SALVATORE LARUSSA ARTISTIC DIRECTOR /CHOREOGRAPHER

SALVATORE LARUSSA, a native New Yorker, is a graduate of Hofstra University with a BA in Dance and a minor in Drama Studies, under the direction of Lance Westergard. LaRussa premiered his first NYC season in 2004 which marked the start of his company, Salvatore LaRussa Dance Theatre. SLDT has performed ex- tensively in New York City in traditional and non-traditional spaces, including New York Live Arts, Ailey Citigroup Theater, Dixon Place, Merce Cunningham Studio, the Goldman-Sonnenfeldt Auditori- um, DEEP, Green Space, and Knitting Factory, and have been part of numerous festivals and symposiums in NYC and across the country, including the Emerging America Festival at the A.R.T. at Harvard University; Masculinity and Embodied Practice with Movement Research & Urban Research Theater; Blooms Dance Festi- val; and the Queens Art Express. Commissions and residencies have included Joyce Foundation & Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s Mellon Anchor Tenant Pro- gram, Hofstra University, Susanne Bartsch: art-a-porter, PS1/ MOMA, and Gritty Cherries Productions. LaRussa received critical acclaim in Dance Europe Magazine where Tim Martin writes, “...another example of LaRussa’s excellent sense of dance theatre”, named one of the Top Five Queens Trendsetter by the It’s Queens magazine and honored on NY1 News, Queens’ Person of the Week. LaRussa has been part of numerous panelists for the Queens Council on the Arts and was fea- tured in their artSPY TV Series: Dance in Queens. In 2009, LaRussa founded Salva- tore LaRussa Dance Theatre – THE ACADEMY, a performing arts institution and home for his company, in Middle Village/ Queens NY. LaRussa’s dance credits in- clude Robin Becker Dance, Now Dance, La Compania, Michael Mao's ballet, Fire- cracker, and numerous projects with Broadway Choreographer, David Marquez, including Tom Sawyer (Broadway) and the Alan Awards.