MJ EDWARDS

sweat lab emerging choreographer

Michael Edwards Jr, today known as MJ, was born in Middletown, NY. They began their professional training at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School. While at LaGuardia, they trained on scholarship at the American Ballet Theatre JKO School, Steps on Broadway, and French Academie of Ballet. They further studied and performed with MOVE|NYC|, where they had the opportunity to work with notable faculty such as Jermaine Spivey, Sidra Bell, Maleek Washington, Navarra Novy-Williams, and Jamall Callender, along with many others. Additionally, they performed the works of Azsure Barton, Shamel Pitts, Nigel Campbell, Yin Yue and Gregory Dolbashian. In 2017 MJ began studying at the San Francisco Ballet School. There they achieved the San Francisco Ballet School Choreographic Fellowship and had the privilege of premiering their own work, “Constant Search”, for the San Francisco Ballet School’s 2019 Spring Festival Performance. They are a 2019 YoungArts Winner in Modern/Contemporary, as well as a 2019 Meringoff Family Foundation Valedictory Prize Winner. MJ also attended The Juilliard School in pursuit of a BFA in Dance. During their time at Juilliard, they worked with choreographers such as Ohad Naharin, Sonya Tayeh, Amy Hall Garner, and Andrea Miller and performed the work “Crossing the Rubicon” by Donald Mckayle at The David H. Koch Theater. Since departing Juilliard, they were an artistic assistant and performer with The Francesca Harper Project. They most recently joined the Limón Dance Company in 2021. Currently, MJ is inspired to deepen their choreographic voice.