Pocono
Conservatory
for the Arts
Get to Know the Business
Pocono Conservatory for the Arts is a place to enrich the career of the aspiring professional. Its focus is professional, not recreational...
It is established to reach the hearts of the community through education and the arts.
We partner to share dreams and assist in bringing them to life!
Our Services
Mon, Tue
1 hr
- 25 US dollars
About the Founder.
Clarissa Newby Phillips
Director/Choreographer, Dance Educator, Entrepreneur, Curator
Professor Newby-Phillips formerly served 11 years as the Dance Department Chair at Newark School of
the Arts (NJ) and served as Dance Educator and Artistic Curator to the City of East Orange
Department of Recreation and Cultural Affairs. She is an alumni of her hometown, East Orange, and
has worked thirty+ years as a Dance Educator and Mentor in Essex County Public School Districts (NJ).
Professor Newby-Phillips continues to grow her artistic circle of collaborators: Mansa Musa, Simone, Dion
Parson and 21st Century Band, Ron Blake, Maurice Chestnut, Savion Glover, Christopher Huggins
, and others to come. She was honored to be an Artist in Residence for the past nine years at Cicely Tyson
School’s Theater Department as a Choreographer, where she received nominations for Outstanding Staging
and Choreography by The Papermill Playhouse Rising Star Awards: The Color Purple Musical (2014).
The Wiz (2015); Sister Act The Musical (2017); Dreamgirls (2021). She has written, directed,
choreographed and debuted her original musical GIRL ROCK HOUSE in June-October 2018.
She recently received an invitation to join the Creative Team of Rebel Stages/School of Visual and
Performing Arts (Lion King Jr.). She founded and debuted Elements Of Style Dance Company as
Artistic Director (September 2021) featured in the recent Tribute to Cicely Tyson, “In Her Own Words”
December 17, 2021, and invited opening act for Fred Hammond in ‘Gospel Day’ at The Indiana State Fair,
August 21, 2022. Clarissa is in receipt of Senate Recognition for her work as Director and Choreographer at
the E. Menendez Trailblazer Awards, March 26, 2023.
Her television and theatrical experiences include the 1993 Essence Awards choreographed by Michael Peters
with featured artists: Danny Glover, Patti La Belle, Bill Cosby, Gail Devers, Tina Turner, and others;
choreographer/supporting role as Tammy in the Gospel musical "Lord Lift Us Higher" by Jimmie Black:
and ballet mistress/dancer in the Gospel musical “In Praise” by Rev. Crystal Newby-Reynolds. Her vocal
career was with the singing group Nubian Empire; it was full of great beginnings with Spike Lee, Bill
Bellamy, Club artist CeCe Rogers, Taravhonty, and Ralph Carter. Her professional career experiences include:
Dance Specialist and Day Camp Director at YWCA of West Essex and Hudson in Orange, N.J.;
Teacher of Jazz Dance, Rutgers University Mason Gross, New Brunswick, N.J.;
New Jersey Performing Arts Center United Way Artist-in-Residence where her dance work was selected to be
presented for Judith Jamison at the annual Women's Day Luncheon, Newark, N.J.
She has created and developed Dance Education Programs and Co-Directed productions for prominent
artists, historians, and political leaders such as Cicely Tyson, Louis Johnson, Rosa Parks, Christine
Whitman, Maya Angelou, Dance Theater of Harlem, etc. She was also the Director of Dance at the
prestigious Blair Academy in Blairstown, New Jersey; Adjunct Professor in the Division of Humanities and
Social Sciences at Northampton Community College in Bethlehem PA. She served as choreographer for the
praise dance ministries of Faith International Church in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. Mrs. Newby Phillips has also
founded and directed her own school, The Pocono Conservatory for the Arts, LLC; Home of her professional
adult dance company, Phillips Dance Theater. The company debuted at the Sherman Theater (2007)
and opened the Fred Hammond/Judith McCalister concert in the Poconos November 2008.
Clarissa Newby-Phillips is honored to have been selected as co-choreographer for the Essex County Links, Inc.
Cotillion and Beautillion since 1995.
“Dance empowers growth of body and mind, one without the other is meaningless”
-Clarissa Newby-Phillips