New York State Dance Education Awards
Congratulations to the NYSDEA 2026 Award Recipients!
Daria Fitzgerald
Outstanding Dance Educator Award: Private Sector
Daria Fitzgerald (M.A.) is the Associate Director of Early Childhood Dance at the Harkness Dance Center, 92NY. In this role, she leads the Center’s initiative to expand early childhood dance programs across the organization and beyond; teaches in 92NY’s Nursery School, Parenting Center, and Harkness Dance Center; and develops curriculum, facilitates professional development workshops, and coaches through the Dance Education Laboratory (DEL). She was recognized as one of the first DEL Lab School recipients for her teaching in the Nursery School. Daria also serves as Assistant Director of Kids Do Dance at The Yard, where she teaches children’s dance and choreography workshops each summer. She has taught children’s dance in New York City public schools and numerous community and arts organizations. She has also published curriculum through the New York City Department of Education and was the lead curriculum designer of The Yard’s Making It program. She has presented professional development workshops through the National Dance Education Organization (NDEO), Dancing Classrooms, and the Lawrence Arts Center, and has guest lectured at NYU Steinhardt and Hunter College. She also served on NDEO’s Board of Directors and Development Committee. While in graduate school, she founded the Steinhardt Dance Education Association, received the Steinhardt Music and Performing Arts Professions Award, and twice received NYSDEA’S Graduate Student Award. Internationally, Daria has traveled to Uganda three times to collaborate with and learn from teachers, and she served as Associate Director of the Arnhold NYU Steinhardt/Global Visiting Scholar Summer Workshop when Ugandan scholars visited the United States. Daria curates an Instagram page, @booksfordancing, where she shares her favorite books to use in children’s dance classes.
Enya Kalia-Jordan
Outstanding Leadership Award
Enya-Kalia Jordan is a choreographer, dance studies scholar, and culture curator from Brooklyn, New York. She received a BA in Arts & Letters Dance from Buffalo State University and MFA from Temple University in choreography and performance. In 2023, she was named an “Artistic Visionary,” honored as Temple University’s 30 under 30 distinguished Alumna. Currently, she is a doctoral candidate at Texas Woman’s University, scheduled to graduate with her Ph.D. in dance studies in 2025. She is also the proud founder and artistic director of Enya Kalia Creations, a movement-based artistic collective established in 2016. Enya Kalia Creations is 2023-25 recipient of the BAX & CUNY Dance Initiative Arts & Social Justice Residency at Brooklyn College.
Deborah Lipa-Ciotta
Outstanding Dance Educator Award: Pre-K to 12
Deborah Lipa-Ciotta has been a public-school and private school dance educator in Buffalo for 35 years and graduated from SUNY Brockport with her BS in Dance and MA in Dance Education. As part of her undergraduate program, she studied at the Middlesex Polytechnic School of Arts and Performance in London, England. She holds a K-12 NYS Certification in Dance, teaching 5th-12th grade dance at the Buffalo Academy for Visual and Performing Arts magnet school for 15 years, K-12 dance at Tapestry Charter School, and currently K-4 Dance in their Lower School. She taught at the Edna Manley College of Visual and Performing Arts/Jamaica School of Dance summer program in Kingston, Jamaica, Buffalo State University, SUNY Brockport, SUNY Fredonia and as a guest presenter on dance education for Canisius University and the University at Buffalo.
From 2001-2020 Ms. Lipa-Ciotta directed Creative Dance for Children Classes for ages 3-18 and Pleien Dance Company, a modern dance performing group for ages 7-18. In 2011 she presented a Creative Dance Seminar at the School of Vera & Regina Alexopoulou in Athens, Greece sharing creative dance best practices and Tapestry's dance curriculum. In 2012, she attended Anne Green Gilbert’s Brain-Compatible Dance Education Summer Dance Institute for Teachers. Tapestry’s dance curriculum and her teaching is centered on the BCDE model. She is a member of NDEO, served on the NYSDEA board for 4 years, and currently serves on the daCi USA board. Her research, consulting, and service work focus on best practices in teacher training,
From 2001-2020 Ms. Lipa-Ciotta directed Creative Dance for Children Classes for ages 3-18 and Pleien Dance Company, a modern dance performing group for ages 7-18. In 2011 she presented a Creative Dance Seminar at the School of Vera & Regina Alexopoulou in Athens, Greece sharing creative dance best practices and Tapestry's dance curriculum. In 2012, she attended Anne Green Gilbert’s Brain-Compatible Dance Education Summer Dance Institute for Teachers. Tapestry’s dance curriculum and her teaching is centered on the BCDE model. She is a member of NDEO, served on the NYSDEA board for 4 years, and currently serves on the daCi USA board. Her research, consulting, and service work focus on best practices in teacher training,
