I teach classes in contemporary dance technique and composition, improvisation, movement for the actor, devised theater, and directing.

Ogemdi is teaching in a classroom. She is enthusiastically clapping and smiling to students who are sitting, standing, and on the ground.

As an educator and facilitator, I am invested in crafting inclusive works and spaces for peoples who have historically been denied access to, or not considered in the process of, artistic production and engagement.

I have served as part-time faculty and a guest artist at The New School (New York, NY), Sarah Lawrence College (Bronxville, NY), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA), Princeton University (Princeton, NJ), and University of the Arts (Philadelphia, PA).
I have worked as a teaching artist with Gibney (New York, NY), Movement Research’s Dance Makers in Schools program (New York, NY) and McCarter Theatre Center (Princeton, NJ).

A group of students gathers around Ogemdi on the floor as she is talking using her hands to elaborate.

ALL-IN TEEN THEATER ENSEMBLE

From 2019-2021 I served as lead choreographer with the All-In All City Teen Theater Ensemble, the first ever NYC citywide theater ensemble comprised of public school teens of all abilities, who devise and produce an original musical. The program invited teen performers from all five boroughs to work alongside master theater artists from across the professional world to stage a fully realized musical based on their collective experiences and imagination.

A very large group of people are gathered outside a theater. They are wearing teal colored shirts and smiling

PUBLIC WORKS

From 2018-2019 I worked as Community Coordinator for Public Works (having worked with the company since 2014), a Public Theater initiative dedicated to building ambitious works of participatory theater with folks from organizations throughout NYC that specialize in after school care, arts programming for young people and elders, veteran community building, and reentry for formerly incarcerated persons. Every summer, Public Works mounts a musical production featuring hundreds of community performers in the 1,800 seat Delacorte Theater in Central Park.

Waterwell Drama Program

I am the Head of Movement for the Waterwell Drama Program at Professional Performing Arts School in Manhattan. As Head of Movement, I provide public magnet high school students with comprehensive, conservatory-style training in movement for the actor.
I oversee the faculty of the movement department, and collaborate with staff on best practices. This includes executing the program’s Artist as Citizen ethos: a civic-minded approach for students to train and grow in decolonized theater practices.