Bio content provided by individual
Teacher Bio
David Cartahena Lee is a Brooklyn-based dance artist, choreographer, and educator, and a 4th generation American-born Chinese and 3rd generation American-born Filipino through Hawai'i. He holds an MA in Dance Education from NYU, with a concentration in Dances of the African Diaspora, and a BFA in Dance from UC Irvine....Read more
David Cartahena Lee is a Brooklyn-based dance artist, choreographer, and educator, and a 4th generation American-born Chinese and 3rd generation American-born Filipino through Hawai'i. He holds an MA in Dance Education from NYU, with a concentration in Dances of the African Diaspora, and a BFA in Dance from UC Irvine. He is currently on faculty at New York University and Queens College, CUNY, and has taught at Modega, Mark Morris Dance Center, Iona University, and Movement Lifestyle, as well as internationally in South Korea and the Philippines.
As a performer, David has danced works by choreographers including Gigi Torres, Beau Fournier, Lorena Valenzuela, Mykell Wilson, Neil Schwartz, and Alex Fethbroth, and placed second at Hip Hop International (USA) in 2019. He worked as a dancer and choreographer for Gotham Dance Theater and served as company director of Rogue Makers. His performance career also includes commercial work in Los Angeles, along with dance and choreography for independent artists in both LA and NYC.
David is the founder and artistic director of Samaw Dance, an umbrella arts organization encompassing Samaw Dance Company, DCL Arts Collective, an adult dance training program, the Diffraction Dance Festival, an AAPI-led festival hosted at Mark Morris Dance Center, and Resonance, a sold-out annual immersive performance experience at Roulette now in its third year. His choreography draws from waacking, contemporary, and street dance, centering queer and Asian American identity while honoring Black and Brown dance lineages.
As an advocate for inclusive dance education, David serves as Director of Advocacy for the New York State Dance Education Association (NYSDEA) and is DEL (Dance Education Laboratory at 92Y) F.I.T. Certified. He is a vocal advocate for teaching queer dance styles, having presented on waacking and queerness for NDEO and DEL at 92Y, and continues to build curricula and spaces that celebrate identity and honor the histories of the dance forms he teaches.
Read less
Class Descriptions
Class opens with a jazz warm-up and stretch that blends groove with isolations, moving into drills that ground the room in the foundations of street and club dance, the source material for street jazz choreography. From there, we shift into a social warm-up, reconnecting to street and club dance's roots in social culture while building community and trust in the room. Choreography draws on commercial jazz, hip hop, house, poppin', waacking, and a touch of quirk, with an emphasis on specificity, musicality, artistry, and texture. Students return to their social warm-up partners to work collaboratively, deepening their understanding of the movement and their connection to one another. Expect a class that pushes you toward unapologetic self-expression, building confidence while training both body and ear.