Sean McLeod is an Executive Producer, Award Winning Businessman, and American Choreographer whose work spans more than 35 years and 3 continents including New York City, across the US; internationally to the Caribbean, Europe, and Africa. Sean is Founder of Reaching for Higher Ground Consulting, President of Kaleidoscope Dance Theatre, and Executive Producer of the Harriet Tubman Freedom Music Festival, and the Global Dance Initiative. Through a partnership with New York City Ballet and School of American Ballet Artistic Director Jonathan Stafford, he executive produces the New York Dance Festival at the School of American Ballet, Lincoln Center. He served as a Think Tank member for the $125 Million Dollar Creatives Rebuild New York (CRNY), as well as HueArts New York State Advisory Committee, New York State Council on the Arts AdvisoryPanels, and the Tri-State Incubator for Arts and Culture Leaders of Color. He was a contributor to the 2023 World Culture Festival that brought approximately 1.2 million people to the National Mall in Washington D.C, and is Chairman of National Parks Arts Foundation Advisory Board. He has worked with several Senators, Congresspersons, state, and city-level officials throughout his career.. Sean is an expert creator, strategist, and wordsmith. He helps CEOs, Fortune 100 Executives, and their teams connect their products with greater audiences, understanding, and appeal. He teaches Personality Development and Emotional Development and facilitates racial innovation training for conferences, corporations, universities, and their leadership.Â
Sean is a master of innovation and acknowledged developer of movement systems. With 30+ years of data, his Black-created dance technique courses and equivalent syllabi have been taught at the State University of New York at Cayuga Community College, Rochester Institute of Technology-RIT, and in 2020, the McLeod Technique 15 week Syllabus Course, taught by Ballet Legend Karen Brown became part of the curriculum at University of Missouri Kansas City-UMKC. In 2021 the course became an Essentials Course required for dance major graduation.Â
Sean launched the Black Ballet Choreographers Symposium and Commission Conference Workshop in LA in 2018 with the International Association of Blacks in Dance, and the Black Ballet Discovery Project and the Genius Initiative followed.
Sean McLeod is President & CEO of the New York Institute of Dance & Education, recipient of the Jefferson Award for Public Service to America, the New York State Liberty Award (the NY Senate’s highest honor), the NAACP Trailblazers Medal of Honor, the 2020 Arts Manager of the Year for the W. Carroll Coyne Center for the Performing Arts, and the 2025 New York State Dance Education Organization Outstanding Leadership Award. Sean was inducted into the Auburn Music Hall of Fame and is presently working with the legendary Wycliffe Gordon on new arrangements of “A Soundtrack for Harriet Tubman,” a suite of songs he composed nearly 30 years ago. Sean McLeod is a member of the American Society of Composers, Authors, & Publishers-ASCAP.