Andrew Palermo is the Artistic Director and Co-Founder (along with childhood best friend Taye Diggs) of dre.dance, an NYC based contemporary dance company. Since its premiere in 2005, dre.dance has earned a reputation for authentically poignant and powerful dancing with performances and residencies in New York City and across the country.

In addition to concert dance, Mr. Palermo maintains a schedule of direction and choreography for stage and screen, with stage credits that include Allegiance (The Old Globe); Kristin Chenoweth at Carnegie Hall; The Frank Loesser Songbook with New York Philharmonic (Lincoln Center); The Mikado (Carnegie Hall); The Other Josh Cohen (SoHo Playhouse); Lyrics and Lyricists (92nd St. Y); The Aluminum Show (International tour); V-Day (Urban Stages);

Journey To The West (37 Arts); Great Joy (New Amsterdam Theatre); Esther Demsack (Summer Play Festival/The Public Theater); DanceBreak 2011 (Joan Weill Center for Dance); Ace (The Old Globe, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Repertory Theater of St. Louis); Bright Lights, Big City (Prince Music Theater); Vices (Theatre Aspen); Aida (Music Theater Wichita); Man of La Mancha (Sacramento Music Circus); For The Record/Paul Thomas Anderson (Rockwell/LA); Two Gentlemen of Verona (University of Cincinnati/College Conservatory of Music); Spring Awakening (UC Irvine); Hairspray (AMDA/LA); She Loves Me (Westminster Choir College); Hair and The Wild Party (Wichita State University).  

Mr. Palermo’s performance career included the original Broadway companies of Wicked; Annie Get Your Gun (“Tommy Keeler”, revival); the closing Broadway company of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying; LaChiusa’s Little Fish at Second Stage, national and international tours of West Side Story; and performances at Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, The Hollywood Bowl, and numerous regional theaters.

Palermo is an in-demand instructor who’s teaching stretches across dance disciplines as well as acting and audition techniques.  In addition to a new appointment at University of California, Irvine, Palermo has provided instruction at many universities, including University of Michigan, University of Cincinnati/CCM, Oklahoma University, as well as multiple intentionally renowned intensives, schools and camps.  Equally comfortable teaching students at all ability levels, Palermo has developed movement therapy classes as a result of dre.dance’s work, beyond.words.  In conjunction with this evening-length work which examines the spectrum of autism with sympathy and wonder, Palermo has conducted movement workshops with children with autism across the country and has lectured on the creation of beyond.words and it’s extended impact at Columbia University, New York University, The New York City Department of Health, Ordway Center for Performing Arts, and Oklahoma Arts Institute’s Fall Intensive, training teachers in movement therapy and the integration of the arts and special needs issues.