Tina Fretto Baird

Lecturer

Office: Dance Center
Telephone: 518-580-5360
Fax: 518-580-8356
Email: tbaird@skidmore.edu

As a Jazz Tap Artist and Educator, Tina is a protégé of Brenda Bufalino and was mentored by Barbara Duffy & Katherine Kramer. She is the owner of Saratoga Jazz Tap where she provides private and small group lessons, creates new works and produces concerts and festivals. Since 1991 she has taught at numerous schools and colleges throughout New England, New Jersey and New York, including Emma Willard, Russell Sage and Skidmore College. She has performed at Jacob’s Pillow in Lenox, M.A. with Lynn Schwab, the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall in Duke Ellington’s “Sacred Symphonies” with the Albany Symphony Orchestra, The National Museum of Dance Gala “Singin’ In The Rain” with the Alex Torres Orchestra and in NYC at Zinno’s Jazz Tap Brunch with Barbara Duffy and at Swing 46 under the auspices of Buster Brown. Over the last ten years, she has produced several National Tap Dance Day Festivals in Saratoga, bringing in guest artists and musicians to teach and perform.

Her most recent presentations include Saratoga ArtsFest First Fridays “A Vaudeville Circus” (2015 Tang Museum), “Everything Will Be Copacetic” (2014 Saratoga ArtsFest, Universal Preservation Hall), National Tap Dance Day Festival with Brenda Bufalino (2013 National Museum of Dance), National Museum of Dance Black History Month Celebration (2013 with tap dancer Rebecca Kim), Stoptime: Louis Armstrong Celebration (2011 curated by Margo Mensing). She has choreographed productions for Saratoga Children’s Theatre, Saratoga Springs HighSchool Drama Club and St. Clement’s Church, and serves on the Board of the Dance Alliance of the Capital Region and the Catholic Daughter’s of America. She holds a B.A. in Theatre Arts/Directing from the State University of New York at Albany and lives in Saratoga Springs with her husband and daughter.