Krisha Marcanos Goals for Conservatorys Theater Division: Refine, Level Up, Focus Marcano knew her path early in life. Now, as the Conservatory's dean of theater, she's helping others find theirs.
By
Sarah Godcher Murphy
December 10, 2024
Krisha Marcano, dean of theater at Boston Conservatory
Image by S an Alonzo Harris
When she was four years old, Krisha Marcano saw a ballerina for the very first time while watching The Nutcracker on television at her home in Trinidad, and she instantly knew she was going to be a professional dancer. To be clear, she didn't merely think she wanted to be one; she was certain it would happen for her someday. She begged to take ballet lessons, and when her grandmother said no (because lessons were too expensive), she pitched an epic tantrum that became a chapter in Marcano family lore.
Apparently, I threw myself all over the living room, says Marcano, who became Boston Conservatory at Berklee's new dean of theater in July. She simply would not take no for an answer. I don't know what you all need to do, but I'm going to thrash around until you get it together, she recalls thinking at the time.
Her grandmother relented, and Marcano received excellent ballet training in Trinidad until she finished high school. After graduation, there were no signposts pointing her in the direction of professional dancer, and no mentors explaining how to navigate the US educational system. Nevertheless, Marcano knew where she wanted to go next.
I watched her grow from an excited and eager young artist into a commanding presence on the stage, with her natural comedic talent, beautiful voice.
- LaChanze
I was born in New York and my mother was still living in New York, so I knew that once I finished high school that's where I was going-because that's where I was going to be dancing, she says.
Marcano had heard of the city's most prominent dance program, at Juilliard, but had no idea how to apply; however, she did figure out how to enroll in a modern dance class at nearby Queensborough Community College. With 14 years of ballet training under her belt, she was head and shoulders above her less-experienced classmates. The teacher looked at me and said, What are you doing here? Come to my office right after class.' My first class! Marcano says.
The teacher at Queensborough helped Marcano secure an audition for the Conservatory of Dance at Purchase College and told her how to take the train to the school's campus in Westchester County. When Marcano was accepted as an undergraduate, she told her mother, I got into a conservatory training program. It's at SUNY Purchase. I don't know anything about any of those things, but we're gonna figure it out.
With this kind of spunk, Marcano was able to carve her own path forward, from SUNY Purchase to two of the most prestigious dance companies in the US, then on to Broadway, and eventually to faculty and staff positions in higher education. She brings a rare breadth of experience to her latest role as dean as well as a contagious energy that is revitalizing the Theater Division.
It was the choreography of Martha Graham that first opened Marcano's eyes to the possibilities of both modern dance and acting. Her studies at SUNY Purchase focused on Graham technique, introducing her to a dance vocabulary-and means of self-expression-unlike anything she had experienced before. For the first time, I found the ability to sing through my body. There was something godlike, euphoric, about doing that in class, she says.
About a year after graduating from SUNY Purchase, Marcano was hired by the Martha Graham Dance Company as the only woman of color in the troupe. Performing Graham's work was a formative experience for Marcano, who saw herself reflected in its impassioned storytelling. Her actual choreography-the work that we got to do-formed who I was as a woman, she says. I got to realize that I don't have to be pretty. I can be destructive. I can give life, and I can take it . That just peeled an onion layer for me, and I was like, Oh my god, there's more.'
Working with the Graham company also tapped into Marcano's theatricality and just blew the walls off, she says. For the first time, she felt like an actor as well as a dancer. After two years with the Graham company, she moved on to the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater for two more, and then made the leap to musical theater as a dancer in the first national tour of Fosse. Marcano toured the world with that show, from 1999 to 2001, then joined the cast of Elton John and Tim Rice's Aida as a swing. She covered nine different ensemble roles for that production-learning lines, stage positions, dance steps, and vocal parts for each one and filling in for castmates at a moment's notice.
Krisha Marcano
Image by Jane Feldman
She remained with Aida for its entire Broadway run, from 2001 to 2004; as the production neared its end, she became its dance captain, running rehearsals for the company, ensuring quality control, and teaching choreography to new company members. Her job as dance captain was Marcano's first taste of teaching, and she found that what made her a great performer also made her an effective instructor: noticing the details, learning from missteps, and trying to make the show a little better each time.
With each step forward in her performance career, Marcano learned an entirely new set of performance skills. By the time Aida closed, she had distinguished herself as a dancer and ensemble cast member, and she'd become an accomplished singer. Finding new modalities of expression has kept her highly employable, she says; and integrating those modalities has made her a better artist.
When I say that with Graham I found that I could sing throug
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
In its sixth year, the broadcaster's coverage has become a global brand and ...
