Ana Marie Forsythe

Horton Department Chair, Horton Instructor, BFA Senior Program Advisor

Ana Marie Forsythe received her formal dance training at the Newark Ballet Academy under Fred Danieli and her Horton training under Joyce Trisler. She began her professional career with the Garden State Ballet company at age 13 and with the Joyce Trisler Dance Company at age 14. She also performed with the Sophie Maslow Dance Company as well as her own company. Ms. Forsythe began teaching the Horton technique in the 1960’s and has devoted more than twenty years to documenting the Lester Horton technique. She is an internationally-recognized master teacher of the technique and has been invited to teach in more than a dozen countries. In preservation of the Horton technique, she co-authored The Dance Technique of Lester Horton, and was artistic director of three Horton videos documenting this important modern dance technique. She is the former Director of the Ailey/Fordham B.F.A. Program at The Ailey School where she has taught since 1973 and has been the Chair of the Horton department since 1979. She conducts an annual Horton Pedagogy Workshop at The Ailey School each summer.

Featured Press Coverage

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Dance Teacher - The Ailey School’s Ana Marie Forsythe Is on a Mission to Share Horton Technique With the Next Generation

International master teacher Ana Marie Forsythe has devoted nearly 50 years of her life documenting the Lester Horton technique in an effort to preserve it. “Dance has given me gifts that I never realized were possible when I took my first plié,” she says. “I enjoy sharing my breadth of knowledge of the Lester Horton technique because it has been a real gift to me, and I believe we should share our gifts with others.”

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Dance Teacher - Why Study Horton

A dancer discovers the satisfactions of learning the famously demanding technique. Ana Marie Forsythe's eyes twinkle, and a smile plays at the corners of her mouth as she welcomes the 40-plus teachers who are enrolled for her two-week-long Horton teacher-training workshop at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater studios in New York City - plus me, a dancer and writer, taking part for the day.

Dance Studio Life - Hooked On Horton

Ana Marie Forsythe still remembers her first Horton technique class, in the late 1950s at the Newark Ballet Academy. Former Horton dancer Joyce Trisler came, at Fred Danieli's invitation, to teach class to his students, who Danieli felt needed to be more versatile dancers.