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Thomas Warfield ’88

Thomas Warfield ’88, a Rochester, N.Y., native, has been a senior lecturer and director of dance at Rochester Institute of Technology/National Technical Insitute for the Deaf for 25 years.

Warfield has performed as a singer, dancer, actor, model, composer, choreographer, director, producer, educator, activist, and poet on stage, television, and in film in more than 100 cities worldwide.

He has performed at the Metropolitan Opera, The Yard on Martha’s Vineyard, a circus in Japan, in three U.S. prisons, and for Queen Elizabeth II, in addition to solo concerts.

His East Coast tour of his original project, AstroDance, combined dance and astrophysics and was funded by the National Science Foundation.

He has worked with director Spike Lee, composers John Adams and Marvin Hamlisch, scientist Carl Sagan, and singers Placido Domingo and Beverly Sills, and has worked with and danced in works by choreographers Merce Cunningham, Paul Taylor, Jose Limon, Robert Joffrey, Bill T. Jones, and many others.

At RIT, he has served as chair of the President’s Commission on Pluralism and Inclusion and Performing Arts Task Force.

He is the founder and artistic director of PeaceArt International, a global outreach organization, and a former trainer for the National Coalition Building Institute.

He serves as vice president of Rochester’s MuCCC (Multi-use Community Cultural Center) Theatre board, is a former president of ARTWalk, a founding member of the Association of Teaching Artists, and president emeritus of the William Warfield Scholarship Fund at Eastman School of Music.

He is the recipient of numerous awards and distinctions, including the Essie Calhoun Diversity Award from Geva Theatre (2014), the Individual Artist Award from the Rochester Arts & Cultural Council, RIT’s Diversity Trailblazer Award, and the Unsung Heroes Award from the City of Rochester, among others.


Excerpted From RIT

Thomas Warfield '88, assistant professor in RIT/NTID's Cultural and Creative Studies Departme...