Niles Bailey Ford

Dance is a higher calling. You can’t just dance; you have to wholly embody the meaning of what it is to dance… All of this movement, all of this dancing, comes from a place of love.

Niles Bailey Ford was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on November 28, 1959 to Clarice (Bailey) and the late Jerome Melvin Ford. Big brother to his sister Stacey, raised in South Philly, Niles loved listening to records on the high-fi, studying James Brown and Michael Jackson's dance moves on TV, and sliding on his knees like the Godfather of Soul across the basement floor and straight into the wall. Boom! (Thankfully young Niles had a head of stone and his mother sewed patches on his knees.) Even back at Greenfield Elementary School, he was always the best dancer at parties. In 6th grade he won 3rd place in the St. Simon’s Episcopal Church talent show, behind Frankie Beverly and his group Raw Soul, and the Soul Eruptions, the band that would later back up Patty LaBelle.

During his teens, Niles's desire to cross boundaries and to help people accept and love each other began to emerge and take shape. As a camper and counselor at University Camps for Boys and Girls, he learned and then taught interpersonal communication and human development skills.

Niles graduated from Mitchell Mainline Day School in 1977 and attended his dad’s alma mater, the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, on a basketball scholarship. While at Maryland, to everyone’s surprise, Niles performed as a dancer in the musical Pearlie. Realizing then that dance was his true passion, he began taking classes at Philadanco and at the Pennsylvania Ballet. He transferred to the Dance and Theatre Arts program at the University of Maryland’s Baltimore County campus and embarked upon the rigorous process of metamorphosing his legs from those of a basketball player to those of a dancer. He received his BFA from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia in 1986. By then he was also a D.J. and was spinning music at clubs around town.

After graduation, Niles trained with the Boston Ballet, Dance Theater of Harlem, Bessie Schomberg, and Twyla Tharp. Although grounded in ballet, Niles also performed modern, jazz, tap, hip-hop, club and African dance. Over 30-plus years, his professional dance life would include an impressive and eclectic spectrum of work, including with the Boston Ballet, Bill T. Jones, Ron Brown, Gabri Christa’s dance-on-film project Savonetta, Danny Sloane and Company, the Rod Rogers’ Dance Company, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Philadanco, and a recent collaboration with Marlyse Yearby on her piece, Brown Butterfly, a tribute to boxer, Muhammad Ali.

During this time Niles trained students in dance at such places as Bates College, Hofstra University, Queensborough Community College, Hunter College and the Bates Dance Festival. He worked with countless college and high school students, in community settings throughout New York and New Jersey.  

In 2001 Niles founded his own company, Urban Dance Collective, the dance troupe through which he would communicate, through the bodies, spirits and energies of younger dancers, his spirituality and vision of love, undiluted. One of the highlights of his dance career occurred when the Open Look Festival 2010 invited Urban Dance Collective to travel to St. Petersburg, Russia, to perform We Are People. An avid collector and connoisseur of all forms of music, Niles amassed a collection of well over 3000 albums, deejaying and connecting with music lovers throughout Brooklyn and forming Men of Rhythm, a group that produced dance parties.

In 1995, Niles met Jenny Taylor at the dance club, The Loft; Niles thought she looked ethereal. On their first date Niles and Jenny ate dumplings in Chinatown. Not only could Jenny withstand Niles' enormous energy field, she embraced it and possessed the ability to translate his movement into a language that less kinesthetic people could easily understand. Four years and many dance dates and travel adventures later, Niles proposed to Jenny as the two strolled down Manhattan’s Rivington St. Of course, at that point the two had been together for so long that Jenny thought he was kidding.

Niles and Jenny jumped the broom barefoot on her parents’ farm in New Braintree, Mass., on the hottest day in the world: July 17, 1999. It was the best wedding Jenny and Niles had ever attended.

Niles was very devoted to Jenny. His life orbited around her and their sons, Isaac and Malik. Having lost his own father when he was young, Niles committed himself to being a present and dedicated dad. He willingly sacrificed his career to participate in family life, leaving rehearsals early, for instance, to pick the boys up from school. Niles introduced Isaac and Malik to all musical genres, infusing them with the same joy that sound and rhythm brought to him. But while passionate about basketball and dedicated to music and dance, Niles allowed his sons to identify their own niches in life. He reveled in Isaac’s talent on the electric and acoustic guitar, in Malik’s athletic and kinesthetic abilities, and both boys’ scholastic accomplishments. Happiest when he was on the grill and his kitchen table was full of people eating his jerk chicken, Niles relished festivities, good times, and being surrounded by the people who cared for him. He also enjoyed his role as family memory keeper and historian.

Whether in his family life, or through dance and music or his choreography for the Urban Dance Collective, Niles's artistry challenged the boundaries and divisions that keep people from understanding, respecting and loving each other. He used his life, his art and even his body to confront many of the most pressing social issues of our day: racism, poverty, war, sexism, religion and homophobia. Niles believed that love is the supreme power able to build bridges across so-called differences.

Niles had a heart attack and passed away in his sleep on January 14, 2012. His wife, Jenny Taylor-Ford; two sons, Isaac, age 13, and Malik, 9; mother, Clarice Ford; sister Stacey E. Ford; a host of aunts, uncles, cousins and friends; his dancers, his students, and the people his artistry touched, will carry on his legacy of love.

We dance because we love. We fight because we love. We struggle because we love. We need to keep that love alive.

Let’s keep Niles’s message of love alive…