Danny Tidwell

Daniel Arnold Tidwell was born on August 1, 1984, in Norfolk, Virginia, and raised in nearby Virginia Beach. He began dancing at age eight through an after-school program for at-risk youth, where local instructor Vicky Cooke took notice of him. After that program closed, Cooke brought Tidwell to the attention of Denise Wall, and the two women offered him a place at Denise Wall's Dance Energy at no cost. Wall took a sustained personal interest in his development, and by the time Tidwell was ten he had moved into her household, referring to her as "Mom" and to her sons Scotty, Travis, Tyler, and Shannon as his brothers. Wall formally assumed legal custody of Tidwell when he was twelve.

As a young dancer, Tidwell gravitated toward jazz, drawn to its flips, turns, and expressive freedom, and competed frequently on the regional circuit. In his early teens he encountered dancer Rasta Thomas, whose skill motivated Tidwell to raise his own standards. At fifteen he was invited on scholarship to the Kirov Academy of Ballet in Washington, D.C., where he trained in classical technique under Vladimir Djouloukhadze and Anatoli Kucheruk. Initially resistant to ballet, he came to embrace its demands as a constant challenge and shifted his focus accordingly. That summer he competed in the Shanghai International Ballet Competition, earning a silver medal in a year when no gold was awarded. The pressures of the Kirov environment ultimately led him to leave the school following the competition.

After departing Kirov, Tidwell performed principal roles in two original productions choreographed by Debbie Allen, Dreams and Pearl, presented at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., before President George W. Bush. He also completed a two-month period of study at the School of American Ballet. In 2002, he submitted an audition tape to the USA International Ballet Competition, was invited to compete, and received the silver medal. That result brought his work to the attention of Anna-Marie Holmes, Mistress of Ceremonies at the USA IBC, who passed his application video to Kevin McKenzie, artistic director of American Ballet Theatre. McKenzie recommended that ABT Education Director John Meehan offer Tidwell a position in the ABT Studio Company without a formal audition. Tidwell joined the Studio Company and was promoted into the corps de ballet in May 2003, just before the ABT's season at the Metropolitan Opera House. As a corps member he was assigned soloist roles in Le Spectre de la Rose and the peasant pas de deux from Giselle, and he was part of the company's 2003 production of Swan Lake, which was later broadcast on Great Performances: Dance in America and released on DVD. Tidwell left ABT in 2004.

In the years that followed, he performed contemporary works by choreographers including Nacho Duato, Jiri Kylián, William Forsythe, Kirk Peterson, and Robert Hill, and danced as a guest principal in Ballet Lubbock's Nutcracker in December 2005. Dance Magazine named him one of its 25 to Watch in 2005, and he appeared on the publication's cover. Pointe Magazine listed him among its Top 10 VIP the same year. He taught at the National Dance Foundation of Bermuda's International Summer Intensive in August 2005, a program run in partnership with ABT, and served on the faculty of JUMP while guest teaching at studios across the country. In 2006 he joined Complexions Contemporary Ballet for one season under founders Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson.

Also in 2005, Tidwell co-created Moving Still alongside publisher David Benaym, photographer Roger Moenks, and choreographer Lauren Adams, a project combining a live performance with a photography and fashion book. That collaboration led directly to the launch of movmnt magazine in June 2006, a quarterly publication focused on fashion, dance, emerging music, and social issues, which Tidwell co-founded with Benaym and for which he served as Artistic Director. He later appeared on the magazine's cover in its Spring 2008 issue alongside former So You Think You Can Dance contestant Sabra Johnson.

Tidwell's trajectory shifted in late 2006 after attending a So You Think You Can Dance tour performance at Madison Square Garden featuring his brother Travis Wall, who had finished as runner-up in the show's second season. Tidwell subsequently auditioned for the third season of the Fox competition series. Based on his New York City audition in 2007, he was advanced directly to the Las Vegas callbacks. He went on to finish as the runner-up of that season, becoming widely recognized through his appearances on the program. Mia Michaels was among the choreographers who worked with him during the competition.

Tidwell's Broadway career brought him to the production Memphis in 2009. He also served as a soloist dancer with the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet in Oslo. He died on March 6, 2020, from injuries sustained in a car crash. He was thirty-five years old.