Kyle Abraham, dancer and choreographer, began his training at the Civic Light Opera Academy and the Creative and Performing Arts High School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He continued his dance studies in New York, receiving a BFA from SUNY Purchase and an MFA from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. He is the recipient of several awards for choreography including a Thayer Fellowship in 2000 and Pennsylvania Council for the Arts Fellowship in 2002.In addition to performing and developing new works for his company, abraham.in.motion, Abraham also teaches his unique approach to post-modern dance in various schools and studios throughout the United States.
Dedrick Anthony Classes: Street Jazz 12 yrs & up Dedrick is from Michigan and began his career in regional theaters at a young age. At the age of 15 he began to focus on dance. He went to Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp on a full scholarship under
the direction of Jefferson Baum and was placed into the camp's International Ballet Ensemble,
touring Europe. Next, Dedrick joined the Wealthy Street Theatre Contemporary Ballet Company based in Grand Rapids, MI, under the direction of Patrick Johnson and Tassia Hooks, where he was truly introduced to contemporary ballet and modern dance. Choosing to further his studies, he moved to New York City. He was accepted to The Ailey School, the official school of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, and graduated from the school's Certificate Program. At the Ailey School he worked with noted choreographers Milton Myers, Andre Tyson, Francesa Harper, Nathan Trice and many more. After graduation he was a part of Balance Dance Company with Obediah Wright, and a company member of Genesis Dance Company under the direction of Karen Arceneaux. He worked a Las Vegas styled show at the Caesars Place in Nassau, Bahamas with L.A. choreographer, Michael Schwandt. Most recently, Dedrick worked with choreographers Mark Kanemura and Rob McCune in Hawaii. Dedrick has appeared in Vogue Italia magazine and a nationally syndicated Adidas commercial.
Lisa Bostwick Classes: Ballet IB 10-13 yrs, Ballet IIA 13 yrs & up Lisa trained at Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet, Pittsburgh Ballet Theater and BalletMet. She received a B.S. from Butler University as well as studied at the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory in St. Petersburg Russia. Lisa performed with the Alabama Ballet for seven years and with former MMDG dancer, Teri Weksler, the director of Birmingham’s resident modern dance company Southern Danceworks, for nine years.
Mia Breaux Classes: Modern II 13 yrs & up
Jackie Dodd Classes: Beg Modern & Choreolab I 8-10 yrs Jackie Dodd recently graduated from Washington University in St. Louis, where she studied dance and anthropology. Her choreography has been featured in arts festivals and university programs in St. Louis, and at the Dumbo Dance Festival 2009 in New York. She has taught creative movement, modern dance, and contact improvisation in a variety of settings, among which are youth empowerment programming, employment training for ex-convicts, and a physical therapy lab for Parkinson's Disease patients. Her current work centers on the intersection of art, environmental sustainability, and community building, and her favorite dance studio is Prospect Park.
Chelsea Glassman Classes: Creative Modern I 3-4 yrs, Creative Modern II 5-6 yrs Originally from Baltimore, Chelsea received her B.F.A. in Dance from SUNY Purchase. She has taught and choreographed for the Dance Academy of Baltimore and at The Berkeley Carroll School's summer day camp. In addition to Mark Morris, Chelsea is currently on faculty at Dancewave and Manhattan Youth, teaching modern and creative dance. She is a certified Personal Trainer and has most recently been dancing with Hilary Easton + Company and the Mark Morris Dance Group.
Juli Greenberg Classes: Sing & Swing with Baby 5-9 mos 6 week cycles, Toddler Time 12-20 mos 6 week cycles
Juli Greenberg received a B.F.A in Dance from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, and went on to perform with Risa Jaroslow and Dancers. She has worked with some of this era's greatest choreographers including Susan Marshall and Murray Louis and studied extensively throughout her career at the Paul Taylor School. Juli was a founding member of and choreographer for the Shining Star and Shooting Star Musical Theater children's companies at P.S 87 in Manhattan. She has taught dance and has choreographed for Wingspan Arts' Summer Conservatory, and at Creative Arts Studio in NYC. Juli is the Administrative Director of Group Theatre Too's Performer's Playground program at the P.S. 75 Afterschool and performs with Group Theatre Too's Generation Tap. She is also Administrative Assistant at the 92nd Street Y's Parenting Center. Juli teaches Sing & Swing with Baby and Toddler Time at The Danceave Center on Tuesdays afternoons.
