Actor
Available for SAG/AEA union work:
Film
Television
Commercials
Theater/Musicals
For Bookings Contact: Ranardo at ranardomeico@hotmail.com
CHOREOGRAPHER
Available to choreograph:
Weddings VIDEO: WEDDING DANCE PROMO
Film/Television, Music Videos, and Commercials VIDEO: CHOREOGRAPHY REEL
Theater/Musicals/Concert Dance VIDEO: CONTEMPORARY CHOREOGRAPHY REEL
Parties/Special Events
WEDDING DANCE CHOREOGRAPHER
VIDEO: WEDDING DANCE PROMO
Ranardo graces the "Vendors We Love" list at The Foundry, New York City's stunning venue.
Wedding Choreography Services
Ranardo will help tailor your Wedding First Dance to be unique and memorable, created just for you for your special day.
- low fees*
- a complimentary consultation
- a stress free experience
- practice sessions in your home or location of choice (available in NYC’s five boroughs).
Wedding Couple First Dance Package
Customized 2-minute dance with three 1-1/2 hr. in-home practice sessions: $570
Father Daughter OR Giving Away Dance Package
Customized 2-minute dance with three 1-1/2 hr. in-home practice sessions: $570
Wedding Party Group Dance Package
Customized 2-minute dance with three 1-1/2 hr. practice sessions: $1025
Add to Package
Additional Dance Sessions: Each additional 1-1/2-hour practice session is $175
Add to Package
Music Editing: Editing of recorded music can be made by a professional music editor for $60
Each additional edit is $15 or multiple cuts are $15 each.
Add to Package
Studio rental (optional): Studio Rental Bookings are $67 per hour. Hourly rates only unless otherwise noted prior to booking.
Studio booking fee must be paid upon studio rental booking. All studio bookings are 2-hours minimum unless otherwise advised prior to booking. Studio Rental Cancellations must be made within one week of the booking time for refunds or a full studio rental booking fee of $67.00 per hour plus any additional booking charges or full payment will be required.
Testimonials:
Mikey & Andrew
"Ranardo was an absolute pro of a wedding choreographer. Professional, personable and patient, Ranardo helped us perfect our first dance and added a touch of flair and fun that it otherwise wouldn't have had. We received so many compliments from people praising us on our moves, and we couldn't have done it without Ranardo's help."
Tim & Jose
"Ranardo as a wedding choreographer was beyond what we expected! He has an incredible passion for the people he's teaching - it's quite infectious. What amazed me the most was his capacity to understand our weaknesses and strengths and turn us into professionals in front of our 125 guests while still having fun. It's been a couple of years now, and whenever family and friends bring up our wedding, they bring up our first dance EVERY time!"
Justin & Michelle
"Ranardo was genius! He came up with an original routine and was able to teach it to us in just a few hours. It turned out great - our friends and family were really impressed and were shocked that we only practiced a couple of times. We definitely credit Ranardo for coming up with something that was easy to learn but made us look like pros."
For Bookings Contact: Ranardo at ranardomeico@hotmail.com
MASTER DANCE INSTRUCTOR
Available to teach Dance Master Classes and Workshops:
URBAN Fusion
Hip Hop Funk
Modern
Contemporary Ballet
Senior Movement
Kids Movement
URBAN Fusion incorporates many different dance styles, including Afro-Latin, Street Jazz and Music Video Dance. It is appropriate for all levels. This workshop focuses on technique, performance, strengthening muscles, alleviating stress, improving coordination and flexibility while burning calories. A full cardiovascular, high-energy, and fun workout is achieved while learning a cutting edge dance routine.
With a dance background from Juilliard and international dance experience, Ranardo-Domeico Grays, Artistic Director/Choreographer VISIONS Contemporary Ballet, shares his unique motivational skills and captivating personality to reach out and find the dancer in all of us!
VIDEO: MASTER DANCE INSTRUCTOR TV/MEDIA REEL
For Bookings Contact: Ranardo at ranardomeico@hotmail.com
Extended Bio
RANARDO-DOMEICO GRAYS is the founder/artistic director of VISIONS Contemporary Ballet and a member of the Screen Actors Guild/Associated Actors and Artistes of America. He is originally from Detroit, Michigan. He is an alumnus of The Juilliard School, where he studied choreography under Bessie Schonberg and Doris Rudko and received his BFA from California Institute of the Arts. He is also an alumnus of Marymount Manhattan College as a dance major, Fordham University, where he majored in acting, and the Alvin Ailey School. While attending Cooley High School, where he was a member of the National Honor Society, he was awarded a Skillman Scholar Award from the Skillman Foundation to attend Interlochen Arts Academy as a dance major, where he graduated high school completing his senior year.
In his early years he won awards as a pre-professional violinist, in oratorical speaking, poetry, essay writing and choreography. He was a regular on Club Connect a local TV program; was a model, appearing in print for Toyota, was an escort in the Detroit Grand Prix Pageant and winner of the Ashlan Agency Modeling Contest; and a company dancer with the Detroit-Windsor Dance Academy. He trained in a workshop with Arthur MitchelI and Dance Theater of Harlem which led to a performance as a super in Firebird at the Detroit Music Hall. He attended Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp as a violinist, Marygrove College Summer Dance Program, Interlochen Post Camp as a dance major where he studied with University of Michigan Dance faculty where he was selected to perform in the Faculty Dance Concert and Interlochen Arts Camp. He is a graduate of Interlochen Arts Academy.
