Keith Perry
Educator, Performer, Choreographer, Producer
Born and raised in Chicago, triple threat dance artist Keith Perry is a choreographer, producer, and activist as well as a prolific dance/actor/singer. With dance at the root of his practice, Perry’s public performance career began in 1976, at Chicago’s Arie Crown theater bicentennial program, when Perry was in the fifth grade, and has since spanned five decades
Formally trained at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, and a graduate of Adelphi University, Perry also studied with many Chicago (and Chicago-adjacent) dance luminaries: Talley Beatty, Lester Goodman, Joseph Holmes, Tommy Gomez, Lucile Ellis, Katheryn Dunham, Joel Hall, and Darlene Blackburn, among others, with additional influences provided through relationships with Alvin Ailey, Maria Tallchief, Debbie Allen, Michael Jackson, and more.
Perry has soloed at Chicago’s Lyric Opera and toured the world with the Broadway production of The Wiz. Back in Chicago, as a ground-level advocate for social/racial justice in fields of creative arts and education, Perry developed foundational programs and opportunities for Chicago’s youth in the city’s parks district and in Chicago Public Schools.
