africa. (read more at https://www.leslieparkerdance.com/about)

The TU Dance Advanced Program is an intensive course of study integrating modern, ballet, African dance, and creative workshops for students ages 16 to 24. *Please reach out for younger students with advanced training for consideration on a case-by-case basis.

Advanced Program instructors include Hassan Ingraham, Marcus Jarrell Willis (second week only), Laurel Keen, Leslie Parker, Anna Pinault (first week only), jess pretty, and Abdo Sayegh Rodriguez!

For level placement, please contact us at [email protected] or (651) 724-9708.

Advanced Summer Program Dates: August 3-15, 2026
Registration Deadline: Advanced: July 31st, 2026 (single-week enrollment available)

For more information and to register, please visit: www.tudance.org/summer

07/13/2026

Teaching Artist Spotlight: Anna Pinault
(Advanced Program Week 1)

Anna is excited to work with the dancers on highly physical contemporary dance movement that challenges their technique and musicality. She works across a range of movement styles, particularly inspired by her training in martial arts, contemporary floorwork, and street styles. In this workshop, they will both embody Anna's choreography, and work in collaboration to shape the movement into their own piece!

Anna Pinault is a Minneapolis native working around the country as a freelance dancer, choreographer, and educator. She graduated with her BFA in Dance from Marymount Manhattan College in 2018, her MS in Human Movement Science from Concordia University Chicago in 2024, and she is currently working towards her NASM certification as a Corrective Exercise Specialist. Anna has performed works by Yusha-Marie Sorzano, Camille A. Brown, Stephanie Batten Bland, Ronald K. Brown, and Isaac Martin Lerner, among many others, and her recent performance work includes projects with TU Dance, Black Label Movement, and the Des Moines Metro Opera. She has travelled nationally and internationally to train in a diverse array of movement languages, and currently teaches classes in contemporary floorwork and the Horton technique. As a performer, creator, and educator, she is passionate about sharing dance that - no matter how abstract - invites others in.

The TU Dance Advanced Program is an intensive course of study integrating modern, ballet, African dance, and creative workshops for students ages 16 to 24. *Please reach out for younger students with advanced training for consideration on a case-by-case basis.

Advanced Program instructors include Hassan Ingraham, Marcus Jarrell Willis (second week only), Laurel Keen, Leslie Parker, Anna Pinault (first week only), jess pretty, and Abdo Sayegh Rodriguez!

Advanced Summer Program Dates: August 3-15, 2026
Registration Deadline: Advanced: July 31st, 2026 (single-week enrollment available). Financial aid available!!

For more information and to register, please visit: https://www.tudance.org/summer/

07/13/2026

Saint Paul STAR Program Awards Over $3.3 Million in Support to Local Businesses and Arts & Cultural Organizations. TU Dance is honored to be among them!

The City of Saint Paul approved more than $3.3 million in grant funding for 33 local capital improvement projects and programs and 78 arts and cultural projects thanks to the city’s Sales Tax Revitalization (STAR) grant program. Cultural and Neighborhood STAR boards made their scheduled funding recommendations in June, and the Mayor and City Council prioritized making their final funding decisions quickly, giving awardees more timely access to STAR funds than in previous years.

Over $2.1 million of competitive funding for capital projects was awarded in Saint Paul neighborhoods through the Neighborhood STAR program, and more than $1.1 million was awarded through the Cultural STAR program to strengthen the City of Saint Paul’s arts and cultural sector, specially focused on the Cultural District of Downtown Saint Paul, with support for special projects and events, capital projects, and capacity within organizations.

In addition to these recommendations, the STAR program also supported projects with Saint Paul Public Libraries for materials and Saint Paul Public Works for sidewalk repair with annual budget allocations.

Since 1995, the City of Saint Paul has used a portion of a half-cent sales tax to support commercial revitalization improvements and cultural vibrancy in Saint Paul neighborhoods through the two Sales Tax Revitalization (STAR) programs.

“Saint Paul's local businesses and artists are the heartbeat of our community," said Mayor Kaohly Her. “Through the Neighborhood and Cultural STAR grants the city is able to directly invest in what makes Saint Paul a place where neighborhoods thrive, art and culture are celebrated, and businesses flourish. I am excited to see all the different ways these funds will positively impact our neighborhoods in the coming years.”

The STAR program is a major force in celebrating and supporting cultural diversity in Saint Paul. Among Neighborhood STAR recipients, 64% are BIPOC-owned or led, and 58% are woman-owned or led. 56% of Cultural STAR recipient organizations led by are women and 45% are BIPOC led.

Over the years, Neighborhood STAR has assisted over 1,250 projects and programs with more than $137 million in grant and loan assistance. These funds are estimated to have generated more than $1.4 billion in private investment throughout Saint Paul. The Cultural STAR program has invested over $44.7 million in funds in over 1,570 arts and cultural projects and activities over the last 30 years.

Advisory boards appointed by the mayor make initial funding recommendations for each program. Up to 21 members - three from each of Saint Paul’s seven wards – review proposals for the Neighborhood STAR program and up to 9 members of the Saint Paul Arts community review proposals for Cultural STAR. The boards made their funding recommendations to the Mayor and City Council before approval at the July 8 City Council Meeting.

Read more here: https://www.stpaul.gov/departments/planning-and-economic-development/economic-development/cultural-star-recipient-info

07/02/2026

The deadline to apply is approaching!
Application Deadline: July 30, 2026

The Toni Pierce-Sands Choreographic Initiative honors the vision and legacy of TU Dance’s late Founder and Artistic Director, Toni Pierce-Sands, by nurturing the next generation of choreographic voices. Designed for emerging to mid‑career artists, the initiative supports choreographers interested in experimentation, research, and the creation of new 10–15 minute ensemble works for the full CULTIVATE, A Trainee Program (between 6-10 dancers), or for TU Dance Company projects.

The selected choreographer for the 2026-2027 Season will be creating for CULTIVATE, A Trainee Program.

Selected choreographer(s) receive a comprehensive package of artistic and logistical support, including: Rehearsal space and dancers to work with, a $3,500 artist stipend, Travel and housing support for out-of-town artists, a $2,000 budget for costumes and scenic elements, Archival documentation of the completed work, and an opportunity to showcase their work within a professional dance company

For more information and to apply, please visit: https://www.tudance.org/tpsci/

TU Dance

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Monday	9am - 8pm
Tuesday	9am - 8pm
Wednesday	9am - 8pm
Thursday	9am - 8pm
Friday	9am - 7:30pm
Saturday	9am - 5pm