Kirby Reed

Kirby Reed is a renowned jazz, modern and hip-hop dancer from Chicago. He is also a choreographer, educator, and the Artistic Director of Ascension/The Kirby Reed Project. Reed picked up dance in his mid-20s, earning a scholarship to Joel Hall and Dancers, the first step in a long career that brought Reed to perform across the country and start his own dance program at Francis W. Parker School. Reed was picked twice for the "Top Jazz Classes" in Chicago out of ten must-take classes in the city in Dance Spirit Magazine, January 2005, and was named best hip-hop teacher by Chicago Magazine. Even having suffered a stroke in 2009, and other health set-backs, Reed has continued choreography and teaching at GUS Giordano Dance School, innovating ways to "teach others to dance for him."