Founding Leadership
Shawn Short founded Dissonance Dance Theatre in 2007 and has built four interconnected programs that anchor Ngoma Center for Dance's work across performance, education, film, and historical preservation.
Principal Choreographer of DDT — DC's only nationally-recognized Black-managed contemporary ballet company between NYC and Atlanta.
501(c)(3) parent organization serving over 600 DC residents annually across seven programs spanning education, outreach, capacity-building, and historical preservation.
Documentary and narrative film program — director of Company D (Best Documentary, DC International Cinema Festival 2023), MUTE, His Eyes Saw Dance, and Deep Inside: DC Black SGL Life.
Author of DC Black Concert Dance History 1932–2025 — the first comprehensive documentation of 90+ years of Black concert dance in Washington, DC.
Choreographer, Coach, Builder
Shawn Short has fostered a love of the classical and contemporary ballet lexicon that has become the bedrock of DDT's training — energizing dancers through rigorous classical preparation while developing original work for performance at national and international venues.
- Principal Choreographer, Dissonance Dance Theatre — Since 2007
- 100th choreographic work for DDT — Produced 2017
- Only fiscally-sponsored artist through the New York Foundation for the Arts — 2009–2013
- Commissioned for Mother's Blood — Catholic University of America's Benjamin T. Rome School of Music (2008)
- Commissioned for Genotype Called Love — VF Dance Theater, Kennedy Center Terrace Theatre production of Futurology (2012)
- Founding Faculty member — Washington Ballet@THEARC school
- Has choreographed for The Dance Institute of Washington, Washington Ballet School @THEARC, and Bowie State University
The Past Two Years
Five flagship engagements that defined 2024–2025 — spanning theatrical collaboration, historical publication, film direction, institutional partnership, and infrastructure-building for the DMV dance ecosystem.
Dissonance Dance Theatre's first major theatrical venture. A five-week engagement reimagining Shakespeare's tragedy through the lens of the American Civil Rights Movement and Malcolm X's legacy — 5,250+ audience members across six performances weekly. Playwright: Al Letson (Peabody Award winner, Reveal podcast). Director: Nicole Brewer. Folger Artistic Director: Karen Ann Daniels.
The first comprehensive documentation of over 90 years of Black concert dance excellence in Washington, DC. Built from 16+ years of fieldwork begun in 2009 — interviews with dance elders, U Street newspaper archives, Scurlock Studio photographs from the Smithsonian. Supported by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Free PDF available →
90-minute documentary chronicling Washington, DC's Black Same Gender Loving community through House music culture from the 1980s through 2000s. Builds on the award-winning legacy of Company D (Best Documentary, DC International Cinema Festival 2023) and MUTE (Winner, Best Dance Film, Cannes World Film Festival).
Centralized audition and paid-work platform for the Greater Washington, DC dance ecosystem. Open to dancers 18 and older. A partnership with The Creative Space — addressing a long-standing infrastructure gap in the DMV's professional dance landscape.
Shawn Short serves on Bowie State University's Department of Fine & Performing Arts faculty and as strategic planning consultant supporting the launch of BSU's Bachelor of Arts in Dance degree in 2026 — an HBCU/nonprofit-arts model that extends Ngoma's reach into Maryland's oldest historically Black university.
The Lineage
Southern roots with DC-area rearing. Shawn Short has studied with nationally and internationally acclaimed artists across the major Black dance lineages and classical ballet pedagogy traditions.
- Alvin Ailey American Dance Center
- Lines Ballet
- Washington Ballet
- Dance Theatre of Harlem
- Dance Institute of Washington
- Dance Alloy
- Philadanco
- Towson University
- Duke Ellington School of the Arts
- John White
- Margarita De Saa
- Kee Juan HanDirector, Washington School of Ballet
- K2 Dance
- Adrian Bolton Dance
- El Teatro de Danza Contemporanea, El Salvador
- Bolton/Smith
- Guest Artist · Dance Alloy, Pennsylvania
Awards & Recognition
Education & Affiliations
Press, Speaking & Engagement
- Wild Side MediaIn conversation with Monica Alford · Julius X press, 2025
- The HilltopHoward University's newspaper (co-founded 1924 by Zora Neale Hurston) · As Howard alumnus, 2025
- Forbes Potential Headshot Feature2022
- PBS BroadcastingReflect Movement #1, 2012
- Fox 5 Television
- AFA Minority Fellowship Program GalaSmithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, 2024
- Working In The Arts Virtual EventIndustry panel with Dance Works Chicago co-founder Julie Nakagawa · 100 students & arts professionals, 2024
- IABD 35th Annual ConferenceInternational Association of Blacks in Dance · Pittsburgh, January 2025
- AdjudicatorPublick Playhouse's inaugural Uplift Festival audition, October 2022
- Podcast HostThe Basement Ballet (DDT) & Dissecting The Dance World for Us (The Ngoma School) · Launched December 2023
Press, speaking, and commissions.
For media interviews, speaking engagements, choreographic commissions, research collaboration on DC Black dance history, or production inquiries — contact the Ngoma Center for Dance office. All requests are reviewed and routed by the appropriate program lead.