Name: Lunch & The Arts with Marcellus Harper and Kevin Thomas
Start: 2024-05-15T12:00:00-05:00
Location: Grace-St. Luke's Episcopal Church

Lunch & The Arts with Marcellus Harper and Kevin Thomas

May 15, 2024: Collage Dance Collective, Marcellus Harper, Executive Director & Kevin Thomas, Artistic Director | collagedance.org
Sign up here by Sunday, May 12: tinyurl.com/GSLLunchArts524
Marcellus Harper has an expansive background in project management and event production. He has worked as a Program Analyst for the Department of Homeland Security’s Transportation Security Administration (TSA). He was among the first seven employees of the TSA Taskforce mandated by Congress to create and develop the agency and federalize our nation’s transportation security infrastructures. Prior to his work with the TSA, Mr. Harper worked as a Project Coordinator for Marriott International’s corporate marketing department, where he was directly responsible for the development and implementation of several industry events for the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League. Mr. Harper has worked for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and Harvard University coordinating special projects to assist research and treatment work for HIV/AIDs patients in Africa. Mr. Harper was a Meyerhoff Scholar at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) where he studied biology and theatre and was a double national medalist in the NAACP’s ACT-SO Program in biology and oratory. Marcellus is the 2011 recipient of the Memphis Urban League Young Professionals’ Change Artist Award in recognition of his achievements as an Agent of Change. Marcellus holds a Bachelor’s degree in non-profit administration and performing arts.
Kevin Thomas was born in Trinidad and Tobago and grew up in Montreal, Canada. He received his degree in dance from the CEGEP de Vieux Montreal. Mr. Thomas began his career as a professional dancer in Montreal with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, one of Canada’s leading ballet companies. At the age of 19, he was the only Black dancer with the company. He later became a soloist with the company then moved on to Cleveland San Jose ballet as a principal dancer and then finally to the Dance Theatre of Harlem in New York as a principal dancer, where he performed internationally for 10 years. Mr. Thomas has made guest appearances with the Royal Ballet in London, Complexions Contemporary Ballet in New York and Fleming Flindt and Peter Schaufuss in Denmark. He has also appeared on Broadway in The Phantom of the Opera and on television in Law and Order. In 2006, Mr. Thomas and Marcellus Harper founded Collage Dance Collective to increase diversity in classical ballet and relocated the company to Memphis the following year. They established the Collage Ballet Conservatory in 2009. The organization has quickly grown to boast an international touring professional company and nationally recognized conservatory, training more students of color in a classical art form than any other nonprofit in Memphis. Mr. Thomas has served as Ballet Master for New Ballet Ensemble & School and has choreographed for Opera Memphis, Hattiloo Repertory Theatre, New Ballet Ensemble, Orpheum Theatre, Flint Institute of Music, University of Memphis, University of Utah and Collage Dance Collective. He is a National Visiting Fellow at the School of American Ballet in New York City and has taught at schools and programs around the country including the Dance Theatre of Harlem, Flint Institute of Music, University of Utah, School of American Ballet, Deeply Rooted Dance Theater, the Boston Ballet Summer Dance Program (SDP), the International Association of Blacks in Dance, Tennessee Association of Dance and the University of Memphis.