April 22, 2018

Next steps: alumni in dance

Dance is a lifetime passion.

Some alumni dance professionally, start their own dance schools,
 or simply find a way to practice their art around careers and families. Here’s a look at four graduates who have found unusual ways to pursue their love of dance.

Tammi Colucci '92
Tammi Colucci ’92

Tammy Colucci ’92 is an award-winning dance company director, choreographer, and instructor. She is based in New York City and travels the country with her company, New York Dance Jamz.

Colucci’s choreography credits on Broadway include Broadway’s Easter Bonnet Competition Starring Liza Minelli, A Tribute to Chita Rivera, and Broadway Bares. She is the three-time winner of the Hawaii State Theatre Council’s Award for Excellence in choreography and direction. She traveled to China to direct and choreograph a Broadway-style revue, The America Dream.

In New York, Colucci has been an instructor at Rosie’s Broadway Kids, Broadway Dance Center, and Broadway Classrooms. On television, she has worked with Rosie O’Donnell on The View and Rachael Ray on The Rachael Ray Show. She also works privately with young actors in preparation for musical theatre and college auditions. Colucci majored in humanities at PC and is the mother of twins.

Shane Farrell ’08

Shane Farrell '08
Shane Farrell ’08

Dance is a full-time job for Shane Farrell ’08, a member of Island Moving Co., a classically trained, professional ballet company in Newport. The company performs at Rosecliff Mansion throughout the year and on national and international tours, including to Kazakhstan in 2016 and 2017.

Farrell was a member of the Rhode Island State Ballet while studying at PC, where he majored in marketing and minored in Spanish. He undertook an independent study with Dr. Wendy R. Oliver, professor of dance, and choreographed a routine for PC’s Dance Company. Farrell began dancing at age 7.

He teaches ballet three nights a week at schools in Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

“I’m making my living as a ballet dancer. Not many people can say that,” said Farrell. “I’m proud to be able to do something I am so passionate about.”

Lauren Spagnuolo ’13

Lauren M. Spagnuolo '13
Lauren M. Spagnuolo ’13

Lauren M. Spagnuolo ’13 combined her love of dance with teaching — and published her research in an academic journal.

Spagnuolo studied for a master’s degree in the Independent School Teaching Residency program through the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education.

For two years, she was a teaching fellow at Northfield Mount Hermon School, a boarding school for high school students in western Massachusetts. She was a dorm parent and adviser, taught a variety of dance classes, and choreographed for the school’s inter- mediate and advanced dance companies.

While teaching Advanced Ballet, Spagnuolo supplemented instruction in technique with course work on anatomy. Her efforts to connect the anatomy lessons to the technique classes became the subject of her research thesis, which was published in an academic journal, Research in Dance Education.

Spagnuolo was a humanities major and dance minor at PC and president of the Dance Company.

Grantis Peranda ’13

Grantis Peranda '13
Grantis Peranda ’13

In color guard, performers interpret music through dance and the synchronized spinning of flags, sabers, and mock rifles.

Grantis Peranda ’13 fell in love with Color Guard as a middle school student in California. Today he is a Color Guard instructor and coach for a high school team in Cupertino while working in information technology and studying for an MBA at Santa Clara University.

Peranda majored in health policy and management at PC, performed with the Dance Company, and was the first man to complete the dance minor. His goal was to apply what he learned about dance history and technique to color guard. This spring, he will compete at the Color Guard World Championships in Ohio.

“Color guard is just really exciting with its emotional performances and tricks,” said Peranda. “I love the intensity of it. It’s an amazing spectacle.”

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