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Director/Choreographer Tanya Duncan
Tanya made her first dancing appearance on stage at the age of thirteen months at her mother's dance recital. Her professional career began at the age of sixteen at the Circle Theatre in the old Union Station in Kansas City. After high school, she attended TCU and worked at Dallas Summer Musicals and Casa Manana Theatre. A stint in NYC brought national commercials and the national tour of "Play It Again, Sam" with Red Buttons. For five years she worked for Robert Turoff in his Golden Apple Production Company traveling across the country and Canada in such roles as Claudine in "Can Can" and Suzette in "New Moon".
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When her knees could no longer take the rigorous dancing of eight shows a week, she turned full time to costuming. Moving to LA, she was hired by Western Costume and trained ten incoming costumers in period costume. Earning membership in I.A.T.S.E., film costumer's union local, she costumed commercials and TV films, her favorite being "The Women's Room" with Lee Remick and Colleen Dewhurst. After the birth of her daughters, she realized that although dance instruction for adults in NYC was plentiful and excellent, what was available for children was scarce.
She opened her own dancing school on Theatre Row and a year later was asked to create and teach the children's curriculum at the Phil Blac Studio on Broadway. It was there she received one of her most cherished compliments when Gregory Hines observed her teaching a tap class and commented that he was impressed with her methods. Returning to Excelsior Springs, she opened Dance Theatre Workshop with partner Melissa Seely, and began directing and choreographing locally such shows as "Oklahoma", "Guys and Dolls" and "Fiddler on the Roof". After many years absence from the stage, she played Lottie in "Dark at the Top of the Stairs" for the Kearney-Holt Community Theatre and Eleanor in "Lion in Winter" for ESCT.
She now owns and operates Excelsior Dance Theatre which performs regular recitals and at a variety of community events. She has lent her professional directing, choreography and costuming talents to all four of the previous Kiwanis Club's productions of "Annie", "The Music Man", "Peter Pan" and "Grease". With over 100 productions to her credit, her proudest accomplishments are her two daughters, Samantha and Melinda Barrett.
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