David Thomas

David Thomas, a founding instructor at The NYPAA, was born and raised in the Bronx, the birthplace of hip-hop, and he began dancing at the age of four by imitating Michael Jackson. In 2002, at thirteen, he founded his own team, which grew into We Run This, known as WRT, and today operates as We Run This: The Collective, the resident dance company of The NYPAA. He built it the same way he now builds classes, by drilling complex choreography, developing concepts and themes around specific music, and demanding that the movement say something. He launched his professional dance and choreography career in 2008.

As a performer, Thomas has danced with Missy Elliott and Day 26, appeared in Pharrell Williams’ Girl campaign, performed at the MTV Video Music Awards with Travis Scott, and worked with Sharaya J on Fox’s The Four. As a choreographer, he has created work alongside the Bessie Award winning Soledad Barrio and Noche Flamenca, and he has choreographed for the Atlantic Records artist IV Jay. He came up training and working closely with a generation of New York’s most in demand choreographers, and that industry fluency is the reason his classroom is oriented toward what the professional room actually requires.

We Run This: The Collective is the throughline of his career. Under his direction the company took third place at Prelude New York in 2022, performed at Sybarite in 2023, and competed in the Team Division at World of Dance New York in 2024, while its members build professional careers across concert, commercial, and competitive work. The company gives Thomas something most instructors do not have, which is a live standard. He knows precisely what a dancer must be able to do to hold a spot in a working company, because he sets that bar every season.

Thomas has taught nationally and internationally, including in Israel, Russia, China, and the Dominican Republic, and across Los Angeles, Washington DC, Boston, Atlanta, and every part of New York City. He is on faculty at the Joffrey Ballet School and has taught at Broadway Dance Center, the Peridance Capezio Center, and the Ailey Extension. He also teaches commercial audition technique at university dance events, including a commercial audition combo class and a mock New York commercial dance audition at Fayetteville State University.

In Hip-Hop at The Conservatory at NYPAA, Thomas teaches the form as a culture rather than a set of steps. Students work the foundations, learn where the vocabulary came from and who built it, and train rhythm and musicality until they can hear the count and the pocket at the same time. He pushes storytelling through movement and insists that every dancer develop a recognizable voice instead of a clean copy of his. He also teaches the professional conditions around the work, including how to pick up choreography fast, how to hold a formation, how to walk into an audition room, and the discipline, respect, and accountability that keep a dancer employed. His mentorship carries past the studio, and having led a company for more than two decades, he prepares students for the room they are actually walking into.