Join us in welcoming Diane Tomasi as our new Program Associate. Learn more about Diane, her goals for her new role, and what she does outside of TC.
Tell us a bit about yourself. Where are you from? What was your undergraduate degree focused on?
My name is Diane Tomasi: I use she/they pronouns. I’m from a small town in Massachusetts. I began my undergrad in Dance at Adelphi University in Garden City, New York where I went for two years. After two years, I felt that I had taken all the classes I wanted to take and experienced all that I wanted to experience. So, I decided to move to New York City, to see if I could “make it.”
I was 20 years old, and after a year I realized that I was not prepared to “make it” after all, and so I decided to move back home. Soon after, I found a university in the UK the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts (LIPA). (It had originally been an all-boys primary school attended by Sir Paul McCartney). I earned my BA in Performing Arts, Dance there.
When I went to LIPA, I was a little older, I knew more of what I wanted to learn, and I had that much more confidence so I was able to focus on the things I wanted to do there. Independent from the program itself, I got a small budget to work with other students and I created a small show, I also received funding to participate in a week-long workshop with an abled/disabled body dance company called Blue Eyed Soul (which has sadly closed since).
What previous experiences have led you to your current role?
I just finished my master’s in Nonprofit Management from Antioch University and I’m also in the Dance Education program here at Teachers College, so the coming together of my educational background and my creative interests added up to this role.
How have those experiences informed your current professional path?
While in the workshop, I was introduced to slack-line harness coupled with contact improvisation. A group of about twenty or so of us, all danced and lived together during the week. That experience was very formative for me for so many reasons: meeting new people, some of whom worked professionally with Blue Eyed Soul, the experience of dancing in the air, and the friends I made there, some of whom I’m still in touch with today. After I graduated from LIPA and moved back to the States, I slowly got more and more involved in aerial work to a point where, prior to the pandemic, I was performing professionally.
I also co-founded a dance company/project, called This Body. This Body is a group of artists who come together to overcome and relieve many of the difficult challenges in creating and performing dance in New York City. Our thought was that if we worked together and helped each other, we could share some of the hardships, such as applying for grants, looking for dancers, producing shows, and more. My personal goal with this company is to become strong enough that we can open it up to other dancers too. To provide resources, community, opportunities to perform, and education around the unfortunate characterization of the ‘starving artist.’
Prior to the pandemic, I had been freelancing mostly with teaching gigs and some administrative work. When the pandemic hit, I ended up losing a lot of work and the instability of freelance life caught up to me.
Concurrently, I had always wanted to get a Master’s Degree, and after much research and debate, I found what I perceived to be a good fit with a program that seemed to support all of my interests and endeavors. Unbeknownst to me, this program was simply perfect: every class, assignment, and research paper was open-ended and therefore allowed me to focus on dance. I researched what happened to the funding that had been so prevalent in the ’70s and ’80s, I was able to think about and dig into my values as an artist and an educator, and I was able to consider where I would like to go next.
The last class in my program was focused on pedagogy (children’s education) and andragogy (adult education), and consequently, this class pulled together all the things that I do and am interested into a fine point: caring for the individual and the larger community, helping people to find their creativity and voice, and uplifting the value of art. At the end of this program, I realized that I was not done with my education so I decided to apply to the Dance Ed.D. program here at Teachers College.
What are you looking forward to in taking on this role?
I’m only taking one class for my program right now because I just needed to get my feet wet and figure out where I wanted to go. I’m especially excited about this position because now I am here more often and I feel much more involved. I’m also interested in learning about the Arts Administration department and Teachers College, in general. I’m also very excited to feel more connected and get to know the people here. Now, I know several faculty members, I’m getting to know the students, and I’m getting a little bit more comfortable with the community and the maze of buildings. It’s all really exciting for me.
To add, this is administration work, so I get to expand my nonprofit management experience, too.
What do you do outside of your time at TC?
Outside of Teachers College, I teach movement classes: dance, tumbling, and aerial. I am also training in a style of aerial that is new for me called straps. I’m rediscovering my artistic voice and figuring out where I want to go next as a performer. I also crochet a lot, and I work very hard at keeping up my Duolingo streak.
I teach an adult open-level aerial silks class on Fridays at 7:30 PM at Brooklyn Ninja. Anybody is welcome!
Diane has been teaching tumbling and contemporary dance since 2001, and aerial arts, primarily aerial silks since 2014. At BAX|Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Diane is the Director of AcroBAX II and a tumbling and contemporary dance instructor. Diane created and built the aerial program at Brooklyn Ninja Academy and teaches adult and child classes there. Diane is also a co-founder of This Body, a community of artists who work together to advocate and change the ‘starving artist’ concept around creating art.
In July 2023 Diane received an MA in Nonprofit Management from Antioch University and a BA (Hons) in Performing Arts Dance from Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts in 2005. Diane also has certificates in the Simonson Method of Teacher Training, 2013, Thai Massage Adv Studies Sen Theory & Application, 2010, and Thai Massage Basic Studies Level I & II, 2009.
Diane uses both they/them and she/her pronouns, and more of and about their work can be found at: www.dianetomasi.com and www.thisbodylives.com.
Arts Administration 
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