Deb Meunier founded Fusionworks Dance Academy in 1978 and has taught at the academy and throughout many schools and colleges in New England since then. She also founded and directed the professional modern dance Company, Fusionworks, and ran that company for thirty years until 2018. Her choreography has been produced at Jacob’s Pillow, Dance Services Network, ECA, The Mayfair Festival in PA, Artspace of New Haven, the Gowanis Outback Series, The Field, and the 92nd Street Y of NYC. Her work was chosen to represent RI at the New England Artist’s Congress and she has been invited to present her work two times at the prestigious 92nd Street Y in NYC. Companies throughout the Northeast including the Rhode Island College Modern Dance Company, Brown University Dance Extension, Providence College Dance Company, WORKS Contemporary Dance of Hartford, and Bridgewater State University have commissioned her works and invited her to teach master classes in ballet, modern, and jazz.
Deb is known for her spirit of collaboration and has worked with painters, musicians, sculptors, filmmakers and other choreographers and dancers throughout the years. She brings this same spirit to her every day classes and encourages her young students to grow as individuals and find self confidence through dancing, hard work and discipline, and always a generosity of spirit towards others. She is a member of the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts Artists in Residence Educational Roster as well as the New England Foundation for the Arts Roster. Deb received a MALS and the Rulewater Prize from Wesleyan University for her work on an interdisciplinary choreography project with the Rhode Island School for the Deaf. Deb received the 2003 Individual Achievement Award from the Arts and Business Council of RI for her significant contributions to the arts and education in Rhode Island. She was also awarded a Meet the Composer Fellowship in 2006 and 2012 from the New England Foundation for the Arts for a project in collaboration with world percussionist Michael DeQuattro. In 2015 Deb received the prestigious RI Foundation Fellows Award for her contributions to the Arts and education in Rhode Island. She considers herself a life-long learner. In 2019, Deb retired from Fusionworks Dance Academy, handing leadership over to Dancing Legacy. |