is the Tony-nominated and Drama League Award-winning choreographer of Rent. Her work was licensed for the film adaptation. She is a recipient of the New York Dance Performance Bessie Award and nominations for the Helen Hayes Award and Joe A. Callaway Award and two Aurelio nominations. Theater commissions include the American Music Theatre Festival Auburn Repertory, the Washington Shakespeare Theatre, Next Festival and Penumbra Theatre. Ms. Yearby was the founder/artistic director of her Movin’ Spirits Dance Theater and has toured with her company both nationally and internationally. Company commissions include Lincoln Center, American Dance Festival, Harlem Stages, Kansas Lied Center for the Performing Arts, Jacob’s Pillow and American Festival of Theatre and Dance in France. Ms. Yearby directed and choreographed with Aku Kadoga for Jessica Care Moore’s techno choreopoem Salt City. Ms. Yearby also dramaturged the script. Currently, Ms. Yearby is writing her newest project Seed Awakening on the Eve of Blue and is working with her longtime collaborators, Cooper Moore, composer, and Talvin Wilks as dramaturg; together they dig into the crisis of Real Food.