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HOMER HANS BRYANT

HELEN MEIER NOTES: “HOMER’S WORK EXPANDS A SCHOOL INTO TRAINING FOR LIFE AND A SOLID BASE FOR A CAREER IN DANCE.”

Recognized nationally for his significant achievements in the field of Dance School Services.

 

Selected for the 2006-2007 Who’s Who in Dance by The Heritage Registry of Who’s Who.

Homer Hans Bryant is a former principal dancer with the world renowned Dance Theater of Harlem. His professional performing credits span from a command performance for Prima Ballerina Maria Tallchief and the former Chicago City Ballet, to Timbuktu with Eartha Kitt and the motion picture The Wiz with Diana Ross and Michael Jackson. His teaching and training experience include working with Canada’s mesmerizing Cirque Du Soleil productions of Mystere, Alegria, Quidam and Saltimbanco. In the summer of 1998, he was the lead artist for the first downtown dance site for the City of Chicago’s Gallery 37 program.

Although he has received various offers to teach from all over the world, he prefers to remain here and share his talents with the youth of Chicago. In 1990 he founded the Bryant Ballet on the city’s North side. In October of 1997, the Mayor issued a proclamation, officially changing the growing organization’s name to the Chicago Multi-Cultural Dance Center. The purpose of this change was to reflect the diversity for the school’s students, class offerings, and the diversity of Chicago.

Homer’s inspiring ABC Rap Ballet was featured in Encyclopedia Britannica’s Health and Medical Annual edition. The Rap Ballet is a motivational piece that uses hip-hop music and rhythms to teach ballet in a format that young people can understand. The emphasis is not placed purely on ballet, but on the premise that everyone can be whatever they wish to be if they remain focused, disciplined, and most of all, study.

Known as a strict disciplinarian, his slogan “The Fun is in the Discipline, The Discipline is in the Fun” has become a mantra for his current and former students. The parents and students alike have established Mr. Bryant as one of the most respected teachers in the country. Homer Bryant and his dance school were featured in the February 2008 issue of Dance Teacher Magazine. Bryant also received the 1998 Monarch Awards Tribute to Black Men In Fine Arts, the 1999 Katherine Dunham Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Arts, the Cultural Expressions Productions 2007 Lifetime Achievement Award, and the 2009 Arts Alliance Illinois Arts Legend Award.

The Chicago Tribune named Bryant Chicagoan of the Year for Dance in 2009. Raising the Barre, a documentary about Bryant’s life was recently released and shown on PBS.

“The Fun is in the Discipline, The Discipline is in the Fun.” HHB