Alicia Cutaia is a celebrated dancer, instructor, choreographer, fire performer, and harness aerialist based in Portland, Oregon. She also is Founder and Artistic Director of ARC in Movement LLC, an innovative performance creation company that creates one-of-a-kind acts and shows combining aerial, dance, and fire. Cutaia teaches and choreographs throughout the Portland area as well as around the world. Miss Cutaia is also one of three USA based Certified MUNZ BARRE Coaches; formerly known as SAFE ® BARRE (Spine-Advanced-Functional-Empowerment)
She earned her BFA as a double major in Classical Ballet and Jazz with honors from Point Park University in Pennsylvania. Cutaia’s training was furthered as a scholarship recipient of numerous prestigious summer programs. Cutaia has spent over 15 years touring internationally with professional dance companies, acting as rehearsal director, costume manager and company dancer with Eisenhower Dance Detroit, as well as a company dancer with Hubbard Street Dance (Chicago), Giordano Jazz Dance (Chicago), and BodyVox (Portland). Through her dance career she has worked with and performed pieces by many renowned choreographers from all over the world. Along her journey, she fell in love with circus performance and became a professional fire dancer and harness aerialist, which she moved on to perform both locally in Portland and around the world. Just recently Ms. Cutaia has been chosen to be a Dance Wire Ambassador for the Portland organization.
Cutaia is also an established instructor and choreographer. Her work has been showcased at many choreographic festivals dance competitions winning national awards from Youth American Grand Prix, W.B.A.C Grand Prix, and US Prix de Ballet. Ms. Cutaia has taught at schools and summer programs across the country including American Ballet Theatre and Dance Theater of Harlem summer programs. A number of Ms. Cutaia’s students have been accepted on scholarship too many prestigious summer and college dance programs along with continuing on to professional dance careers.
In addition to teaching ballet, jazz, contemporary, tap, and improv dance, Cutaia teaches specialized classes for aerialists, acrobats, prop manipulators, rhythmic gymnasts, and figure skaters that focus on dance and movement creation through the lens of each respective style. These classes focus on artistry and clean lines while utilizing exercises to help the student create new movements and methods for performance. These specialized classes are taught regularly by Cutaia at many schools such as Rose City Rhythmic, where she also was program director. She also teaches private lessons too many dance, flow, and circus artists.
