San­dra L Blood

blood­l­sandy@gmail.com

For more than three decades, Na­tal­ie Rogers-Crop­per has em­bod­ied a style, a dis­ci­pline, and a lega­cy. Ac­tor, ed­u­ca­tor, di­rec­tor and mul­ti­ple-award-win­ning dancer, she has spent her life mov­ing—across coun­tries, across gen­er­a­tions, and across stages — with the Fa­gan tech­nique puls­ing through every step.

Born in Trinidad in De­cem­ber 1961, Rogers-Crop­per is a proud alum­na of Bish­op Anstey Ju­nior and High Schools, where the seeds of dis­ci­pline and artis­tic dri­ve were first plant­ed. Her for­mal train­ing be­gan at the Caribbean School of Danc­ing, where she stud­ied bal­let with Pa­tri­cia Roe, Di­anne Bovell-Young and Mar­cia Mose. She was al­so in­tro­duced to the Martha Gra­ham tech­nique un­der No­ble Dou­glas.

Some of Trinidad’s most revered chore­o­g­ra­phers—As­tor John­son, Car­ol LaChapelle, Joyce Kir­ton, An­dre Largen, Pat Roe, No­ble Dou­glas and Eu­gene Joseph—helped shape the young dancer’s path.

In 1980, she left Trinidad to study at the pres­ti­gious Juil­liard School in New York City, even­tu­al­ly earn­ing her BFA in Dance. Af­ter grad­u­at­ing, she danced with com­pa­nies in New York and New Jer­sey, in­clud­ing Ohad Na­harin—the for­mer artis­tic di­rec­tor of Is­rael’s Bat­she­va Dance Com­pa­ny—and Glenn Lund Dance.

In 1989, Rogers-Crop­per joined Garth Fa­gan Dance, where she would spend the next 36 years as a prin­ci­pal dancer. Her per­for­mances—across North and South Amer­i­ca, the Caribbean, Africa, Eu­rope, Chi­na, Aus­tralia, New Zealand and the South Pa­cif­ic—drew crit­i­cal ac­claim. She danced lead­ing roles in Es­tro­gen Ge­nius, In Con­flict, No Ev­i­dence of Fail­ure, Gri­ot New York, Mix 25, Moth Dreams, and Telling a Sto­ry, earn­ing sig­nif­i­cant recog­ni­tion be­tween 1992 and 1994.

She didn’t just per­form Fa­gan’s vi­sion—she helped build it. Rogers-Crop­per as­sist­ed in stag­ing chore­og­ra­phy for The Li­on King on Broad­way, coach­ing the show’s dancers in Fa­gan’s dis­tinc­tive move­ment vo­cab­u­lary. She sup­port­ed his work on Elling­ton Ela­tion for the New York City Bal­let, Juke­box for Alvin for the Alvin Ai­ley Amer­i­can Dance The­ater, and even for the Vic­to­ria’s Se­cret Fash­ion Show in Los An­ge­les.

Her abil­i­ty to trans­late Fa­gan’s chore­og­ra­phy across set­tings and skill lev­els made her a valu­able col­lab­o­ra­tor in ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions as well. She set From Be­fore on dancers at Alvin Ai­ley Amer­i­can Dance The­ater, the Peck School of the Arts (Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin, Mil­wau­kee), New World School of the Arts (Mi­a­mi), Ni­a­gara Coun­ty Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege’s Tanzen Dance Com­pa­ny, the School of the Arts (Rochester), and Brook­lyn’s Dance­wave. She al­so helped stage 2 Pieces of One: Green on stu­dents at Wayne State Uni­ver­si­ty, Kent State Uni­ver­si­ty, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Min­neso­ta, and North­west­ern Uni­ver­si­ty.

Along­side teach­ing and per­form­ing, Rogers-Crop­per con­tributed orig­i­nal chore­og­ra­phy to the com­pa­ny. In Au­gust 2023, her first piece for Garth Fa­gan Dance, Life Re­ced­ing, pre­miered.

With­in the com­pa­ny, she serves as ex­ec­u­tive, school and as­sis­tant re­hearsal di­rec­tor—work­ing close­ly with artis­tic di­rec­tor Nor­wood Pen­newell. She over­sees re­hearsals, teach­es both chil­dren and adults, and con­tin­ues to lead mas­ter class­es around the world.

In 2020, as the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic chal­lenged the vi­a­bil­i­ty of arts or­gan­i­sa­tions every­where, Rogers-Crop­per took on a new role: act­ing de­vel­op­ment di­rec­tor. Her lead­er­ship helped the com­pa­ny set fundrais­ing records, earn­ing her a dis­tin­guished award in 2021 for her ef­forts both on and off stage.

She al­so di­rects the GFD Sum­mer Move­ment In­sti­tute, where young peo­ple are ex­posed to the Fa­gan tech­nique along­side field trips to cul­tur­al in­sti­tu­tions, dance analy­sis, and arts ed­u­ca­tion.

“The school is con­sid­ered a de­vel­op­men­tal tool for all ages, build­ing self-es­teem and lead­er­ship qual­i­ties, and in gen­er­al, help­ing im­prove men­tal, emo­tion­al and spir­i­tu­al well­ness and well­be­ing,” Rogers-Crop­per said.

In the Rochester com­mu­ni­ty, she has made dance more ac­ces­si­ble through part­ner­ships with the Ur­ban League, the Rochester City School Dis­trict, the Boys and Girls Club, the Carl­son Metro­Cen­ter YM­CA, and the Rochester Po­lice De­part­ment. Her out­reach en­sures that stu­dents from di­verse back­grounds—in­clud­ing many who oth­er­wise could not af­ford dance ed­u­ca­tion—are wel­comed through need-based schol­ar­ships. Each year, over 150 chil­dren and adults take part in GFDS’s free com­mu­ni­ty class­es held an­nu­al­ly on Mar­tin Luther King, Jr Day.

Men­tor, teacher, per­former and ad­vo­cate, Rogers-Crop­per re­mains deeply com­mit­ted to broad­en­ing ac­cess to dance.

“My goal is to en­sure that every­one who wants to ex­pe­ri­ence dance has a chance to do so,” she said, “and that the ben­e­fits there­of—to phys­i­cal fit­ness, cre­ative, in­tel­lec­tu­al and emo­tion­al out­lets, con­nect­ing with peers and boost­ing con­fi­dence and self-es­teem—will in­flu­ence as many lives as pos­si­ble.”

Tele­vi­sion Per­for­mances

* Sat­ur­day Night Live (NBC–Dancer and ex­tra)

* Great Per­for­mances: Gri­ot New York (1992)

* With Wyn­ton Marsalis Septet (1992)

* The 66th An­nu­al Acad­e­my Awards (1992)

Awards

* Bessie Award for Dance and Per­for­mance (1992)

* Pres­i­dent’s Award for Cre­ativ­i­ty and Ex­cel­lence in the Per­form­ing Arts, Trinidad and To­ba­go (1994)

* Women of Ex­cel­lence Award, Rochester Busi­ness Jour­nal (2021)

* Vot­ed one of the Top 3 Mod­ern Dancers in the World, Dance Mag­a­zine Read­ers’ Choice (2004)

* Fea­tured as the on­ly dancer from a US-based com­pa­ny in Dance mag­a­zine’s in­ter­na­tion­al cal­en­dar (Feb­ru­ary 2004)