Courtney Celeste Spears (Baltimore, MD), who is of Bahamian descent, is currently a professional dancer with the world renowned Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Ms. Spears graduated from the Baltimore School for the Arts and graduated Summa Cum Laude from Fordham University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance and degree in Communications. While at Fordham, she received the Denise Jefferson Memorial Scholarship for academic excellence as well as the 2015 Princess Grace Award for her artistic capabilities She has attended summer programs at Cedar Lake 360, The Juilliard School, and American Ballet Theater where she was recognized consecutively for two years as The American Ballet Theater National Training Scholar. Ms. Spears has performed and taught dance all over the world in locations such as Japan, The Caribbean, The United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Denmark, Switzerland, Greece, The Netherlands, and Germany, where she performed for Former President Barack Obama. She has performed in a variety of works choreographed by Alvin Ailey, Matthew Rushing, Aszure Barton, Robert Battle, Donald Byrd, Rennie Harris, Hope Boykin, and Camille A. Brown. She’s been featured in publications such as VOGUE, SELF, ALLURE, The New York Times, New York Post, and Vanity Fair. In 2017, Ms. Spears founded her own company, ArtSea Dance, which is a Caribbean based organization aimed at bridging the gap between local dancers and the vast dance world abroad by providing workshops taught by world class professionals and providing entertainment for events. Most recently, Ms.Spears enrolled in Harvard Business School through their #Crossoverintobusiness program to further her business knowledge while continuing to dance with Alvin Ailey and received an Emmy Nomination for her role as the leading character in Jeremy McQueen's, artistic director of The Black Iris Project, "A Mother's Rite" . She is currently in her third year with the company and is continuing her mission of using dance as a vessel to give back to the community.
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