Michael Choi came to New York in his early twenties, by his own account "quite a bit behind the curve," and grew as a teacher and dancer inside two of NYC's great studios. Sandra Cameron, Tony Meredith, and Melanie LaPatin gave him a dance home. Charlotte Jorgensen gave him a system for Ballroom, Edward Simon started him down the Smooth path, and he worked alongside icons of early Swing and American social dance — Frankie Manning, Peter DiFalco — who connected him to where the social dances actually came from. He competed at the top of the professional field across International Standard, International Latin, and American Smooth — a finalist in Rising Star Ballroom and Classic Showdance and a winner of Open Professional Smooth titles, and he finished on his own terms: a two-time Ohio Star Ball Smooth semi-finalist who closed his competitive career at OSB 2021, last dance a Viennese Waltz, alongside his partner Vika.
The same eye that measures a champion turns out to be useful well outside the ballroom. Michael has taken Pro/Am students to US Championship and Best of the Best titles, and he coaches actors who need to look, on camera, like they've danced their whole lives — Nicole Kidman among them, and Laura Linney, whom he's currently coaching for an upcoming film. He has worked with choreographers like Mercedes Ellington and lent his eye to productions with no competition floor in sight: the Rockettes' Summer Spectacular under Mia Michaels, the Kennedy Center's staging of Duke Ellington's Shakespearean Suite, ABC's Life on Mars. The setting changes; the questions don't — where's the weight, what's the body actually doing, and how do you make it read to the back row or in the round.
What he does now is pay it forward. He examines for two boards, serves as East Coast Vice President of the Professional Dancers Federation, sits on the AADTA Board of Directors, and produces a slate of competitions and showcases each year. Underneath the traditional craft is a quietly modern, systems-minded streak: when the institutions move too slowly, he builds the tools himself — exam content, a technique question bank, an AI assistant for teaching. The through-line is an educated, technique-first mind that refuses to be stodgy about it — the same voice as his Dance Nerd writing.
