Interactive Break: Breathe, Stretch, Shake (NAMPC 2021)

Ashlee McKinnon has been a professional dance educator, performer, youth worker, and arts advocate for almost 15 years.  A graduate of the University of Maryland at College Park and Princeton Theological Seminary, she has been able to channel her curiosity for life and her passion for creative expression into a fulfilling and impactful career.   Currently serving as the School Partnerships Manager at the DC Arts and Humanities Education Collaborative, she has worked with and alongside prominent arts organizations in the DC area such as Dance Place, Story Tapestries, Imagination Stage, and International Association of Blacks in Dance.  Her active involvement in the Arts Administrators of Color Network, having presented at the 2020 Convening, and as an ambassador with Arts Education in Maryland Schools, have shaped her perspective on equitable and diverse arts programming for our future generations.  At her core, Ashlee is a teacher who believes in the uplifting and transformative power of the Arts in all stages of life.  Through her personal endeavor, The Rehearsal Room, Ashlee hopes to provide a space to identify, cultivate, and sustain the creative nature inside each of us.   

Ashlee has been blessed to create artistic works for Bowie State University, be featured on CBS This Morning in 2017, and dance on the stages of Harris Theatre in Chicago with AftaShock DC in 2019, and The Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage with BREathe Dance Project in 2020.  Most recently her article, HerSpeak: Black Female Choreographers Leading the Pivot in Dance, was published in the Spring/Summer 2021 edition of Black Dance Magazine.

Instagram: @missashleedance

www.therehearsalroom.org