Michael Mead (born 4 June 1956) is a professional ballroom dance champion and choreographer.

Biography

Michael Mead, born in

Croydon Croydon is a large town in south London, England, south of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Croydon, a local government district of Greater London. It is one of the largest commercial districts in Greater London, with an extensi ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, spent his early years traveling with his family and attending schools overseas. At 18, done with school and unsure of what he wished to do professionally, Michael decided to try his hand at accounting. After quickly establishing that perhaps the last thing he wished was to spend the rest of his life auditing, Michael enrolled in a teacher training class at a local dance studio, and was offered a job after only six months of dance training. The lust for travel instilled in Michael in his early years soon took hold, ultimately leading him to California, where he opened Londance, now one of the top competitive dance studios in the U.S., in Costa Mesa, California. Though Michael sold his ownership share in 1989 in order to concentrate on the serious pursuit of a competitive dance career, he continues to teach there (and at

Champion Ballroom Academy The Champion Ballroom Academy (founded April 1990) is a dance studio in San Diego, California. The studio's main specialties are social partner-dancing, competitive ballroom dance (aka. Dancesport) and the Latin-dance-based aerobic program cal ...

in San Diego) to this day.

Dance career

Michael formed a professional partnership with

Toni Redpath Toni Redpath is a professional ballroom dance champion and choreographer. Biography Toni Redpath was born in Surfers Paradise, Queensland, Australia, and started ballroom dancing at the age of 9, after accompanying a friend to a local dance com ...

and developed a unique style that ultimately led them to setting a record by winning the Open Championships 4 years in a row (undefeated throughout) before retiring from competition in 2002. On September 28, 2000, Toni and Michael were married on the island of

Kauai Kauai, () anglicized as Kauai ( ), is geologically the second-oldest of the main Hawaiian Islands (after Niʻihau). With an area of 562.3 square miles (1,456.4 km2), it is the fourth-largest of these islands and the 21st largest island ...

. Currently the couple are based in

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...

and coach many of the U.S. top competitive couples, as well as judging for competitions and traveling the world doing shows.

TV and Film

Michael and Toni have made numerous appearances on TV and film. Most notable TV credits are as choreographers on

FOX Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush''). Twelve sp ...

So You Think You Can Dance ''So You Think You Can Dance'' is a franchise of reality television shows in which contestants compete in dance. The first series of the franchise, created by '' Idols'' producers Simon Fuller and Nigel Lythgoe, premiered in July 2005 and has ...

'', featured dancers and champions on

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

America's Ballroom Challenge America's Ballroom Challenge is a competitive ballroom dance television series that aired on Public Broadcasting Service in the United States between 2006 and 2009. It is part of the annual Ohio Star Ball, a festival of DanceSport in Columbus, ...

'' and ''Championship Ballroom Dancing'', and in the feature film '' Dance with Me''.

Choreography for So You Think You Can Dance

Achievements

* Four Time Undefeated U.S. Ballroom Champions: 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 * World DanceSport Classic Showdance Champions FinalistsInstructors :: Michael Mead & Toni Redpath :: DanceVision.com
/ref> * National Professional Rising Star Champions: 1998 * Canadian Open American Ballroom Champions: 2000, 2001 * National Showdance Championships Runners Up: 2001

References

External links

*
DanceSport Competitions

Champion Ballroom Academy

So You Think You Can Dance (Fox)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mead, Michael British ballroom dancers English male dancers Living people People from Croydon So You Think You Can Dance choreographers 1956 births no:Toni Redpath og Michael Mead