01/06/2026
Designed to solve a common problem in broadcasting, the automated workflow detects, identifies, removes, and documents copyrighted music
AudioShake has introdu...
01/06/2026
The sports-analytics company combines its data with proprietary AI to help leagu...
01/06/2026
Category line-up & sponsors announced
Photo: Paul Clarke
The Production Music Awards (PMA) have announced that submissions are now officially open ahead of...
01/06/2026
New hybrid sample/synthesis instrument revealed
Excite Audio have just released the latest instalment in their Evolve series, which has been developed in co...
01/06/2026
Latest TONEX expansion captures three rare vintage amps
The newest addition to IK Multimedia's ever-growing TONEX line-up introduces a set of three incr...
01/06/2026
Musically intelligent soft synth gets upgraded
Scaler Music will be probably be best known to many for their music theory tools, but their product range al...
01/06/2026
SBS confirms its broadcast sponsors for FIFA World Cup 2026
1 June, 2026
Media releases
SBS has secured Hyundai, Hisense, Macca's, Rexona, bet365, Com...
01/06/2026
Rohde & Schwarz Satellite Industry Days 2026 guided by the motto From Earth to ...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Marshall Electronics is showcasing a comprehensive lineup of next-generation POV cameras, purpose-built to power today's connected AV environments, at InfoC...
01/06/2026
Adobe Announces Concept to Vector
Deepa Subramaniam June 1, 2026
0 Comments
One of the biggest frustrations we hear from designers is how difficult it...
01/06/2026
Vampire Feature Night Patrol Graded with DaVinci Resolve Studio
Brie Clayton June 1, 2026
0 Comments
Colorist shapes dark, gritty tone for horror thri...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Mardi 2 juin 14h00
FilmLight (ARRI), 10 rue Ren Boulanger, 75010 Paris
Rejoignez-nous pour d couvrir comment FLAPI (l'API FilmLight) peut transformer e...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
31/05/2026
Olivia P rez-Collellmir to Premiere Original Work at Gaud Centennial in Barcelona The Berklee graduate and faculty member will debut her choral symphony with...
31/05/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Wins 15 Awards at the Canadian Screen Awards - See Pho...
31/05/2026
Taiwan is home to more than 500 NVIDIA ecosystem partners. More than 1 million N...
31/05/2026
As factories move from isolated automation to plant-wide intelligence, manufacturers need AI systems that can connect live machine signals, quality systems, wor...
31/05/2026
The NVIDIA AI Cloud ecosystem is accelerating the global buildout of AI factory infrastructure. Partners are expanding capacity to meet growing demand from ente...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Zero in on one that says yes (and no)
Andy Marken May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Hero image courtesy of Deposit Photos
For content creators the most difficu...
29/05/2026
With InfoComm 2026 just weeks away, NDI is giving attendees plenty of reasons to...
29/05/2026
Reaffirming a partnership that has defined Canadian sports broadcasting since 19...
29/05/2026
Mobile/tablet is No. 2 device for watching TV, suggesting that the sports-production industry needs to take another look at the format
Ring Digital's Sprin...
29/05/2026
Berliner Ensemble, one of Berlin's five major theater companies, has expande...
29/05/2026
Solid State Logic will showcase its new compact, fly-away TCA Tour audio product...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, passed away last month on April 12 ...
29/05/2026
Paramount+ will be the English-language U.S. home for Barclays Women's Super...
29/05/2026
Further strengthening its virtualisation strategy to fully support broadcasters ...
29/05/2026
Swiss broadcaster Canal Alpha has deployed Harmonic's award-winning, software-based XOS Advanced Media Processor to modernize playout operations across cant...
29/05/2026
PTZOptics will showcase a new generation of intelligent video workflows at InfoComm 2026, June 17-19, Las Vegas. Visitors to booth N8227 will see how PTZOptics ...
29/05/2026
Arizona's Family has launched the Arizona's Family Sports (AZFS) streaming app, a new direct-to-consumer destination for live, local sports. The app is ...
29/05/2026
Starting in 2027, DAZN will be the exclusive home of The Canadian Football Leagu...
29/05/2026
Comcast Business has detailed the advanced network infrastructure it has deploye...
29/05/2026
In two-day event, leaders from academia and industry explored solutions to chall...
29/05/2026
The Basketball Tournament (TBT), now entering their 13th year of competition, ha...
29/05/2026
Roku has launched FOX One as a Premium Subscription on The Roku Channel in the U.S. Roku customers can now subscribe to FOX One using their Roku account for liv...
Krisha Marcanos Goals for Conservatorys Theater Division: Refine, Level Up, Focus Marcano knew her path early in life. Now, as the Conservatory's dean of theater, she's helping others find theirs. 
