Michele Dunleavy

Michele Dunleavy, Professor of Dance, Penn State Laureate 2024-25, is an award-winning educator, choreographer, and performer. Michele is a faculty member in the musical theatre program where she teaches tap and jazz dance techniques and contributes original choreography for Penn State Centre Stage. Favorite Penn State productions include: Bat Boy: The Musical, Parade, Babes in Arms, Rent, Good Kids, American Idiot, She Kills Monsters and Everybody.

Professionally, Michele has choreographed and performed extensively throughout the Mid-Atlantic region. Her work spans multiple dance genres including tap, jazz, and modern, and her choreography has been presented in Chicago, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, NYC, Maryland, Washington D.C. and West Virginia. Additional performance credits include, Take it Away Productions, Pittsburgh Opera, Junction Dance Theatre, Physical Theatre Project, DANA Movement Ensemble, ETCH Dance Co., B3W, and Kompitus Rhythm Collective.

Michele’s choreography lies at the intersection of sound and movement and includes projects such as Steel Valley Rhythms (SVR), a percussive dance piece that investigates the connections between place, memory, and embodiment as experienced by generations of Pennsylvania iron and steelworkers; 5/4 Ever a tribute to the life and music of Dave Brubeck, and choreographic commissions by jorsTAP and The Lady Hoofers. Michele’s work has been supported through grants from the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council, the Galaxy Arts in Education program, Penn State’s Institute for the Arts and Humanities, and Penn State's College of Arts and Architecture, where she was an embedded researcher in the Arts and Design Research Incubator.

Michele is actively engaged in making dance and theatre more accessible and inclusive. She recently worked on the world premiere of Indescribable with Phamaly Theatre Company, a disability affirmative organization based in Denver. Since 2016 Michele has been leading Let’s Dance!, an all ages, all abilities, community dance workshop sponsored by the Center for the Performing Arts at University Park. She collaborates with Dr. Krista Wilkinson, Distinguished Professor, Communication Science & Disorders to co-teach CSD240: Supporting Communication Through Performance, a course that brings together students with and without disabilities to experience how the performing arts can support the development of valued communication and social skills. Michele currently volunteers with the For Good Troupe, a local organization providing performance opportunities for individuals with Down syndrome and serves on the board of the Centre Region Down Syndrome Society.

Michele has been an invited guest artist at Shenandoah and Syracuse Universities and a regular guest with Music Theatre College Auditions (MTCA). Prior to Penn State, Michele served on the faculties of Point Park University, George Mason University, the Catholic University of America, and served two terms as the Northeast Regional Director for the American College Dance Association. Michele recently joined the inaugural board of directors for Rocky Mountain Rhythm, Denver’s professional rhythm tap company.

• BA from Point Park University
• MFA from George Mason University

Penn State Laureate to begin Commonwealth Campus visits week of Sept. 16

University Laureate to give dance presentation/performance at Penn State Shenango on Sept. 18