Artistic Director/Choreographer, Cherylyn Lavagnino Dance
Associate Arts Professor, NYU/Tisch Dance

Cherylyn has an MFA in Dance from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, as well as a BA in Philosophy from USC. Lavagnino toured nationally as a soloist with the Pennsylvania Ballet.  She has performed a range of classical repertoire and contemporary work by choreographers including Balanchine, John Butler, Hans Van Manen, and Tere O’Connor, and the diversity of these experiences has informed the dialogue between classical and contemporary in her work with Cherylyn Lavagnino Dance.  Ms. Lavagnino has created over forty works in the past fifteen years, and since 2000 the platform for her choreography has been Cherylyn Lavagnino Dance. Many of those works were created in collaboration with composers Scott Killian and Jane Chung. CLD continues to support a Live Music and Dance incentive their performances.  Lavagnino’s choreography has been presented by: by Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church, Dance Theater Workshop, Symphony Space, DanceNow/NYC, Kaatsban International Dance Center, Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out, The Yard, The Joyce Theatre’s “Evening Stars” series and Indianapolis City Ballet’s Evening with the Stars gala. Ms. Lavagnino is an Alpert Award nominee for choreography and recipient of a space grant residency from the Baryshnikov Arts Center. Her choreography has been supported by the American Music Center’s, Live Music for Dance grant and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Manhattan Creative Communities Fund.

Lavagnino has served as Chair of the Dance Department at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts from 2006 – 2014. She has been a full-time member of the NYU faculty since 1987. She teaches professional ballet locally in NYC and internationally; she is developing a creative exchange with the Beijing Dance Academy and the Conservatory and Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. In recognition of her superior work, Lavagnino won New York University’s prestigious David Payne Carter Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2003.