about

Aria Roach is a producer, dance educator, and performer based in New York City. Her producorial work spans major dance organizations, companies, and independent artists. She most recently served as the Associate Producer of Events for Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, and was previously the General Manager of Caleb Teicher & Company (CT&Co) and Company Manager for Joyce Theater Productions’ touring Lindy Hop show SW!NG OUT. Other administrative roles include Producer of Yehuda Hyman’s The Dancing Room at Arts on Site and Operations Coordinator at Mark Morris Dance Group. In 2024 she supported Works & Process as Festival Manager for the Underground Uptown Dance Festival at the Guggenheim and Lincoln Center.

Aria is currently the Program Manager of the National Dance Institute (NDI) Collaborative for Teaching & Learning, where she also spent three years teaching 3k-5th grade dance classes in NYC public elementary schools. Additionally, Aria has taught adaptive dance in the NDI DREAM Project for students with and without disabilities. Aria continues working with young dancers as the lead Teaching Artist and Choreographer for Mark Morris Dance Group’s Student Company II program. She has nearly a decade of experience leading classes in Modern, Ballet, and Improvisation for students 6-18 years with a focus on social/emotional wellness. Aria also offers private lessons, and teaches occasional adult Yoga and Modern Dance classes. During the 2020-2021 pandemic she worked as a farmhand and taught socially-distanced lessons for pre-teens in parks tailored toward connection, movement, and creative exploration.

As a performer, Aria’s experience includes both traditional Modern dance and outdoor, queer, site-specific, dance theater work. She most recently appeared as one of two collaborative leads in Hallie Chametzky’s the truth is the truth is the truth is the, a dance theater exploration of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. Aria has also danced with Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company, Yehuda Hyman’s Mystical Feet Company, Eva Dean Dance, The Moving Architects, , Stephanie Saywell, and Zoe Walders.

Beyond performing, Aria’s creative work includes appearances in filmmaker James Fotopoulos’s La Belle et la Bête, Dandelot’s Tutu music video, and Target’s All in Motion ad campaign, as well as collaborations with photographers Barbara Shore, gwen charles, and Sherrie Nickol. She has been honored to present her choreography at VCUDance, Built on Stilts Festival, Southern Vermont Dance Festival, Iona College, and in commissions for both Dancewave and Mark Morris Dance Group’s Student Companies. She also created Tomato Season, an outdoor dance film on Ghost Island Farm (Martha’s Vineyard, MA) that premiered at Built On Stilts dance festival and was selected for 92Y’s Mobile Dance Film Festival.

Aria holds a BFA in Dance & Choreography from Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of the Arts (VCUarts) and Honors College (summa cum laude). As an undergraduate she spent a semester at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance and received a 2015 VCUarts Dean’s International Study Grant to study at the ImPulsTanz Festival in Vienna, Austria. Upon graduating, she worked as an Artist Services Intern at The Yard. Aria earned her Master Composter Certificate from NYC Compost Project and her 200-hour Yoga Teacher Certification from The Shala Yoga under founders Barbara Verrochi and Kristin Leigh.