Hamilton Academy Alumni Assoc. Now has 35 dance graduates making a difference in their communities around the world!
I am Marcia M. Hebert and I attended Hamilton Academy from 1985 to 1998. I enjoyed the many opportunities that we had as a dance company to perform all over the United States and Louisiana. I am currently a resident of New Orleans, LA and work for an investment banking firm. I am also a full time student working on an MBA. My future goals include founding or being involved with an organization that focuses on offering young girls opportunities to develop a high self-esteem, confidence, respect and the freedom to express oneself. I enjoy working out, fashion, good music and I still enjoy dance and all creative arts.
“The belief that becomes truth for me…is that which allows me the best use of my strength, the best means of putting
my virtues into action -Andre’ Gide
Millicent Johnnie
Native of Lafayette, Louisiana received both her BFA and MFA in Dance at the Florida State University. Ms. Johnnie served on the Tulane University and Dillard University Dance Faculty located in New Orleans, Louisiana after touring as resident choreographer and rehearsal director of the Urban Bush Women in New York City. Johnnie moved to New York City after teaching Hip Hop and Jazz movement several years as a veteran staff member of the Universal Dance Association based in Memphis, Tennessee. Millicent co-founded the Phlava Hip Hop and Jazz Dance Company based in Tallahassee, Florida receiving a Prague International Dance Festival “Best Choreography” award and “First Place International Dance Title” for Hip Hop Choreography entitled Wrath.
Millicent’s Choreography has been featured on Cleo Parker-Robinson Dance, The Urban Bush Women, Hubbard Street II, The Alternate Roots Cultural Tour Uprooted: The Katrina Project, ESPN, the Prince William Network, Sunshine Network and has been presented at venues such as the Danspace project Food for Thought (NYC), Dancenow/NYC Dance Harlem and Joyce Soho Series (NYC), Kennedy Center Millennium Stage (Washington D.C.), The Yard at Lincoln Center (NYC), International Association for Blacks in Dance Conference 2000, 2001, 2002 (TX, CA, D.C.), The Houston Black Dance Festival (TX), The New Orleans Jazz Dance Project (New Orleans, LA).
She has been recognized as a guest artist at the Tougaloo College- Mississippi Hip Hop Youth Festival, University of Tennessee- Knoxville, The Carpet Bag Theatre- Show what you know Festival, Florida State/ Urban Bush Women- Summer Dance Institute, Florida A & M University, Amherst College- Project 2050, University of North Western Louisiana, University of South Carolina at Aiken, University of Central Florida, Barry University, Auburn University, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Jacksonville University and Rollins College.
In 2003, Millicent received funding through Arts International to travel to Brazil in which she trained with Abada Capoeira, Capoeira Brazil, and at the Escola da Dansa in historic Salvador, Bahia. By merging her informal and formal American dance training in Hip Hop with instruction of the Brazilian marital art capoeira, Brazilian folkloric dance and Caribbean influenced movement; Johnnie created a hybrid form of contemporary vocabulary. Coincidentally, the following summer Johnnie was given the opportunity to travel to Havana, Cuba through a partnership developed between Florida A & M University and the University of Havana, which enabled her to take a cultural studies approach to looking at social dance forms that developed among black Cuban culture.
