“I am overjoyed to be stepping into the Educational Director role at Prince Dance Institute. As a passionate educator, she believes deeply in the transformative power of dance to inspire, connect, and empower artist.”
Debra first joined the Prince Dance family in 2018, performing Angel Prince’s work with the Prince Dance Company. Soon after, she began teaching for the Institute and has since served as Summer Camp Director and Outreach Program Manager for two statewide tours. Now in her seventh year as a company member, she continues to perform, teach, and choreograph collaboratively.
Debra moved to Hawai‘i Island in 2011 after over two decades of performing, teaching, and choreographing in New York City and the Twin Cities. She earned her BFA in Dance from Marymount Manhattan College in NYC, where she performed works by José Limón, Milton Myers, Jeffrey Holder, and others. A former member of Garth Fagan Dance, Debra toured nationally and internationally before continuing her vocal training at the Eastman School of Music.
In Minnesota, she worked with TU Dance, performed in numerous musicals, and taught at the University of Minnesota, Gustavus Adolphus College, The Cowles Center, Penumbra Theatre, and St. Paul Conservatory. On Hawai‘i Island, Debra is the Director at Kona Dance and Performing Arts, founder of Danse Space in Hawi, and a teaching artist with the Hawai‘i State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, where her outreach impacts over 400 students annually. She has choreographed several musicals for the Hawai‘i Performing Arts Festival, earning Broadway Regional Awards for her work on Hair and Little Women.
Debra is a devoted teaching artist, choreographer, and director who shares the power of communication through dance.