Leadership & Staff – Alison Cook Beatty Dance

Alison Cook-Beatty, Artistic Director

Alison Cook-Beatty attended the Boston Conservatory of Music at Berklee, earning a BFA in Dance with high honors. She was the selected recipient of the Ruth Sandholm Ambrose Scholarship Award and the Jan Veen Scholarship. She moved to New York City and danced with the Paul Taylor Dance Company and Taylor 2, among other dance companies. In 2012, Ms. Cook-Beatty founded ALISON COOK BEATTY DANCE, a classically based modern dance company based in New York City, whose mission is to create and share accessible and emotionally engaging dance for all. Companies including Ballet Next, Carolina Ballet Theatre, The Joffrey Ballet School, The Boston Conservatory of Music at Berklee, Steffi Nossen School of Dance, Columbia Ballet Collaborative, New York University, The Ailey School, NYSSSA, Infinity Dance Theater, Marymount Manhattan College have commissioned her. She was awarded the 2013 sjDANCEco Award for Artistic Merit. Under her direction, the Company has grown into an artistically reputable and productive 501(c)(3) nonprofit dance company with local impact and international esteem. The company has performed throughout the United States, has been featured on ABC News for its prolific and creative efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic, and was awarded grant support from Dance/NYC’s Coronavirus Dance Relief Fund, the New York Department of Cultural Affairs, the New York State Council of The Arts, and was a recipient of the NEST Grant Award for NEFA Arts. The Company just celebrated its twelfth anniversary.

Artistic Vision For Alison Cook Beatty Dance, the purpose of art is to connect human beings more deeply to themselves and to one another. The Company remains proudly oriented by traditional techniques of modern American dance, which serve as a shared language between modern dancers worldwide. At the same time, the Company values artistic risk and the exquisitely unexpected. Alison Cook Beatty Dance finds true grace in emotionally honest work and challenges both dancers and audiences through mutual vulnerability.