Virgin Islander, Homer Hans Bryant, from Dancer to Dance School Founder

Chatting with Dr Leonard Richardson

Welcome home Homer Hans Bryant & his Bryant Youth Professionals (YPP) Dance Company. Former principal dancer with the world-renowned Dance Theater of Harlem, his professional credits span from a command performance for the Royal Families of Norway & England to the motion picture, The Wiz, with Diana Ross & Michael Jackson. A former member of Prima Ballerina Maria Tallchief’s Chicago City Ballet, his teaching & training experience includes working with Canada’s mesmerizing Cirque Du Soleil productions of Mystere, Alegria, Quid am, & Saltimbanco. While Mr. Bryant was growing up on St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands, dance classes seemed unattainable, but, as a teenager, he moved to New York to pursue a dancing career. After joining the first African-American classical ballet company, Dance Theatre of Harlem, he reached major milestones in the 1970s: performing on Broadway. In 1990 his career led him to Chicago & in 1992 he founded the Bryant Ballet School, later renamed the Chicago Multi-Cultural Dance Center (CMDC) to reflect the diversity of dance & the student body. Mr. Bryant is currently also Assistant Artistic Director for Gus Giordano Jazz Dance Chicago. CMDC is the only contemporary ballet school in the world that teaches Hiplet™, a ballet class that fuses classical pointe technique with Hip-Hop & urban dance styles. He created & trademarked Hiplet™ to make ballet accessible to all, by mixing it with current popular songs that will be familiar to audiences who don’t normally attend ballet performances. A strict disciplinarian, his slogan "The Fun is in the Discipline, The Discipline is in the Fun" has become a mantra mantra for his current & former students and their parents.