Daniel is a dance artist who has been active as a choreographer, teacher, performer, and arts administrator for over thirty years. He has performed with numerous dance, opera, and theater companies and has choreographed extensively throughout the country. He maintained a project based company in New York City for 10 years and has an extensive background in teaching. Daniel has also served in various arts administrative and leadership roles.He is a BFA graduate of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and an MFA graduate of the California Institute of the Arts in Choreography and Integrated Media.
Daniel currently serves as the Artistic Director of the Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company in Salt Lake City, UT where he has been since 2013.
Daniel was a full-time member of Doug Varone and Dancers for ten years (1999 – 2010). As a member of the company he was part of over 20 new works and served as the rehearsal director. He was a member of the Limón Dance Company for three years (1996 – 1999) where he was featured in work by choreographers such as José Limón, Anthony Tudor, Jirí Kylián, and Donald McKayle. Additionally, he performed with Doug Elkins and Friends, the Metropolitan Opera, the Aquila Theater Company, the Mary Anthony Dance Theater, Opera Colorado, Minnesota Opera, Music Theater of Wichita, Mordine and Company, Dance Kaleidoscope (Indianapolis, IN), and the Red River Dance and Performing Company (Fargo, ND) under the direction of Eddie and Kathy Gasper.
As Artistic Director of the Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company Daniel has created over 20 original works for the stage, installation pieces at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art titled Kinetic Spaces, (2013), Invisible Gaze (2015), and Interstice (2016) and was the video designer for Tandy Beal’s Flabbergast, Joanna Kotze’s Star Mark, LajaMartin’s The Bunker as well as multiple designs for his own work. Daniel’s Together Alone trilogy I and II received City Weekly’s 2016 award for Best Choreography. In 2016 Daniel choreographed Accelerando for the grand opening gala celebration of the Eccles Theater in Downtown Salt Lake City. This was choreographed on Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company and Repertory Dance Theatre. Other roles as artistic director include rehearsal director, company class teacher, curating performances, public speaking, managing photoshoots, making casting decisions, organizing auditions and hiring dancers, and supervising all artistic personnel.
As an independent artist his choreography has been produced by the 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Festival (NYC), the Inside/Out series at Jacob’s Pillow, the Dance Complex (Cambridge, MA), and by East Tennessee State University. He has presented two full evening concerts at Joyce SoHo (NYC) and his project based company performed at various festivals and venues in New York including Judson Church, Dancenow, White Wave, the 92nd Street Y’s Fridays at Noon and Sundays at Three, Topaz Arts, and University Settlement. Daniel has been commissioned to choreograph new work for many companies, universities, and festivals including the Summer Stages Dance Festival (Concord, MA), the VIA Dance Collective (NYC) , the d9 Dance Collective (Seattle) and the Zenon Dance Company (Minneapolis) where his piece Storm was named “Best Dance Performance of 2012” by Minneapolis City Pages. He received a choreographic fellowship from the Summer Stages Dance Festival, has been the company-in-residence at the Silo at Kirkland Farm three times, and the artist-in- residence at the McCanna House (ND). Daniel is a recipient of Dance Theater Workshop’s Outer/Space Creative Residency and of Topaz Arts Solo Flight Creative Residency. Daniel choreographed The Pearl Fishers (2015), Aida (2016), Moby-Dick (2018), and La Traviata at the Utah Opera. Moby-Dick was also staged on the Pittsburgh Opera, San Jose Opera, and Chicago Lyric Opera in 2018. He choreographed Spring Awakening (2018) at Westminster College and The Lightning Thief (2023) at the University of Utah’s Musical Theater Training Program and was movement director for The Odyssey (2019) presented by University of Utah School of Drama. Daniel has created over 15 new works on students in workshop situations. In Salt Lake City Daniel has shown his own work at Mudson and 12 Minutes Max and created original works for Westminster College, Brigham Young University, and Utah Valley University.
From 1996 – 2010, Daniel regularly taught in New York at respected studios such as the Limón Institute, the 92nd Street Y, Peridance Center, 100 Grand, Dance New Amsterdam (formerly Dancespace Center), and University Settlement. He regularly teaches master classes and workshops around the country and has taught at the Metropolitan Opera, the Bates Dance Festival, the Varone Summer Dance Workshop (2000 – 2009), the Limón Summer Workshop (1996 – 1999), Salt Dance Fest, the University of North Carolina School of the Arts Summer Comprehensive, and Summer Stages. He has been a guest artist at numerous universities and was an adjunct faculty member at Hunter College (NYC) as well as the California Institute of the Arts. Daniel held an annual dance intensive in Cambridge, MA for three summers and taught a professional technique workshop in Boulder, CO for five years. Daniel has served as director of Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company’s Move-It Summer Dance Workshop for 5 years and since 2019 has served as a Co-Director of Dance West, a summer workshop produced in conjunction with Repertory Dance Theatre and The University of Utah. He has twice been a keynote speaker for the Utah Dance Educators Organization and regularly teaches master classes at various universities around the Salt Lake City area.
Daniel has staged the works of José Limón, Jirí Kylián, and Doug Varone at various schools and companies such as Bern Ballet, Hubbard Street Dance Company, Ballet Met, Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, Zenon Dance Company, Marymount Manhattan College, University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Fordham at Ailey, Ohio State University, Emerson College, University of Akron, University of Maryland, Adelphi University, Point Park University, and George Mason University.
Daniel has over 30 years of experience in many capacities of arts administration both as an independent artist and while serving as Artistic Director of the Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company. This includes but is not limited to: grant writing, project development, marketing, managing and creating schedules, public relations, and website maintenance.
Daniel was a freelance web developer and works extensively in the digital realm; creating websites, working with video, interactive technology, and seeking ways to implement media in his work.
