David Taylor, Artistic Director 
David Taylor
Artistic Director
David Taylor has been professionally involved in the Colorado dance community for the past forty- one years. He began choreographing in 1976 during the course of a twelve-year dance career, and since then has created over one hundred original works. In 1979, he founded the David Taylor Dance Theatre, one of the Rocky Mountain Region's most acclaimed, well known and respected dance organizations, and Denver's original contemporary ballet company which developed a reputation of presenting outstanding innovative works. As the principal choreographer for 27 years, Mr. Taylor's unique creative focal point became a fascination with the ritual of ancient cultures, metaphysical concepts, and multi-media collaborations which served to provide DTDT with a stunning and thought-provoking identity within the world of professional dance. He received the City and County of Denver's first Individual Artist Fellowship Award for Dance for his critically acclaimed collaborative work, "Anasazi Dream" in 1987, the Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts in 1997, and The Carson-Brierly Dance Library's "Living Legends of Dance" Award in 2006. A recipient of three National Endowment for the Arts grants, his critically acclaimed productions of "The Nutcracker" and "Rainforest" have been presented throughout the United States and he has also been commissioned to stage ballets for the Dayton Ballet in Ohio, the Lone Star Ballet in Amarillo, Texas, the Canyon Concert Ballet in Fort Collins, Colorado and for the Aspen/Santa Fe Ballet.
Mr. Taylor currently serves as a faculty member at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, teaching dance history, and as a guest faculty member teaching intermediate and advanced ballet technique, pointe, pas de deux, men's class and variations for numerous ballet schools and companies along the Front Range. He also conducts workshops on sacred dance for various statewide organizations and continues to be in demand as a Summer Intensive guest teacher for ballet programs throughout Colorado. Besides still serving as the Artistic Director Emeritus for the David Taylor Dance Theatre, Mr. Taylor founded his new company, the Zikr Dance Ensemble, in the summer of 2009. The Zikr Dance Ensemble offers a spectrum of works that are based on transcendent dance rituals from many different ancient world cultures throughout history along with original and contemporary dance/theatre realizations. The company's roster includes some of the finest ballet-trained dancers from various companies along the Front Range and Zikr has already presented successful performances in Denver, Fort Collins, Boulder, Aspen, Carbondale, Grand Junction, St. Paul, Minnesota and Long Beach, California to critical acclaim.