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General Music Teacherwwilliams-caseyhtcsyork.orgWarkenda G. Williams-Casey, the founder and Artistic Director of Black Swan Ballet Company, is an experienced Elemental Music and Movement teacher, ballet teacher and choreographer, and certified interpreter for the Deaf. She is a certified Rommett Floor Barre® instructor and has studied directly with Camille Rommett in NYC to bring this exceptional technique to dancers in our region. She continues to study of the Orff Schulwerk method of music and movement and brings this experience to her classes as well as her extensive music, stage and education and experience.
Music and Movement have always been a part of her life and teaching. While most Elemental Music and Movement teachers have come to the classroom through their music studies, Warkenda comes from a traditional dance background and a true love of all things music. She has played several instruments (trumpet, French horn, hand chimes, guitar to name a few) for most of her life, and sang and performed in various choirs and musicals from childhood through adulthood. She is a teaching artist for Weary Arts Group where she teaches, choreographs and directs in the lower Susquehanna valley for all ages.
Warkenda studied Psychology and Special Education at Carson-Newman College. She began her dance training at the age of five with Bristol Ballet in Tennessee and fell in love with the stage at an early age. She has had the pleasure of training with directors, choreographers, and dancers from such notable companies as Alvin Ailey and the Nashville Ballet. She studied Vaganova method and neoclassical (Balanchine-oriented) ballet technique, which continue to influence her teaching and choreography. She has also performed with the Spirit of Norfolk Harbor Cruises, and ZWG Performing Arts Company. She was first given the opportunity to choreograph at Carson-Newman for the theatre arts program in productions such as “The King and I” and became the dance captain, coach, and choreographer for Praiseline Dance Company. Some of her favorite choreographed and performed works include Dracula the Ballet, For Colored Girls…, Metamorphoses, Little Shop of Horrors, Footloose, and Doubt.
Upon graduation, Ms, Williams- Casey became certified as an interpreter for the Deaf. She began connecting her love of dance and theatre with education by teaching and interpreting in the Virginia Beach School System. There, she combined movement therapy with special education and linguistics in a unique program. She also formed “Kid’s DOT” (Kids Deaf Outstanding Theatre), a performing company for children in the Deaf Studies program in Virginia Beach which drew upon her knowledge and love of ASL (American Sign Language) and dance therapy to provide performance opportunities to children. In Baltimore, she created “Hands in Motion” which brought a similar outreach program to children who were hearing as well as those who were Deaf. She has also taught and interpreted in special education classrooms for a variety of Schools of the Arts, and for dance and theatre programs in Pennsylvania and in the South.
She started combining her love of music with her dance and music when she was introduced to the Orff Schulwerk way of teaching General Music and Movement. After attending several workshops and conferences she decided to peruse her Orff Schulwerk Music and Movement at George Mason University. She has had the privledge of teaching other Elemental Music and Movement teachers at Peabody University in MD, California School System, Portland Orff Association, and West Chester University to name just a few.
Ms. Willams-Casey' personal philosophy of teaching is to respect the traditions of our chosen craft, meet each performer where they are, encourage growth and mistakes in a safe environment, and be open to miracles that happen every day.
Warkenda resides in York, PA with her three children and husband.
