DEB MEUNIER​

Fusionworks Founder
Deb Meunier
In 1976, Deb opened Fusionworks Dance Academy.  She loves to teach and create dance with dancers of all ages and abilities and has been doing so for more than 45 years. She believes that anyone can dance and everyone should! Deb continues to teach classes and to choreograph upon invitation as a guest artist both in Rhode Island and in Florida where she resides in the winter.  She first learned ballroom dance from her dad at five years old when he also put her in ballet class. That was the beginning of a life-long love affair with dance which continues today. Deb's dance education included a BA from Rhode Island College in Dance and English Secondary Education, and an MFA in World Dance Forms from Wesleyan University alongside a life spent with dancers, choreographers, and artists from all walks of life. Upon retirement in 2019, Deb sold her business to her trusted colleagues from Dancing Legacy who own the school and oversee the Fusionworks curriculum.
Fusionworks Dance Company
​Deb also founded and directed the professional Fusionworks Dance Company, and ran that company for thirty years until 2018. Her choreography has been produced at Jacob’s Pillow, Dance Services Network, ECA, The Mayfair Festival in PA, Artspace of New Haven, the Gowanis Outback Series, The Field, and the 92nd Street Y of NYC. Her work was chosen to represent Rhode Island at the New England Artists Congress and she has been invited to present her work two times at the prestigious 92nd Street Y in NYC. Companies throughout the Northeast including the Rhode Island College Modern Dance Company, Brown University Dance Extension, Providence College Dance Company, WORKS Contemporary Dance of Hartford, and Bridgewater State University have commissioned her works and invited her to teach master classes in ballet, modern, and jazz.
Deb Teaching Creative Movement
Deb received the Rulewater Prize from Wesleyan University for her work on an interdisciplinary choreography project with the Rhode Island School for the Deaf. She received the 2003 Individual Achievement Award from the Arts and Business Council of Rhode Island for her significant contributions to the arts and education in Rhode Island. She was also awarded a Meet the Composer Fellowship in 2006 and 2012 from the New England Foundation for the Arts for a project in collaboration with world percussionist Michael DeQuattro. In 2015, Deb received the prestigious Rhode Island Foundation Fellows Award for her contributions to the Arts and education in Rhode Island.