Diane Litsey MPPM ’11 has served The Dance Foundation for more than 30 years and has seen the organization grow its programs, move into a new space, and partner with more artists and organizations around Birmingham. The organization has provided the perfect fit to a career she has prepared for since high school.

“I love all the arts, but my calling is to help further them in a management and leadership position,” Litsey says. “I was looking for a position that would help me better understand and be a better advocate for arts education.”

Litsey and her husband, Professor of Theatre Dr. Alan Litsey, moved to Birmingham in 1991, the same year The Dance Foundation, based in Homewood, was looking for its first executive director. Prior to the move, Litsey worked for art councils and art museums and produced music and arts festivals in both Michigan and California. While she dabbles in various art forms and does love to sing, she does not call herself an artist – she does, however, seek to grow arts education and make the arts accessible to everyone.

Since 1975, The Dance Foundation (first called The Children’s Dance Foundation) has been a trailblazer in “the mission and vision that dance and all the arts are for everyone.” The organization equips teachers and musicians to go into schools around the community, offer classes on site, and partner with other Birmingham-area programs.

“The organization has grown a good bit and expanded its programs, but we’ve stayed true to the mission,” Litsey says. “The arts are an essential part of everyone’s education, particularly starting with young children. I’m really proud that we’ve fostered that idea – that anyone can be a dancer, and that growth in a creative capacity is to be celebrated.”

The Dance Foundation focuses on three main areas of programming: studio classes, community partnerships, and facility rentals. Under these three umbrellas, the foundation encourages every child to be a dancer and facilitates growth through the arts.

The organization’s facility rentals also allow local artists and performers to use the space for practices and performances for short-term or long-term periods. Several BSC alumni have connections to the space, including Whitney Mayfield Renfroe ’09 and Nell Heflin Goza ’09, the directors of Formations Dance Company, as well as Cynthia Duggan Mwenja ’88, Carolyn Patton Rabbani ’89, Meryem Tunagur ’17, Liz Leiby ’11, Megan Pecot ’18, Rebecca Kornegay Yeager ’06, Jill Balch Coon ’92, and Katie Holmes ’05, to name a few across arts organizations, nonprofits, and other connections in the area.

“It’s exciting to have individuals and organizations call The Dance Foundation Home,” Litsey says. “It’s important to us that they feel it’s a welcoming, affordable, and convenient place where they can do their creative work and feel supported.”

In 2008, Litsey decided to continue her education and earn her master’s degree at Birmingham-Southern. The Master of Public and Private Management Program, which had its last class in 2011, offered more than what she saw in other degree programs.

“I felt that having new conversations with folks from different types of businesses and organizations would be really helpful for me, that hearing their stories, learning with them, and learning from faculty would be inspiring at that point in time,” she says.

The program added to her experience and previous education – Litsey earned her bachelor’s degree in arts management – through a combination of marketing, finance, and organizational development courses, plus enriching conversations in and out of the classroom. It helped her confirm patterns and truths she saw throughout her career and answered the questions she had throughout her work.

“There’s a lot of intuitive decisions we all make, and the MPPM program helped me consider different approaches,” she says.

In Litsey’s years at The Dance Foundation, one of the largest areas of growth she has seen is in its space. The foundation moved into a larger space in Homewood in 2003 that has allowed it to increase its reach and collaborations and offer a space for groups of all kinds.

The foundation continues to increase partnerships with local dancers, child development centers, schools, and other organizations, striving for equity and inclusion through the arts.

“We want to be a place – whether in that building or out in the community – that is open and welcoming and exploring partnership,” Litsey says. “That’s how I started my career, with genuine and passionate mentors who helped me see that thinking broadly and generously was the path to good things happening.”

This story was included in a special fine and performing edition of From the Hilltop, Birmingham-Southern’s alumni email newsletter.

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