Tom Evert currently serves as the Executive and Artistic director/dancer/choreographer /teacher of DANCE EVERT, which he founded in 1986. He holds BFA degrees in both painting and dance from Ohio University. Upon graduation Tom moved to New York City to apprentice with The Murray Louis and Alwin Nikolais Dance Companies and from 1975-77 toured as a dancer and teaching artist with the Phyllis Lamhut Dance Company. His critical acclaim and maturity as a performing artist, however, developed while performing as touring nationally and internationally with The Paul Taylor Dance Company for eight years and was featured in PBS television productions (1977-1985).
In 1986 he founded the Tom Evert Dance Company and created a major body of work for which he has received 7 Fellowships for Excellence in Choreography from the Ohio Arts Council and the Arts Council of Fairfax County VA. The company now called DANCEVERT presents a home season and has toured extensively and is dedicated to outreach and collaborative community projects. He has been commissioned to create works for professional and pre-professional dance companies, university ensembles, and art institutions and commercial enterprises. Mr. Evert is regularly engaged to give master classes in tandem with company performances. After being involved in arts education programming in the schools for 33 years Mr. Evert has emerged as a prominent “teaching artist” nationally and internationally and serves on the artist rosters of Center for Arts-Inspired Learning, The Ohio Arts Council and VSA Ohio and the Kennedy Center in Washington DC. He was also a founding member of the Statewide Arts Talent Assessment Initiative (START-ID). Through the sponsorship of the Kennedy Center’s Ohio-State-Based Partnership, Tom has been actively presenting workshops for teachers on the integration of arts activities into the teaching of the core curriculum. Mr. Tom pioneers a unique instruction approach which integrates the art of dance and the core curriculum.
Before dancing Tom was an athlete through High School and began his college career in the visual arts, subsequently he designs and constructs many of the sets for his dances, is also a muralist and is a sculptor of figurative works for which he has received commissions and prizes in invitational shows.