Inspiring a love of dance for life

“My goal is to help students stretch their capacity to make a positive impact on the world.  I teach techniques and concepts, yes, but the relevance of those in different aspects of life – that’s the real power.”

Perhaps you are thinking that Professor Vincent Thomas teaches social work or psychology, but that would be a misstep. He teaches – lives and breathes, in fact – dance. He credits his dance “ancestors” with encouraging his love of movement. 

As a child he danced along with Fred Astaire, Michael Jackson and other movers and shakers of American and international dance seen on television. “I couldn’t get enough of it. I have a piece of all those dancing icons and personalities in me, and I took them along to find my own place in the dance world.”

It didn’t take him too long to find that place. With his choreography and dance credits and his own dance studio – VT Dance - he has a solid reputation in the dance world. But his Towson University work is just as impressive.

A creative thinker, Professor Thomas leads a course in Core Movement for Men.  The male students have both curiosity and fear about the class, and they record their thoughts through journaling. Professor Thomas is consistently awed by the students’ accounts of their personal journeys as they move through the course. “I love working with young minds. I encourage my students to be excellent in all things, not just dance.”

The motto of the Towson University Dance Department is “Dancing for a Lifetime.” It is an especially fitting motto for Professor Thomas. For him, dancing IS life. It is one way to honor his dancing ancestors and to become an inspiration for his students who can’t stop moving -- deliberatively, exuberantly – through the world.