Michelle Chassé

Michelle Chassé began teaching ballet, jazz, and musical theater dance at the Conservatory in 1994 and is a professor of theater. She became resident choreographer and musical theater dance coordinator in 2000 and chair of musical theater dance in 2013. She currently teaches ballet, jazz, and musical theater dance classes, as well as the musical theater senior dance emphasis course.

Chassé trained with the Boston Ballet School and Maestro Vincenzo Celli and was on scholarship at the School of American Ballet. She graduated cum laude with a B.F.A. in dance performance from Boston Conservatory, where she was the first recipient of the prestigious Ruth Sandholm Ambrose Award and later received the Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award. She has studied and performed with ballet, concert dance, and Broadway legends from around the world.

Chassé has directed and choreographed numerous productions for the esteemed musical theater program at the Conservatory, including Candide, The Wild Party, and The Pajama Game, for which efforts she has received critical acclaim within Boston and New York ranks. She received a 2014 ArtsImpulse Best Musical nomination for her direction of Boston Conservatory’s On the Town and was awarded Best Choreography for the same production. Her work on Le Cabaret Grimm, featured in the 2012 New York Musical Theatre Festival, earned her an honorable mention at that festival’s awards ceremony, and in that same year her concert dance piece Red Smoke Rises was performed by Boston’s Urbanity Dance company at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. Chassé created and continues to direct the acclaimed Boston Conservatory Musical Theater Dance Intensive (MTDI) summer program, which is attended by dance students from around the world. Her continued choreography and stage direction for such internationally recognized ensembles as the Boston Pops Orchestra and the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus have received accolades from audiences and critics alike.

Professional Awards and Recognitions

• Best Choreography, On the Town at Boston Conservatory (ArtsImpulse Theatre Awards, 2014)
• Best Choreography Honorable Mention, Le Cabaret Grimm (New York Musical Theatre Festival, 2012)
• Distinguished Alumni Award (Boston Conservatory, 2004)