He has performed with the Juilliard Dance Ensemble in work by Garth Fagan, Rebecca Kelly Ballet, the La Toya Jackson Tour, Celebrity Cruises, Sensedance, Zach Morris, Urban Wash Dance Company and has danced and choreographed for various artists traveling throughout the United States, Canada, the Caribbean and Europe. Ranardo is a member of SAG-AFTRA and Actors Equity Association. He has had acting roles in film (Slow Jam King, Shortcut to Happiness, and State Property 2) and television (Gossip Girl, Canterbury’s Law and The Nanny), and was choreographer/co-host of VH-1’s Rock of Ages. He also was assistant choreographer in the Off Broadway musical, Hitgirls, and has done voice-over work as Final New Doctor for TRANS-MISSION, an off-Broadway play. He has also done runway modeling, appeared in print for Felissimo magazine, TV commercials and has performed in off-Broadway theater.
Ranardo is the founder and artistic director of VISIONS Contemporary Ballet, an ethnically diverse company committed to presenting contemporary ballet works in artistically excellent concert dance performances to a wide range of communities; building new dance audiences; provoking thought and educating by creating and performing works which explore the human experience. VISIONS can be enjoyed by audiences of any age. He has choreographed several original ballets on the company and was commissioned by the Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning for the 12th Annual Making Moves Dance Festival 2021. He has been awarded grants for his original choreographic works set on the company. Grays is a recipient of the Riverside Church Sharing Fund Grant 2023, the West Harlem Development Corporation (WHDC) 2023 CBG (Community Benefits Grants),the NoMAA (Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance) Small Grant for Individual Artists made possible with the support of NewYork-Presbyterian and the Hispanic Federation in 2023, the UMEZ (Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone) Arts Engagement grant from the LMCC (Lower Manhattan Cultural Council) in 2023, 2022, 2019 and was an inaugural grantee in 2018, the LMCC (Lower Manhattan Cultural Council) Creative Engagement grant in 2023, 2021, and 2019, Dance/NYC’s Coronavirus Dance Relief Fund: New York State Edition made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) in 2022 and the NYFA (NY Foundation for the Arts)/DCLA (NYC Dept of Cultural Affairs) City Artist Corps Grant in 2021. With funding in part from these grants his work has been presented on VISIONS in fully produced concerts; Humility and Faith in 2023, Redemption in 2022, Traces (of what makes us who we are) in 2019 and Healing Works II in 2018 at The Riverside Theater, and In Truth and In Light in 2021 at the Flea Theater. Other fully produced evenings of his works on the company have been: VISIONS Contemporary Ballet 10-Year Anniversary Performance: Healing Works! was presented in 2017 at Dixon Place; In Remembrance, dedicated to the lives lost and survivors of 9/11 in 2011 at the Roy Arias Theatre; and Reach, a co-production with Blue Muse Dance in 2007 at the Producers Club.
His recent choreographic works include Backbone 2023, Tainted Bla’k 2022, Shattered Lives 2021, Still Healing 2019, Dash-Between 2018, Through the Valley in 2018 and Roots in 2017.
His work has been presented on VISIONS by the Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning for the 12th Annual Making Moves Dance Festival; The Harlem Arts Festival; Thelma Hill Performing Arts Center in the Souls of Our Feet People of Color Dance Festival/Dancing the Single Life and PEEKS/Works in Progress; Dixon Place in Fast Forward, Under Exposed and Moving Men; Green Space in Fertile Ground; The Wassaic Project Summer Festival, American Cancer Society/Making Strides Walk in the Events Ceremony at The Bandshell in Central Park, New York City annually since 2011; Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance in the Blaktino Performance Series, Boogie Down Dance Series, and Out Like That!; The Field/Lower Manhattan Cultural Council/Harlem Arts Alliance in the Uptown/Downtown Work-in-Progress performance development program at the Dance Theatre of Harlem and the Chen Dance Center; Forward Motion Theater as part of the Long Island City Arts Open Festival in Re:Vision; and The Field and Abrons Arts in the Fall Fielday Performance at Abrons Arts Center Henry Street Settlement. VISIONS has performed at Harlem Stage Aaron Davis Hall, Tribeca Performing Arts Center, the Kabbalah Centre; has collaborated with Blue Muse Dance in a presentation by The Flea Theater in Dance Conversations, in the Emo Project at Chashama and other New York City venues.
Ranardo has been a dance panelist in “Queer Butoh – Transcending the Identity of Sex” presented by Howl Arts, the NY Butoh Institute and Vangeline Theater. He has had many years’ experience as a top AFAA certified fitness instructor and master dance teacher. Ranardo taught dance and strength training at Equinox and New York Sports Clubs/TSI, where he also presented Master Class workshops such as Chicago, Sweet Charity, and A Chorus Line dance workouts. He has taught Master Class workshops in Urban Fusion® in New York City; Afro-Latin-Funk at American Express' New York Corporate headquarters; and Contemporary Ballet at Marygrove College and the Detroit Windsor Dance Academy. Ranardo was Director of Dance at NYC’s Morris High School, where he staged and choreographed Bye Bye Birdie, West Side Story and Little Shop of Horrors and engaged in workshops directed by Joanne Robinson-Hill, the former Director of Education of The Joyce Theater.
Ranardo has appeared in articles in The Dance Enthusiast November 6, 2019, The Field’s Meet-Our-Artists September 1, 2018, the Juilliard Journal, “Weathering the Economic Storm…and Flourishing” February 2010, the Metro Times, "A Chorus Line Meets Gym Workout at NYSC" Tuesday, November 28, 2006 and The New York Times, "Three Ways to Burn Up Those Holiday Calories" Thursday, November 23, 2006 for his dance workshop based on the hit musical, A Chorus Line. He was a featured guest on the WB 11 Morning Show, Truly Julie, showcasing his choreography and dance workshop based on the hit musical, Sweet Charity.
Ranardo has been a brain cancer survivor since his diagnosis in 2014.
For Bookings Contact: Ranardo at ranardomeico@hotmail.com