The Maggie Allesee Department of Theatre and Dance is proud to announce the hiring of active and acclaimed choreographer/performer Nicholas Leichter to a one-year lecturer position. Leichter will be creating new choreography on Wayne State students, as well as teaching Modern technique and contributing in other courses and capacities.

NICHOLAS LEICHTER (Choreographer/Artistic Director) has taught throughout the United States and at festivals in Africa, Asia, Canada, and Eastern and Western Europe, and he has been on faculty at Tisch School of the Arts, (Tisch Dance and Experimental Theater Wing), Bates Dance Festival and the American Dance Festival in Durham, New York, Russia, Korea, and Shanghai. Leichter has created over 25 works for his own company, including Carmina Burana and Rite of Spring commissioned by the Brooklyn Philharmonic, Sweetwash with Eisa Davis for The Duncan Theatre at Palm Beach Community College, and the trilogy of Killa, A Space Funk Invasion and the nationally acclaimed The Whiz in collaboration with Monstah Black. Recent commissions include The Barnard Project, University of North Carolina School of the Arts, University of The Arts, je danse donc je suis in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso and The Chicago Dancing Festival. Leichter has been artist-in-residence and guest artist at many institutions including CSU Summer Arts, Sarah Lawrence College, Hollins University, George Washington University, University of Houston, Muhlenberg College, and Idaho State University. Leichter received the 2006 Mariam McGlone Emerging Choreographer Award from Wesleyan University. He has received 2 Choreographer Fellowships from NYFA, (2002, 2008) and the first National Performance Network/Network of Cultural Centers of Color Artist-of-Color Residency Award at Sacramento State, (2008). He received the 2009 Copperfoot Award for Choreography from Wayne State University. Leichter is the 2012 Young Arts Mentor in Choreography, a 2013 Young Arts Master Teacher and a '12/13 Artist in Residence at Pentacle.

Founded in 1996, New York City based Nicholas Leichter Dance has performed in over 50 cities in 17 states and 12 countries at venues including The Joyce Theater; the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House with the Brooklyn Philharmonic; The John C. Wright Theater at CSU Fresno; The Duncan Theatre at Palm Beach Community College, FL; The Jefferson Center in Roanoke, VA; Modlin Center for the Performing Arts at University of Richmond; Central Park Summerstage; The Dorothy H. Baker Theater at Muhlenberg College, PA; Reynolds Industries Theater at Duke University; Diana Wortham Theater in Asheville, NC; Bates Dance Festival; The Broadway Center in Tacoma, WA; the Fabuleus International Theater Festival in Leuven, Belgium; Kaohsiung Jazz Dance Congress in Taiwan; Freedance in Ukraine; Time to Dance in Riga, Latvia; Just For Laughs Festival, Montreal, and Dialogue de Corps Festival at the Centre de Développement Chorégraphique La Termitière in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso at the invitation of the United States Department of State. In recognition of his unique approach to contemporary dance, Leichter has received support from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, The Joyce Theater Foundation, New York City, with major support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, National Performance Network, New York Foundation for the Arts, Jerome Foundation, The Greenwall Foundation, The 92nd Street Y New Works in Dance Fund, the American Music Center Live Music for Dance Program, New York State Council on the Arts, New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) through the National Dance Project (NDP) with generous support from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the MetLife Community Connections Fund of the MetLife Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts