Ashley L. Tate

Ashley L. Tate is a director, choreographer, educator, and performer from Saint Louis, Missouri.  She is an assistant professor of dance at UNC Charlotte, an affiliate faculty member with the Department of Africana Studies, and founder, artistic director, and executive director of Ashleyliane Dance Company (ADC). Tate earned her BS degree in Computer Information Science from Texas Christian University and received her MFA in Dance from Washington University in St. Louis, where she was a recipient of the Spencer T. & Ann W. Olin Fellowship for Women in Graduate Study.  Her current research focus centers around the intersection of arts, education, culture, and civic engagement. She has presented her research at several conferences and conventions, including the 2024 European Hip Hop Studies Network Conference in Cork, Ireland.  

Tate served as an adjunct professor of dance at Saint Louis University, Washington University in St. Louis, Webster University, and Southeast Missouri State University, and as the former chair of the dance department at Grand Center Arts Academy. She is a recipient of Grand Center’s Emerging Artist Visionary Award and has served as a judge for the Fox Performing Arts Charitable Foundation’s Teen Talent Showcase for several years. She won the Pulse On Tour Dance Convention Protégé Scholarship and a Monsters of Hip Hop Scholarship, and she also earned a nomination for the Monsters Show. Clear Talent Group in Los Angeles, California, signed her as both a dancer and dance educator.

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In addition to performing in various cities across Missouri, she presented her work in showcases at the Peridance Capezio Center, TADA! Theater, and Baruch Performing Arts Center in New York City; the Black Choreographers Festival in Baltimore, Maryland; the Choreographer’s Carnival in Chicago, Illinois; the North Carolina Dance Festival in Greensboro, NC; and the Versatility Dance Festival in Boulder, Colorado, and Santa Monica, California, among others. She is a co-producer for Dance the Vote, a non-partisan, grassroots, arts-based voter registration initiative founded by Joan Lipkin. She is also a key participant in the nationally recognized No Tears Project, a multidisciplinary festival founded by Oxford American Magazine in 2017 to honor Civil Rights history. 

Tate has choreographed for the concert stage, NCAA and NFL basketball and football halftime shows, studio recitals, theatre productions, and national and regional dance competitions. She teaches master classes and workshops in contemporary, jazz, hip hop, modern, improvisation, and composition. She was a member of the Saint Louis Rams Football Cheerleaders, serving as a captain for two years. Tate is currently a member of the National Dance Education Organization, the Dance Studies Association, and the International Association of Blacks in Dance. Tate also serves as Vice-President of Communications for the North Carolina chapter of the National Dance Education Organization.