Broadway Choreographer and Dancer Visits School of Drama

by Carol J. Godart

Byron Easley, a renowned Broadway choreographer and dancer, is one of the current candidates for the Junior Professor of Dance at Carnegie Mellon University.   Easley, like all the other candidates, was invited to demonstrate his teaching styles and techniques during a four week, hands-on interview by working with the current School of Drama dance students.  Easley lives by the philosophy that the more you get out of your own way – the clearer the vessel you become.  It is that philosophy that allowed Easley to assess how best he could supplement and/or compliment the larger picture of the students’ needs and goals in an effort to see if the position was a good fit for all those involved.  Easley brings an immense amount of talent, expertise, and enthusiasm to the table. 

Easley’s enthusiasm to dance and move his body started as a young kid growing up in a rough area of Brooklyn, New York.  But it wasn’t until he saw the African-American dance company from the Dance Theatre of Harlem perform on a Thanksgiving Day Parade in which he realized that level of dance was exactly what he wanted to do.   Easley had never seen black men dance prior to that.  

Easley’s mother was resistant, but his perseverance and paper route afforded him the freedom to answer an advertisement in The Amsterdam News, a black newspaper, for the Harlem Dance Studio.  Not realizing the difference in the dance studio’s name, he packed his gym shorts, the address and headed for the subway.  Once there, the twelve-year-old boy realized something was wrong when the dance class was in the basement of one of the brownstone buildings.   The Harlem Dance Studio offered classes for the community, not the level of schooling Easley expected.  But, he got out of his own way and signed up anyway.   He just wanted to dance.

Eventually, Easley did receive a work scholarship to The Dance Theatre of Harlem.   After a couple of years of maintaining a janitorial job in exchange for dance classes, the company informed Easley that in order to dance full-time he must do it everyday and not just on Saturdays.  He must give up the job.  This was not an easy decision for Easley; the money he earned allowed certain benefits.  But again, he found that he must get out of his own way and follow his passion, which was dance.  He quit his job and started dancing everyday. 

Back then, little did Easley know that such humble beginnings would eventually lead to performing Fosse on Broadway and working with other great choreographers and directors such as such as CMU Alumnus Kent Gash, Michael Kidd, Peter Gennaro, Tommy Tune, Harold Nichols, Ben Vereen, Gwen Verdon, and more.  Easley considers himself a gypsy – a person who goes from place to place passing on the tradition just like those who so generously passed the torch onto him. 

Easley realizes the decision for the Junior Professor of Dance is bigger than him, but regardless of the outcome, Carnegie Mellon University and the School of Drama dance students benefited from such an amazing dancer and choreographer.  It’s apparent with such an extensive professional resume as Easley’s, he has gotten out of his own way more often than not professionally, as he appears to be quite a clear vessel of talent.