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 Thomas Warfield
is the
founder and artistic director of PeaceArt
International and director of dance and faculty
member at the National Technical Institute for the
Deaf at the Rochester Institute of Technology in
Rochester, New York. He is the director of
the RIT / NTID Dance Company, associate director
of Kaleidoscope Dance Theatre at the New York
Institute of Dance, as well as the vocal soloist
at Unity Church.
Having a minister
for a mother, conductor for a father, and being
the nephew of internationally renowned singers
William Warfield and Leontyne Price, it is no
small wonder that at the age of 4, while studying
piano, Thomas Warfield began a career on the
stage. Thomas wrote his first play in the 6th
grade about  African- American, Dr. Daniel Hale
Williams, the first open-heart surgeon, and
directed A Raisin in the Sun his senior year in
High School. At ages 17 and 18, he won the
regional Omega Psi Phi Contest's vocal category
for two consecutive years.
 His 14yrs. with the Opera
Theatre of Rochester, and performances with the
New York City Opera and Metropolitan Opera
afforded Mr. Warfield the experience of working
with many of the world's leading artists,
including directors Franco Zefferelli and Spike
Lee, composers John Adams and Marvin Hamlisch,
scientist Carl Sagan, singers Placido Domingo and
Beverly Sills and many others.
While
a music & theatre major at Nazareth College,
Thomas Warfield's vocal repertoire expanded into
German Lieder and French
Chansons.  Some of
his numerous theatrical productions have included:
directing & producing multi-cultural
/multi-arts concerts, the "Tinman" in The Wiz,
"Tulsa" in Gypsy, the "MC" in Cabaret, and
"Scipio" in Porgy and Bess, cabaret singer, guest
vocalist in churches around the world, dozens of
operas and musicals, along with performing plays
of Ibsen, Checov, Racine, and playing
Shakespeare's Hamlet. Thomas Warfield began ballet
training with Olive McCue in Rochester, NY. He's
held scholarships at The School of American
Ballet, Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance
and The Joffrey Ballet School in New York
City.
Mr.
Warfield earned a BFA in Dance from SUNY Purchase,
receiving the President's Award for Excellence.
Both the New York Times and the Hong Kong Daily
Standard wrote of his ".. exemplary" performances
with The Purchase Dance Corps, with whom he
performed at the New York Stravinsky Festival and
the International Festival of Dance Academies in
Hong Kong. Thomas Warfield has danced in works by
Balanchine, Anthony Tudor, Martha Graham, Merce
Cunningham, Paul Taylor, Jose Limon, Isadora
Duncan, Mary Wigman, Doris Humphrey, B. Nijinska,
Valslav Nijinsky, Jane Dudley, Twyla Tharp, Bill
T. Jones & Arnie Zane, Sally Hess, and Tandy
Beal among others. He's choreographed for HBO
'Short Takes Films' as well as for dance companies
around the world.
In 1988, Mr. Warfield was
invited to perform Lestor Horton's The Beloved,
coached by Carmen DeLavallade, at the Dance
Theatre of Harlem's Open House. For 10 years, he
was invited to dance/choreograph at The Yard (a
performing arts colony on Martha's Vineyard). Jane
Dudley asked him to perform her solo Time is Money
(the first time this work was performed since Ms.
Dudley's own performance in 1935) in NYC for the
New Dance Group Celebration and film, at
Bennington College, and in London, where the
British paper, the Morning Star wrote, his
"...sensitive, superbly trained body filled every
word and every movement with bitter
meaning."
 As a
professional dancer, singer, pianist, actor,
composer, choreographer, music & theatre
director, teacher, producer and poet, Mr. Warfield
has traveled to dozens of cities throughout the
U.S. as well as Hong Kong, London, Tokyo, Paris,
Amsterdam, Rome, Athens, Taiwan, Bangkok, Seoul,
Stockholm, mainland China and Macau - where he was
associate director and guest artist for a Chinese
dance company, and decorated as an honorary
citizen of Macau. For 2 years, Thomas was dance
captain and performer with the Viva Musical Circus
in Japan (a Japanese version of Cirque du Soleil)
- a goodwill collaboration between American,
Japanese and Russian (Moscow Circus)
artists.
