Clarissa Newby Phillips

Director/Choreographer, Dance Educator, Entrepreneur, Curator

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Professor Newby-Phillips formerly served 11 years as the Dance Department Chair at Newark School of

the Arts (NJ) and served as Dance Educator and Artistic Curator to the City of East Orange

Department of Recreation and Cultural Affairs. She is an alumni of her hometown, East Orange, and

has worked thirty+ years as a Dance Educator and Mentor in Essex County Public School Districts (NJ).

Professor Newby-Phillips continues to grow her artistic circle of collaborators: Mansa Musa, Simone, Dion

Parson and 21st Century Band, Ron Blake, Maurice Chestnut, Savion Glover, Christopher Huggins

, and others to come. She was honored to be an Artist in Residence for the past nine years at Cicely Tyson

School’s Theater Department as a Choreographer, where she received nominations for Outstanding Staging

and Choreography by The Papermill Playhouse Rising Star Awards: The Color Purple Musical (2014).

The Wiz (2015); Sister Act The Musical (2017); Dreamgirls (2021). She has written, directed,

choreographed and debuted her original musical GIRL ROCK HOUSE in June-October 2018.

She recently received an invitation to join the Creative Team of Rebel Stages/School of Visual and

Performing Arts (Lion King Jr.). She founded and debuted Elements Of Style Dance Company as

Artistic Director (September 2021) featured in the recent Tribute to Cicely Tyson, “In Her Own Words”

December 17, 2021, and invited opening act for Fred Hammond in ‘Gospel Day’ at The Indiana State Fair,

August 21, 2022. Clarissa is in receipt of Senate Recognition for her work as Director and Choreographer at

the E. Menendez Trailblazer Awards, March 26, 2023.

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Her television and theatrical experiences include the 1993 Essence Awards choreographed by Michael Peters

with featured artists: Danny Glover, Patti La Belle, Bill Cosby, Gail Devers, Tina Turner, and others;

choreographer/supporting role as Tammy in the Gospel musical "Lord Lift Us Higher" by Jimmie Black:

and ballet mistress/dancer in the Gospel musical “In Praise” by Rev. Crystal Newby-Reynolds. Her vocal

career was with the singing group Nubian Empire; it was full of great beginnings with Spike Lee, Bill

Bellamy, Club artist CeCe Rogers, Taravhonty, and Ralph Carter. Her professional career experiences include:

Dance Specialist and Day Camp Director at YWCA of West Essex and Hudson in Orange, N.J.;

Teacher of Jazz Dance, Rutgers University Mason Gross, New Brunswick, N.J.;

New Jersey Performing Arts Center United Way Artist-in-Residence where her dance work was selected to be

presented for Judith Jamison at the annual Women's Day Luncheon, Newark, N.J.

 

She has created and developed Dance Education Programs and Co-Directed productions for prominent

artists, historians, and political leaders such as Cicely Tyson, Louis Johnson, Rosa Parks, Christine

Whitman, Maya Angelou, Dance Theater of Harlem, etc. She was also the Director of Dance at the

prestigious Blair Academy in Blairstown, New Jersey; Adjunct Professor in the Division of Humanities and

Social Sciences at Northampton Community College in Bethlehem PA. She served as choreographer for the

praise dance ministries of Faith International Church in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. Mrs. Newby Phillips has also

founded and directed her own school, The Pocono Conservatory for the Arts, LLC; Home of her professional

adult dance company, Phillips Dance Theater. The company debuted at the Sherman Theater (2007)

and opened the Fred Hammond/Judith McCalister concert in the Poconos November 2008.

Clarissa Newby-Phillips is honored to have been selected as co-choreographer for the Essex County Links, Inc.

Cotillion and Beautillion since 1995.

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“Dance empowers growth of body and mind, one without the other is meaningless”

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-Clarissa Newby-Phillips