Ife Michelle, a native of Charlotte, NC, began her dance training through the North Carolina Performing Arts Academy and continued through college (Fayetteville State University/Duke University) in Traditional West-African, Contemporary, Horton Modern Technique, Hip-Hop, Heels and Couture/Vouge dance styles. As a practicing choreographer and performance artist, Ife runs a community art brand “Ife Michelle Dance” and has danced with multiple companies including KOFFEE Modern Dance Company, DialeKt Dance Company, Black Millennium Runway Troupe, SHAE Movement African Arts and 4Thirty-Two Dance Company, where she also served as a choreographer. A Graduate of Duke University’s MFA Dance: Embodied Interdisciplinary Praxis, Ife’s artistic work strives to reclaim the identity of the Black Women/Black Womanhood through Black Woman Artists by facilitating and curating “Emancipated Spaces” where these artists can train, create, access artistic and economic opportunity, and allow witness of their art with empathy and care. In doing so, she hopes to establish more permissioned Black artists, fuller Black Woman, and regain the autonomy of their vast existence and ways of being. Ife currently teaches at Duke University (Adjunct Professor of Dance Practice in Hip-Hop) and Fayetteville State University (Adjunct Professor of Dance).
IG: @ifemichelledance
Classes: Drop-in Fundamentals of Hip-hop
Photo by Melanin Photography