The city of Rennes, France
invited Mr. Warfield (accompanying Rochester's
Mayor Johnson), as the only performing artist, to
present a solo concert in Rennes in celebration of
the 40th anniversary of Rochester/Rennes Sister
Cities Association.
 Receiving a Research Fellowship, Thomas
Warfield was a MFA degree candidate at the
University of Utah, where he founded and was
president of DanceArt, a performing arts company
dedicated to social and environmental awareness.
The group was nationally recognized for raising
funds & consciousness about Romanian orphaned
children afflicted with the AIDS virus. At the
University of Utah, Thomas served as president of
the Fine Arts Student Council, a member of the
University's Liberal Education Committee, a
founding member of the Multicultural Board, and a
teaching assistant in the Ethnic Studies and
Modern Dance Departments, Mr. Warfield represented
the University of Utah at three American College
Dance Festivals, and in 1991 was an invited guest
speaker at the National Graduate Students'
Conference on Interdisciplinary Studies at Lehigh
University in Pennsylvania.
 Thomas
Warfield has presented solo concerts and workshops
in schools, hospitals, community centers,
theological seminaries, homeless shelters, and
correctional facilities; working with urban youth,
professional dancers/musicians, the elderly,
mentally & physically disabled, drug/alcohol
abusers, blind & deaf children, AIDS/cancer
patients and many others around the world. Thomas
Warfield has taught extensively in the U.S.A. and
abroad on a variety of subjects including: ballet,
modern and African-based dance, choreography,
improvisation, piano, voice, drama, poetry,
English, African-American studies, art/religion,
classes on self-esteem, and workshops on nurturing
compassion. Mr. Warfield is also a
facilitator/trainer for the National Coalition
Building Institute (NCBI) doing workshops for
schools and corporations in leadership training,
welcoming diversity, prejudice reduction and
non-violent conflict resolution.
 Thomas Warfield
is the founder and artistic director of PeaceArt
International, a not-for-profit (501c3)
local/global outreach organization utilizing the
arts to foster world peace and dedicated to the
multidimensionality of the creative human
experience, facilitating greater human
understanding and building community through
individual and collective creativity in the arts.
The international publication Planetary
Connections wrote that PeaceArt International
helps define peace "... by creating rich and
meaningful experiences for people to share their
ideas with one another." (Winter
1994).
Mr. Warfield
is a freelance dance critic for Gannett
Newspapers. His poetry has won international
awards and is published by International Press.
Mr. Warfield's original idea and project of
creating "A Global Poem In Praise Of Peace" has
garnered global recognition by letters from
Leonard Bernstein, Mother Teresa and hundreds of
others. Mr.Warfield's music compositions are
featured on a CD benefiting community
anti-violence programs. His own, self produced,
CD, Celebrate the Moment, featuring all original
songs, with vocals and piano accompaniment by
Thomas Warfield is sold throughout the
world.
 Mr. Warfield has served as an
adjudicator for the American College Dance
Festival, Omega Psi Phi Talent Contest, The
Leontyne Price Vocal Competition, the Idaho
Council for the Arts and the Arts and Cultural
Council of Rochester. Mr. Warfield is listed in
"Most Outstanding Young Men in America," and
"Who's Who Among University Students." He is a
National Dance Association Awardee, recipient of
'The Creative Community Service Award' from the
University of Utah, and 'The Certificate for
Outstanding Leadership and Moral Sensitivity' from
the Greater Rochester Community of Churches. He
was awarded the 1999 Dance Award from the Circle
of Colors Foundation, and in May 2000 was given an
award for volunteerism from The United Nations
Association.
Mr. Warfield is a member
of the Metropolitan Opera Guild, Dance Critics
Association, International Dance and the Child,
the Earth Society Foundation, the National Peace
Foundation, Association of American Cultures, the
Human Rights Campaign Fund, Amnesty International
and Greenpeace. He is a founding member of both
World Dance Alliance (where he serves on the Int'l
committee for Africa) and International
Association of Blacks in Dance, and serves as
vice-president of two boards: Peace For Education
and The China Millennium Council. He is on the
advisory board of International Organizations of
Rochester, NY, and a former board member of Young
Audiences, Inc. Thomas attributes his passion and
blessings in life to the SPIRIT of
love.
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