6:00-8:00pm
Dan Karasik, Ballet
Monday, November 7th
6:00-8:00pm
Kiki Lucas, Jazz
photo courtesy Point Park University.
Point Park University
Conservatory of Performing Arts
Pittsburgh, PaNationally recognized as one of the top 10 dance training programs in the country, Point Park University’s Conservatory of Performing Art’s dance program offers a B.F.A. in dance. Students take classes in all technique areas (ballet, jazz, and modern), regardless of their area of concentrations, as well as a wide spectrum of classes including character, tap, pointe, pas de deux, male technique, contemporary partnering, composition, history of dance, African, hip-hop, ballroom, improvisation, choreography, and dance entrepreneurship designed to create the total artist. Auditions, required for admission, are typically held once a month throughout the year. Dance auditions are used as criteria for awarding dance scholarships and apprenticeships. Students at Point Park train and perform in our $16 million dance complex – The George Rowland White Performance Center, which includes six 60×60-foot studios and two 100×100 studios, a performance space and in our brand new 90,411 square-foot theater complex, the Pittsburgh Playhouse, which includes 3 performance spaces and 4 rehearsal studios.
Our dancers have the opportunity to perform various repertoire in classical and contemporary ballet, theater dance and contemporary jazz, and modern and contemporary dance. Each year, our students interact and perform works by guest artists and choreographers of international stature. Our dancers have performed works by Ohad Naharin, Nacho Duato, Edwaard Liang, Tyce Dioro, Dwight Rhoden, Jae Man Joo, Peter Chu, Aszure Barton, Christopher Wheeldon, Kyle Abraham. Martha Graham, George Balanchine, Gerald Arpino, Lar Lubovitch, Doug Varone, Robert Battle, Jennifer Muller, Edward Villella, David Parsons, Mark Morris, Emery LeCrone, Bill T. Jones, Sonya Tayeh, Daniel Charon, Ann Reinking, and Tony Award winners Chita Rivera and Michael Rupert.
Graduates have gone on to dance with various prestigious companies as Ailey II, the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Alonzo King LINES, Alabama, Cincinnati, Nashville, and Milwaukee Ballets, Ballet Hispanico, Ballet Met, Ballet X, Bad Boys of Ballet, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Dallas Black Dance Theatre, Philadanco, Ballet Austin, Giordano Dance Chicago, Parsons Dance Company, Visceral Dance Company, Houston Met, Koresh Dance Company, Cirque du Soleil, Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal, and numerous cruise line companies. Alumni have made their mark on Broadway and in touring in Cats, Carousel, Cinderella, Contact, Hamilton, Footloose, The Lion King, Ragtime, Rent and 42nd Street. Point Park University is an accredited member of the National Association of Schools of Dance.
Dan Karasik
Dan Karasik
Daniel Karasik is a multidisciplinary artist living in Pittsburgh, PA. He received his BFA in Dance from Point Park University, and his MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts with a focus on dance for film from Wilson College. He is currently a Teaching Artist at Point Park University where he has taught for the past ten years. Daniel has created more than 70 choreographies for stage which have been reviewed as “grace and beauty personified,” having “intellectual glamor,” and being “a wonderfully effective series of dance essays.” He has danced professionally in Pittsburgh, with Georgia Ballet, and Dayton Ballet, and has provided artistic direction for the Morgantown Ballet Company and Dayton Arts Project.
As a filmmaker, his most recent silent dance short, Le Spectre de la Rose, has been internationally awarded laurels for Best Dance Short, Best Direction, and Best Original Score. Karasik teaches and choreographs throughout the United States, at companies, schools, and festivals such as American College Dance Festival, Chicago High School for the Arts, Dayton Ballet, Greer School, Governor’s School for the Arts, National High School Dance Festival, Skidmore College, University of Kansas City Missouri, and West Virginia University.
Kiki Lucas
Kiki Lucas
Kiki Lucas is currently an Assistant Professor of Dance at Point Park University teaching Jazz Technique, Contemporary Partnering, and Entrepreneurship and the Arts. She is an alumna and has been a part of the Point Park International Summer Dance faculty since 2002. She was the Resident Choreographer and dancer of Met Dance Company in Houston, TX as well as Mosaic Dance Project in Miami, FL for numerous years. Her choreography has been presented twice at Jacob’s Pillow Inside Out Stage, The Kennedy Center, Met Dance Co, Towson University, University of Central Oklahoma, The Grier School, James Madison University, Wright State University, and most recently Western Michigan University where they performed her work Ricochet at the Detroit Dance City Festival and their 50th-anniversary program. She is currently pursuing her MFA from Montclair State University.
Her International teaching credits include: Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Panama, Uruguay, and Mexico. Other teaching credits include: Universal Ballet Competition, Modas Dance, Broadway Dance Center, Debbie Reynold’s Dance Studio, Choreographer’s Ball Los Angeles CA, Miami Arts Charter School, and Dance Masters of America.
Kiki was honored to be the choreographer alongside Broadway’s Stephen Sposito in Point Park’s rendition of Pippin in the Spring of 2020 and Carnegie Mellon’s brilliant Justin Lucero in the production of Curtains in October 2021. She was also on the creative team for Pitt University’s play Emilia this past Spring 2022, as well as the rehearsal director for Bob Fosse’s Rich Man’s Frug restaged by, Lainie Sakakura from the Fosse/Verdon Foundation.