Torya Beard

(she/her) A.R.T.: Ayodele Casel: Chasing Magic. Broadway: Funny Girl (Assistant Director), Waitress (Assistant Director), The Lion King (Swing, Dance Captain). Educational: Sophisticated Ladies (Co-Director/Choreographer), University of Michigan; Pippin (Director), Syracuse University. Recent: Jesus Christ Superstar: Highlights from the All-Female Studio Cast Recording (Executive Producer); 2023 Bessie Awards (Creative Producer). Awards: APAP’s inaugural CIPA Award for Outstanding Achievement in Creative Producing. Torya is Artistic Director at Excellence Community Schools, Co-Founder of the social enterprise tall poPpy (with Darren Biggart and Jeanine Tesori), and sits on the boards of Earl Mosley’s Diversity of Dance, percussive dance company SOLE Defined, and Raja Feather Kelly’s dance-theatre-media company the feath3r theory (TF3T).

Torya’s creative partnership with Ayodele Casel has been a significant collaboration. The pair has developed numerous projects, among them: While I Have the Floor, Rooted, ALL ARTS’ Past, Present, Future Film Festival; Bessie Award-winning dance film, and subsequent stage production, Ayodele Casel: Chasing Magic; Freedom… In Progress, Max Roach 100; Ayodele Casel + Arturo O’Farrill. New York City Center commissions include: the digital series Diary of a Tap Dancer V.6: Us, Where We Dwell, the inaugural five-borough tour of City Center On the Move, and, most recently, Ayodele Casel | Artists at the Center. Beard and Casel are Resident Directors of Dance Lab New York’s Tap Project and were co-curators of the Little Island Dance Festival.

toryabeard.com

PAST PERFORMANCES

• 2022 American Repertory Theater at Harvard University Gala
• Ayodele Casel: Chasing Magic
• Diary of a Tap Dancer