Movers & Shapers: Diane Grumet

Diane Grumet is the Co-Artistic/Managing Director of Steps on Broadway, the world-renowned dance studio that has been training and supporting the professional dance community for almost 40 years.  For over 23 years, Ms. Grumet has been building and developing programs, business plans, and hiring the stellar faculty for this New York institution.  Prior to joining Steps, she was an instructor, company teacher, International Student Advisor, and the business manager for the Ailey School. In 1986, she created the Contemporary Masters Program at Studio 400, the first professional dance program at the Joy of Movement in the East Village.  Hiring artists such as Donald Byrd, David Parsons, Bill T. Jones, and Elisa Monte, all emerging directors and choreographers at the time, the Contemporary Masters Program provided a workshop arena bringing together young artists and aspiring dancers to create and experiment within the art form.  This program continues today at Steps on Broadway.

Her earliest artistic strengths were honed at the Joffrey and the Metropolitan Opera Ballet Schools in New York City.  While completing a degree program at the University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music, she performed as a member of the Cincinnati Ballet Company, Cincinnati Opera Ballet, Contemporary Dance Theater, and at Edgecliff Summer Theater. Upon graduation, Ms. Grumet toured extensively throughout the United States, Mexico and Canada with Walt Disney Entertainment.  Returning to New York City in 1973, she was a founding member of the Joyce Trisler Danscompany and performed with the New York City Opera Ballet.  In 1975, she joined the Bat-Dor Dance Company of Israel as a soloist, appearing in works by choreographers Alvin Ailey, Anthony Tudor, Hans Van Manen, Lar Lubovitch, John Butler and Paul Taylor.  Once again returning to New York she rejoined the Trisler Danscompany and was a guest artist with Jose Limon and Ailey companies.  An artist on New York Foundation for the Arts’ roster, Ms. Grumet went on to create, produce and perform “Time Pieces,” a narrated program honoring the legacy of American dance artists, which included reconstructed works by Isadora Duncan, Ruth St. Denis, Doris Humphrey and Lester Horton.

Ms. Grumet frequently served as a master teacher, with residencies and master classes across the globe.  She served on the faculties of The New School and Parsons School of Design, The Ailey School, Steps on Broadway, University of the Arts in Philadelphia, The University of South Florida, and Sarah Lawrence.  Overseas teaching included Menagerie du Verre (Paris),  Groupe Emile Dubois (Grenoble), Ballett Akademien (Stockholm), and L’ecole de Dance de Quebec. Ms. Grumet sits on Dance Magazine’s Advisory Board, Buglisi Dance Theater’s Board of Directors, is on the Bessie Awards adjudication committee, and is the Artistic Director for the Steps Beyond Foundation.

MORE ON DIANE GRUMET

• Steps on Broadway

PODCAST INTERVIEW LINKS

University of Cincinnati, Dance

Humphrey-Weidman Technique

James Truitte

Thelma Hill

Alicia Markova

Joyce Trisler

Bat-Dor Dance Company

Maggie Black

Carol Paumgarten

Denise Jefferson

American Dance Machine

Podcast produced by: The Moving Architects
Interviewer: Erin Carlisle Norton
Intro Music: “Singing Distance” by Elijah Aaron