The Man in the Sequined Tuxedo Who Built a Dance Community

The Oscar winner Ariana DeBose. The “Dancing With the Stars” judge Derek Hough. The ballet luminaries Catherine Hurlin, Tiler Peck and Taylor Stanley. Eleven cast members of last year’s Broadway production of “Bob Fosse’s Dancin’.”

Those are just a few notable alumni of New York City Dance Alliance, a dance competition and convention celebrating its 30th anniversary this winter. It’s also the kind of name parade that makes Joe Lanteri, the organization’s founder and executive director, uncomfortable.

“Of course I’m so proud of all these dancers,” Lanteri said. “But I can’t take credit for their success — for the work that every dance teacher and studio owner did with them in the trenches, for the whole community that helped them.”

Lanteri’s impulse to deflect attention might seem at odds with the look-at-me energy that defines much of the competitive dance world, a lucrative industry that to outsiders can feel about a half-step removed from beauty pageants. In some ways it’s even at odds with the Lanteri who M.C.’s most New York City Dance Alliance events: thoroughly comfortable onstage in a sequined tuxedo, unscripted and unruffled as he announces award winners.

But showbiz polish aside, Lanteri’s conventions — at which dancers take a series of master classes — and competitions reflect his community-oriented approach. Rather than emphasizing trophies and celebrity faculty, Lanteri has prioritized longer-term investments in young dancers, preparing them for and often connecting them to professional opportunities.