Martha Chapman

Martha Chapman has taught at Steps on Broadway for over twenty years. She finds joy in sharing her love of dance with the next generation of dancers and dance enthusiasts and believes dance training unites the body, mind and spirit! She is also on faculty at Peridance Center, and is quoted extensively in The Pointe Book, a publication about ‘pointe’ technique, and was featured twice in Dance Teacher Magazine.

Martha performed with NYC Opera Ballet, NJ Ballet, Ontario Ballet Theater and Cork City Ballet in Ireland among many others including at the Edinburgh Festival and Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors. Her performing repetoire spanned such classics as Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake to character roles and contemporary works, some created on her. She now Co-directs, dances and choreographs with Omega Dance Company, where she has set works for the National Cathedral in Washington, DC and multiple New York venues including Riverside Church and St. Ignatius Loyola. She directs dance ministries with her home congregation, The Church of the Village, where Omega is an Artist-in-Residence.

Class description
Martha believes that dance unites body, mind, and spirit, regardless of student age or level. Her Young Dancers classes focus on developing the joy of movement with age-appropriate dance vocabulary. She believes understanding ballet technique is a tool for dancers in all genres. For older dancers, strongly articulated vocabulary is offered in a welcoming and nurturing class environment, with guidance to understand placement and alignment based on each dancer’s body’s structure. Dancers are encouraged to visualize energy lines through the body and to focus on where to initiate rotational or traveling force. Clear explanations of Barre and Center-floor vocabulary break down step execution; repetition develops strength and proper execution of steps.