Donald Tolj is the newly appointed director of the classical program for New Tampa Dance Theatre and the choreographer in residence for Dance Theatre of Tampa. He has returned to Florida after four years in the UK from 2006 to 2010 where he was Artistic Administrator and Faculty Member at the Elmhurst School for Dance in Association with the Birmingham Royal Ballet.

While in the UK Mr. Tolj was a panel member on the First International Symposium on Dance Psychology hosted by the University of Birmingham, UK., a dance and movement consultant for the Bio Mechanics of Dance Project at Coventry University, and completed his Level 2 Certification in Pilates.

He started his career at the Cincinnati Ballet while attending the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. Don received a BA in Visual and Performing Arts from The University of Maryland, Baltimore County in 1977. During his 20 year international performing career, he worked with the Who’s Who of both Ballet and Contemporary Dance. He was a dancer with Maryland Ballet, Richmond Ballet and Southern Ballet Theatre, dancing Principal and Soloist roles in most of the Classic repertoire as well as having roles created for him by leading choreographers.

Donald has been the Artistic Director of The Chamber Ballet and Evansville Dance Theatre, Louisville Ballet’s Civic Company, as well as the Director of their affiliated schools. Concurrently he went on to spend 14 years as summer faculty at the prestigious Governors School for the Humanities and the Visual and Performing Arts in Richmond VA, instructing a range of interdisciplinary arts and humanities subjects as well as dance. He has many former students in companies world wide, including, New York City Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Singapore Dance Theatre,  Estonian National Ballet, Teater (Theatre) Vanemuine,  Magdeburg Ballet, Sacramento Ballet, Tulsa Ballet and Slovak National Ballet.