Artistic Director | Choreographer

As a tap dancer, Alexis is a percussionist and jazz musician who lives in a world where dance and music are one. She enjoys playing with time and rhythm by juxtaposing meter-less soundscapes and melodies with specific time signatures. Her work, which also employs original poetry or text and contemporary dance, often explores questioning identity, our relationships with our physical vessels and how that affects how we interact with the world, and family legacy.
Alexis Robbins (she/her), originally from Wakefield, RI (US), is a New Haven, CT based choreographer, performer, producer, storyteller, jazz musician, improviser, educator, writer, and dance advocate. Robbins received her B.A. in Dance and B.S. in Exercise Science from Hofstra University and is an alumna of the Tap Program at Jacob’s Pillow. As the Artistic Director and Choreographer of her project-based dance and music company, kamrDANCE, Robbins has shown her work throughout NYC, New Jersey, and New England, and created five dance films. kamrDANCE has produced many sold-out, evening length performances and split-bills, and continues to push boundaries with works that combine tap dance, contemporary dance, text, physical theater, and live music. kamrDANCE is currently creating The Mercy Velvet Project, a full-length, multidisciplinary rock opera with dance and live instrumentation.
Robbins has received choreographic commissions from Artspace New Haven, Hofstra University, Kehler Liddell Gallery, and Arc Dance Collective. Robbins is a 2022 and 2024 grant recipient from the Connecticut Office of the Arts for her community performance project Rooted in Dance & Music, and was a 2023 Artist in Residence at the Kirkland Art Center in Clinton, NY. Robbins has been a guest teacher at the Yale Schwarzman Center, Hofstra University, Springfield College, Rhythm and Sound (Toronto), CT Tap Intensive, Elm City Dance Collective, Hartford Dance Collective, MixT Co, and STAMP Long Island, and has been an adjunct tap dance professor at Hofstra University and Connecticut College. Robbins has been a teaching artist at Neighborhood Musical School in New Haven for over six years where she has helped spearhead free, educational jazz jam sessions for musicians and dancers of all levels and worked alongside Jesse Hameen II to incorporate tap dance into the Summer Jazz program for the first time in 2024. Robbins is the owner of kamrDANCE Studio LLC, which is the only place in Greater New Haven that offers adult tap classes that are drop-in, pay what you can, open to all levels, and focused on the roots of the form.
As a collaborator and performer, Robbins has worked with artists Rebecca Pappas and Cara Hagan. Robbins also performs as a jazz musician alongside many collaborators and is a member of the jazz trio Click Tracks which has performed throughout Connecticut. Also a writer and presenter, Robbins has written for the New Haven Arts Paper, and presented her talk How Tap Dance Belongs in Higher Education at Connecticut College’s Igniting Emancipatory Possibilities within African Diaspora Dance Conference. Most recently, Robbins was a featured soloist in The Bang Group’s Tap for Today at The Dance Hall in Kittery, ME and is a 2025 New England Dance Fund Awardee from the New England Foundation for the Arts, and a 2025 Artist Fellowship awardee from the Connecticut Office of the Arts.

artist statement:

My favorite thing to do in this world is tell stories through movement and music. I love to tell stories that make people question and examine their relationships with themselves, their loved ones, and the communities they live in. I am constantly learning new ways to better serve myself, my loved ones, and my communities, and as I continue to do that, I will continue to find ways to tell stories that question, poke at, prod, and lay bare those lessons and realities. I firmly believe that storytelling through live performance works is one of the best ways for us to learn about each other and ourselves, and therefore brings us closer within our shared humanity.

You could say that my work falls under the general category of dance, and I do identify as a choreographer, but there are so many layers, disciplines, and modes, that I feel my work cannot be put into a neat box. My storytelling features Tap Dance (and treats Tap Dance as music), contemporary barefoot movement (specifically inspired by Post Modern, Release Technique, House, Hip-Hop, and Tap Dance), original poetry and text (writing), physical theatre, and live instrumentation via many iterations. It brings me the utmost of joy to combine these elements regularly together, and in my experience, it brings audiences joy as well. As a Tap Dancer and creative storyteller, I personally believe that dance, music, and theatre are all the same exact thing. Institutions of higher learning or stature have spent so much energy trying to convince us otherwise, but as I continue to create works that combine them all, and stand on the shoulders of so many inspiring creators that came before me, I know this to be true. 

As a Tap Dancer, Tap Dance choreographer, and musician, I am dedicated to sharing the Black American art form of Tap Dance as a form of music that is played with the entire body, and sharing with audiences that Tap Dance can exist in multitudes. I practice and create within an underrepresented and undercurated art form that is regularly disrespected due to a lack of education, understanding, and a capitalist society that benefits from white supremacy. Until my dying breath as an artist and educator, I will continuously advocate for this art form because it deserves to be recognized as a foundation of the history of the United States, and as having significant influence on all arts and culture in the United States and the entire world. I will also continuously ensure that as many people as possible have access to Tap Dance through affordable education that focuses on the roots of the form and its history. 

My storytelling also loudly celebrates the many diverse folks that participate, collaborate, and perform in my works. I will always center female, femme, non-binary, and queer artists in my work because they deserve equal representation in creative fields where they have not always been seen and uplifted. 

I believe that the best works of art are capable of making us laugh out loud, cry openly and shamelessly, and making us want to get up and dance. I believe that movement is necessary medicine, and that music exists to be danced to. These beliefs are the foundation of my work. And while I expect the world and my beliefs to change over time, I will always find a way to make work and tell stories that reflect these values. Thank you, viewers, supporters, and collaborators, for going on this journey with me; we’re in this together. 

PRESS:

Collaborators & performers

PAST COLLABORATORS AND DANCERS

Alice Halter, Allison Ward, Andrew Cashin, Aryanna Aronson, Briana Giordano, Ginny Mottla, Joan Bradford, Julia Neto, Karli Scott, Luiza Karnas, Meghan Carmichael, Shaina Schwartz, and Tyler Cutler.