Featured Human

Amanda Cantrell Roche (She/Her)

Amanda Cantrell Roche divides her time between writing, dance, volunteering and working as a Teaching Artist.  She has been a dance Teaching Artist for Tennessee Performing Arts Center’s Education program since 2000, conducting aesthetic education residencies for grades Pre-K through twelve. Independently and in collaboration with a team of lead teaching artists, she designs and facilitates professional development for teachers and other teaching artists. Community and service-centered, Amanda has collaborated as an organizer, choreographer or teaching artist with organizations such as Global Education Center, Nashville CARES, Poverty & the Arts, and Vanderbilt University. A mother of two, she also birthed and has nurtured Blue Moves Modern Dance Company since 1989 with co-founder Lee Anne Carmack. Her choreography often blends her background in journalism with her passion for social justice and telling stories through movement and recorded words. Extending her creative process teaching artistry approach to personal growth and creative workshops for the general public, she has offered workshops at The Estuary, abrasiveMedia, Ha.Le’ Mind and Body, and Gilda’s Club, and is a regular workshop facilitator at Art & Soul Studio and an Adjunct Faculty at Onsite Workshops. Her alchemy is most powerful when she combines a trilogy of her deepest passions:  dance, writing and social justice.

Amanda’s Contribution:

Amanda has been an inspiration to our dance community by continuously keeping us in the know with her Nashville Dance community emails and showing up to everyone’s performances all while maintaining her community work in social justice.