By Fern Gillespie
Dance not only centers Cheryl Todmann, dance is at the center of her life. Todmann, the founder and executive producer of Brooklyn’s popular entertainment fundraiser, The Stars of New York Dance, discovered the thrill of being a dancer at age 30—an age when many professional dancers look at retiring. She had spent first part of her career as a successful media marketing executive with positions at Essence Magazine, The New York Times, MTV Networks, AURN and TV Guide.

But at age 30 with two bad knees, she felt the need to move, physically, to be fulfilled. So, she joined the dance ministry at St. Paul Community Baptist Church in East New York, and it changed her life.

“At that time, I was the copywriter for three people on the sales team at TV Guide and their revenue was shooting through the roof. The publisher gave me the Marketing Person of the Year Award,” Todmann told Our Time Press. “She asked me what are you doing that made a big difference. I told her I started dancing.

That dance had amplified something in me where my writing was more creative. I could come up with creative concepts for advertisers. And they were loving it. Then, she literally had the entire marketing department take a tap dance class.”

At St. Paul Community Baptist Church, led by the visionary Rev. Dr. Johnny Ray Youngblood, she began her calling of marketing movement, and healing herself and others. She founded the Jewel & Rock Fitness dance program at St. Paul, and in 1999, joined Creative Outlet Dance Theatre of Brooklyn as marketing director in exchange for professional dance lessons.

In 2001, she made her professional dance debut in Creative Outlet’s “Best of Seven” dance concert at BAM, performed with Tony Award-winning choreographer George Faison and danced at Isaac Hayes’ Birthday.

At a Michael Jackson fan event, the superstar was so impressed with Jewel & Rock Fitness performance, he told the crowd, “I like the Jewels!”
Reverend Youngblood became her spiritual mentor.

At the church, she discovered her skills in marketing meshing with volunteering in social impact projects. “I started getting more involved at the church in some of the productions. Reverend Youngblood is a big people person, he loves people. He knew every member by name.

He inspired me and many people who were my age to like get involved and help support. So, I would do programs,” she said. Then, he hired Todmann as Director of Corporate Sponsorships and Major Gifts.

It was a pivotable, seismic shift for Todmann from glamourous corporate life to intrinsic community outreach. “I made considerably less, but I just saw it as an opportunity,” she said. “At Saint Paul, I just sort of took all of the relationships I had created at this different companies that I worked for. I learned how to fundraise. I fell in love with community and serving people.” She created partnerships with companies like Phat Farm, who donated running shoes for a walk-a-thon.

Working at St. Paul was the launch of a new career for Todmann. In the last 20 years, she’s garnered a glowing reputation as a social impact communications executive. “I didn’t want to back to corporate, but I still wanted to help people,” she said. “So I was working at the Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn Community Services, and the Bowery Mission.”

For the past five years, she’s been Vice President of Marketing and Communications at Kingsborough Community College. Born in Harlem, Todmann holds a Syracuse University undergrad degree and earned a business certificate from Duke University and an education certificate from Harvard University.

Her nonprofit, Stars of New York Dance, celebrates its 15th anniversary with a spectacular Divine Nine Dance-Off on Friday, November 14, at The Theater at City Tech in Downtown Brooklyn. The event features NYC leaders from historically Black fraternities and sororities—the Divine Nine—teaming up with professional dancers to fund a year of free dance education and training for children.

The audience votes for their favorite couple, and the winners receive $10,000 to support 10 children’s dance education and training.

Dance changed everything for me,” she said. “Dance was fueling and keeping me creative and healthy, you know, not only physically but mentally and emotionally,” she said. “I knew that if it could do that for me, it could do that for kids. I wanted to give that to the next generation. Stars of New York Dance is my passion project.”