Leslie Kimiko Ward

Biography

Leslie Kimiko Ward is a teaching artist with over 30 years of formal training in a wide variety of movement disciplines, including but not limited to ballet, jazz, tap, modern, contemporary, hip hop, musical theater, American Tribal Style belly dance, Taiko drumming, and West African dance. A Magna Cum Laude graduate with a BFA in Dance from The Ohio State University, she has been teaching/choreographing professionally for the past 20 years. Formerly a member of the International Council of Kinetography Laban, Ms. Ward is also a certified Alexander technique teacher, and currently resides in Anchorage, Alaska, where she is on full-time faculty with the University of Alaska, and serves as co-artistic director of the University Dance Ensemble. In addition to her work at the university, Ms. Ward is an artist-in-residence with several private companies, public schools and non-profit organizations. She sits on the Alaska state board of Physical Education/Health professionals, and serves in an appointed teaching artist advisory capacity for the Alaska State Council on the Arts. Ms. Ward partners with the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts in conjunction with a Kennedy Center Partners in Education grant and is dedicated to creating and implementing sustainable movement-based programs and outreach opportunities tailored to serve the diverse needs of her community. She is the founder of "1000 Cranes for Alaska", a creativity-based suicide prevention campaign inspired by her work in the villages of rural Alaska, and she volunteers her time and talents to offer incentivized dance activities for marginalized and at-risk populations, mentor/advise student youth groups, perform in local venues, and orchestrate/produce community-centered arts events such as choreographed flash mobs. Ms. Ward moved to Alaska in 2001, after owning and operating a successful business in Prague.