Terri Best

Terri Best's career as a dancer, choreographer and teacher spans over twenty-five years. Her television and stage work includes: The Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers Christmas Special (NBC), The American Choreography Awards, the 15th Annual Golden Eagle Awards, Star Trek: Phase 2, commercials for McDonald's and Pacific Resident Theater's production of Noel Coward’s "Tonight at 8:30”, winner of the L.A. Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Production of the Year.

Nominated for two Lester Horton Awards, including Outstanding Achievement in Short Form Choreography, her company, Terri Best Dance, won the award for Outstanding Achievement in Performance by a Small Ensemble for “Duet” in 2008. They have performed at Celebrate Dance, the Los Angeles Dance Invitational, Pasadena Dance Festival, Jazz Dance L.A., and the Dance Under the Stars Choreography Festival, where Terri was selected as a finalist for "Duet" and "Recollected" in 2009, and for "Through the Desert" in 2010. Described by the L.A. Times as “Thrilling, in your face…[with] a soaring sense of promise,” her work has also been commissioned by the L.A. Contemporary Dance Company, Commonality Dance Company and the Trudl Zipper Dance Institute, and performed at the Luckman, Alex, Japan America Theater, McCallum Theater and Pasadena Civic Auditorium, among other venues.

Terri is the honored recipient of the 2008 Stanley Holden Award for Distinguished Teaching, presented by Edward Villella at the 9th Annual Los Angeles Dance Invitational. She is on faculty at EDGE Performing Arts Center, where, since 1993, she has trained and prepared numerous dancers for professional careers. She has taught students in the Professional Training Program at the Colburn School, and conducts master classes and workshops throughout the U.S. and abroad. She was a guest teacher at Balettakademien in Stockholm, Sweden in the summer of 2010, and will return there to teach in July 2011.

Terri has also served on the advisory boards of the Los Angeles County High School of the Arts and the Jazz Dance L.A. Foundation, and the board of directors of the L.A. Contemporary Dance Company.