Karilyn Ashley Surratt is a multi-talented dancer, singer, and actor whose 20 years of entertainment industry experience spans from creative development to final production and from the studio/classroom to stage/screen.
Selected credits include being the first Native American Radio City Rockette (10 seasons), Rockette brand ambassador for the company’s partnership with Norwegian Cruise Line, Fox’s Gotham (choreographer, co-star), SNL (featured dancer; showgirl), Irving Berlin’s White Christmas National Tour, West Side Story International Tour (Consuelo; Anita & Rosalia u/s), Reader’s Digest (cover model), BET/OnBlast (voiceover artist), and writing for publications and social media representing several theatre companies.
Ms. Surratt’s latest creative work includes script consulting, contributing to musical arrangements for the indigenous music sequence, and choreographing for Star of Freedom, a new musical, at Ivoryton Playhouse, creating art for the people during the pandemic as assistant choreographer for A Part of The Main, a collaborative work in the New York Free Arts Festival at Little Island, and opening The Muny’s 103rd season in Smokey Joe’s Café as associate choreographer & standby. She was also associate choreographer and dramaturge for Shenandoah Summer Music Theatre’s most recent production of 42nd Street.
Ms. Surratt especially enjoys teaching and helping students of all ages foster a love and appreciation for dance and performing arts. As such, she has been an adjunct master dance instructor at Molloy University/CAP21 in NYC, a guest ballet instructor and choreographer for Oklahoma City University’s Broadway Bound Summer Intensive, and a guest instructor, speaker, and teaching artist in residence at Oklahoma City University’s Ann Lacy School of American Dance and Entertainment, University of Kansas’ Department of Theatre and Dance, and Goodspeed Musicals’ Arts Education Collaboration, among others. Oklahoma City’s Dunbar Elementary School awarded her with a special recognition for her work conceiving and presenting an outstanding educational Black History Month Program.
Currently, Ms. Surratt teaches dance as a guest teacher and speaker, and she is on the faculty of nationally recognized theatre professionals at Muny U, The Muny’s virtual Education Program for high school students. She is an ABT® National Training Curriculum Certified Teacher; Pre-Primary through Level Three, and is pursuing a Master of Arts in Dance Education and ABT® Pedagogy at New York University.
Ms. Surratt, a citizen of Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, received her Bachelor of Performing Arts in dance performance from Oklahoma City University, where she studied with Jo Rowan and Robert L. Reed. She has also studied in NYC with Kat Wildish and Madame Gabriela Darvash, in St. Louis with Pelagie G. Wren, Danny Clark, and at COCA with Lee Nolting, and in Kansas City on scholarship at Missouri State Ballet (now Kansas City Ballet). Ms. Surratt is also a member of Actors’ Equity Association, SAG-AFTRA, American Guild of Musical Artists, and Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.
DANCE EDUCATOR
teaching philosophy
“My mission as a dance instructor is to promote each student’s artistic and personal development by infusing class sessions with information and experiences that increase technical proficiency, nurture critical thinking, demonstrate culturally germane applications of the subject matter, and empower students to be active participants in their education.
I strive to respect each person involved in the learning process, value every relationship and class session as an opportunity to share knowledge and to gain greater understanding, to recognize the uniqueness of every student, and to respect the educational goals of the organization, university, school, and student.
I seek to always continue to grow as a teacher through my own studies of dance techniques and in my own teaching practice. And I endeavor to lead my students by example, respecting the studio as a place to investigate one’s own connection to and understanding of the technique, to commit to the work, to fall, to identify the rough and weak spots, to make conscious corrections, and to succeed the next time.
To paraphrase Rumi, this being a dancer is a guesthouse. With each new student, with each new class, and with each new day, there is a new arrival. A triumph over an elusive step, pirouettes that don’t come as abundantly as the day before, a class that comes the day after a long night of tech rehearsal, some fleeting realization comes as an unexpected visitor. I welcome and entertain them all.
I hope the same for each of my students - that in pursuit of their artistic and personal development they will respect the learning process, reciprocate the sharing of knowledge with their own understanding, value the uniqueness in their peers, and commit to lifelong learning goals.”
-Karilyn Ashley Surratt
teaching history
CREATIVE DEVELOPMENT
selected credits
PERFORMANCE PORTFOLIO
selected credits
