Baayork Lee
Lee attended Manhattan's High School of Performing Arts and became deeply connected with Broadway history, especially A Chorus Line, both as an original performer and later as a keeper of its choreography.
Alumni • Dance
Dancers and Choreographers from Performing Arts
From technique classes to Broadway and choreography, the dance legacy of Performing Arts shows how disciplined movement training can grow into a lifetime of creative work.
Dance & Choreography
Movement Training That Continued onto Professional Stages
Dance is one of the disciplines most strongly associated with the legacy School of Performing Arts. Daily technique, rehearsal, musicality, physical precision, and ensemble awareness created a demanding environment for young dancers. For some alumni, that training led directly to Broadway and choreography; for others, it became a foundation for work in another medium.
Priscilla Lopez
Lopez graduated from the High School of Performing Arts and worked as a Broadway dancer before becoming widely known as an actor and singer. Her own school experience helped inform material associated with A Chorus Line.
Suzanne Vega
Before becoming known as a singer-songwriter, Vega studied modern dance at Performing Arts. Her trajectory shows that dance education can remain part of an artist's formation even when the later career moves elsewhere.
Broadway and the Performing Arts School Story
The relationship between Performing Arts and Broadway is not just geographical. The school's alumni became part of the creative workforce of New York theater. In the case of A Chorus Line, the connection became especially visible: the musical drew on the experiences of working dancers, and Priscilla Lopez's Performing Arts memories became part of the story attached to the character Diana Morales.
Dance careers are rarely only about dancing
Professional dancers often become teachers, directors, rehearsal leaders, choreographers, and guardians of repertory. Alumni history should account for those later roles as well as performance credits.
Discipline as a Lasting Skill
Dance training is unusually explicit about repetition and correction. A phrase is practiced until timing, line, balance, musicality, and intention work together. That process develops habits that can transfer to choreography, directing, teaching, and even artistic careers outside dance itself. The alumni record makes those transfers visible.
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More Alumni Stories
Overview
Notable Alumni
Browse alumni stories across drama, music, and dance.
Acting
Actors
Explore stage and screen alumni from the legacy school.
Music
Musicians & Songwriters
Read about artists whose careers moved into music and songwriting.
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