Metropolitan School of the Arts Welcomes New Faculty Members

Metropolitan School of the Arts (MSA) of Alexandria Va. welcomes eight new faculty members to its tap, jazz, hip hop and ballet departments, from various parts of the United States and beyond, including Roger C. Jeffrey, a NYC native and The Juilliard School graduate, specializing in ballet, Quynn Johnson, a Howard University graduate and student of tap and West African dance, and Guiliano Antonio, a Brazilian tap artist, who has taught at several tap festivals in Argentina, Brazil and the United States. Go to www.metropolitanarts.org for more information on their staff.

Roger C. Jeffrey is a New York based freelance choreographer/director and has choreographed and directed various theatrical productions including Oraltorio featuring Motion & DJ L'Oqenz, Death of the Diva featuring Amanda Seales, He is also the artistic consultant for Rasta Thomas' Bad Boys of Dance and associate artistic director of Dawn Branch Works.

Quynn Johnson most recently toured as the featured tap soloist in the Tony Award Winning Broadway Production, After Midnight. Johnson, a multi-award winning performing artist, won the Individual Artist Award for Dance Choreography from the Maryland State Arts Council. And her newest production, SOLE Defined (co-created with Ryan Johnson) is a show with incredible fusion of tap dance and body percussion. She was a featured soloist in The Washington Ballet production of "The Great Gatsby" at The Kennedy Center and at The Source Festival. Johnson has several national awards in recognition for her choreography and was named the number one Tap Choreographer for youth 12 and younger, by the state of Maryland in 2006. In 2011, she became a self-published author of her first children's book "Lucky's Tap Dancing Feet," an exciting story about a horse who wants to learn how to tap dance.

Born and raised in Brazil, Giuliano Antonio started tap dancing in 2005 at Studio A dance through a partnership with the Adopt an Artist project, developed by the FAMA (Friends Assisting Mesoamerica) Foundation. Throughout his career, Antonio has been invited on scholarships to the United States by world famous tap dancers such as, Jason Samuels Smith, Maud Arnold, and Chloe Arnold. Along with extending his education in the United States he is also part of the Tap New Generation company that performs at several different festivals in the area of Brazil and the USA.

“We are so fortunate to have such a diverse and multi-talented staff to teach our students,” said Melissa Dobbs, founder and executive director of Metropolitan School of the Arts of Alexandria, Va. “Our instructors have real world experience from all across the world, not only is their training high caliber, but they bring professional performing arts talent to our school,” said Dobbs.