“You’re Going To Be a Star!”

Remembering the life and impact of Collage Dance Collective’s Tiffany Glenn.

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Tiffany Glenn and Collage Dance’s founding executive director, Marcellus Harper, met in 1994 and became lifelong best friends. “I had never met someone so radiant, positive, and driven,” said Harper in 2021, during the grand opening for the Binghampton-based Andrea Louise Jenkins Center for Dance. “I would later learn that so much of what made Tiffany special was honed in her countless hours in the dance studio.”

At age 27, Glenn was diagnosed with Stage 2 breast cancer and underwent a mastectomy, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, and finally reconstructive surgery. After five months and while continuing her radiation treatments, she returned to the stage to dance as a company member with Ballet San Jose (now called New Ballet). In 2010 Tiffany’s cancer returned and on June 18, 2012, she passed away.

We opened our 2012 fall season with a video of Tiffany’s final performance with words by poet Cindy Reed.

Until this day, and long beyond it, Tiffany’s impact and legacy are ingrained in the culture of our school and are a driving force behind our organization’s work.

In 2012, Collage Dance established the Tiffany Glenn Memorial Scholarship to recognize students who display Tiffany’s lifelong passion, dedication, persistence, and discipline. To date, 13 students have been awarded full tuition and a stipend for dancewear and footwear needed for a year of training in the Collage Dance Conservatory.

As a founding company dancer and conservatory faculty member, Tiffany was the very first professional ballerina of color many of our earliest students had ever seen. She was their dance dreams personified.

“I was only 5 years old when Ms. Tiffany said to me, “You’re going to be a star!” shared Amor Williams. “From that moment on I knew that I could someday be just like her.” Williams, a 2022 Tiffany Glenn Memorial Scholarship recipient, is now a professional trainee with Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre.

Addison Nichols, now in her eighth year training in the Conservatory, received this coveted scholarship in 2019. One of the many shining stars in Tiffany’s constellation, Addison is now in our pre-professional division. She will perform alongside our professional touring company, Collage Dance Collective, in Kevin Thomas’ Firebird, October 26–27 at the Cannon Center for the Performing Arts.