Studio Stories: Reminiscing on Twin Cities Dance with Toni-Pierce-Sands- Season 12, Episode137

Toni Pierce-Sands (Founder & Artistic Director) Prior
to co-founding TU Dance, Minnesota native Toni Pierce-Sands
performed with Minnesota Dance Theatre, Tanz Forum in Germany,
Rick Odums in Paris, and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater,
where she was a featured soloist in such signature pieces as
Revelations, Cry and Rainbow Round My Shoulder. Her command of
the Horton Technique has led to teaching posts throughout the
United States and Europe. Toni directs programming and teaches
classes at TU Dance Center in Saint Paul. She was a full-time
core faculty member at the University of Minnesota for twenty
years and also served as Director of University Dance Theatre.
Toni has been featured in COSMOPOLITAN Germany and GQ
publications, the American Express Alvin Ailey commercial, and
the Lester Horton Technique instructional DVD series. She has
written columns for Dance Studio Life magazine on various
pedagogical approaches for modern dance. Toni was awarded a 2004
McKnight Artist Fellowship in Dance, named the Sage Awards’ “2011
Leadership Training and a panelist for the 2018 Dance Miami
Choreographers’ Program. She currently serves as a member of the
University of Minnesota’s Northrop Advisory Board.