Leonard Holmes Born in the Chicago area, Leonard Holmes began training at age 15. He is proud to have trained under Larry Long, Deloris Lipinski, and Warren Conover of The Ruth Page Foundation Ballet Acadamy. Awarded scholoarships to first, The Joffery Ballet School and later,The School of American Ballet, Leonard re-located to NYC and resumed his studies befor embarking on his career (with ; Sarasota Ballet, Bay Ballet Theatre, and North Carolina Dance Theater). Mr. Holmes credits his parents (Leonard and Johnnie Mae Holmes) as well as Christopher Flemming and various teachers for molding his love and fidelity for the ballet. He has passed these virtues on to his own students ; Freddie Fourree’ (Dayton Ballet Theatre, Emily Walsh (Sarasota Ballet of Florida), Kate Honea (Sarasota Ballet of Florida), Katie Bergstrom (Corps de Ballet, New York City Ballet), and Daniel Ulbricht (Principle, New York City Ballet). “I view myself not only as a ballet teacher, but more of a CHEERLEADER for ballet” “I hope to help you realize your potential”. Class approach is in the Bournonville/Balanchine techniques. In class, we work body friendly. At the same time, fifth position is home with an emphasizis the proper closing of the legs into it. We make use of the “Fall-and-Recover”concept, the idea of jumping down in order to go up. Expect a lot of work on; knowing the positions, jumps, turns and allegro work. There’s no elitism in Leonard’s class: anyone who shows up to study has a chance to learn and improve !!!
Joyce King Classes: Open Jazz 10 yrs & up
Artistic Director, founder, and choreographer of the newly formed, JKing Dance Company(JKDC), and Director/creator of Jolt Dance Convention/The Workshop which successful debut in NYC January 10, 2009. Over the years, King’s versatile experience and style has awarded her opportunities to perform, teach and choreograph throughout the U.S. Costa Rica, Belgium, and France. In NYC, King continues to enjoy teaching on faculty at Steps on Broadway, DanceWave and guest faculty for Broadway Dance Center NYC. In 2008, King established JKing Dance Company,(JKDC), based in Brooklyn, NY. Fresh, creative, passionate, and constantly evolving, JKDC captivates its audience with a unique blend of contemporary movement, theatrically displaying portraits of relationships in action. JKDC has performed at TribecaPerformanceCenter, Steps Beyond Faculty Concert, PMT Spring Dance Series, and coming this fall, JKDC will perform as part of WHITE WAVE’S – DUMBO DANCE FESTIVAL, and The Outlet Dance Project 2009. King's notable performing credits include, A Chorus Line, Cats, Fame: The Musical, NFL, Ellessee, Michael Jackson Industrials, Special Events/Benefits for Broadway Cares and Impulse Dance Company under the direction of Adrienne Hawkins - where King had the remarkable experience to work and perform choreography of Adrienne, and talents Fred Benjamin, Lynn Simonson, Richard Levi, Danny Sloan, and Miguel Lopez. In addition to King’s extensive dance training, she also attended Oxford School of Drama, England, Shakespeare Intensive, London; Film/TV with Sally Johnson and extensive studies under renown Acting teacher Charles Kakatsakis in NYC. Many of King’s students have gone on to perform in a variety of venues including Cats, King & I, West Side Story, Industrials with Jonas Brothers, Hannah Montana, and Emily Osment, to name a few. www.JoyceKingDance.com Photo by Jaqlin Medlock
Megan Krauszer Classes: Adult Pilates Workshop Ongoing 5 week workshop Megan received her early dance training at Walnut Hill School for the Arts and went on to attend The Boston Conservatory on scholarship, earning a BFA in Dance Performance in 2006. Megan has worked with choreographers Mark Morris, Seán Curran, and Laura Scozzi at The Metropolitan Opera and Santa Fe Opera, with Murray Louis at the ADF Scripps Award Ceremony, and with tompricedance, Prometheus Dance Company, Noel MacDuffie, and The Free Radical Collective. Megan joined Cornfield Dance in 2007 and is thrilled to join such an inspiring group of artists.
Maggie Lloyd Classes: Creative Ballet I 3-4 yrs, Ballet III, Creative Ballet II 5-7 yrs
Maggie Lloyd has taught for the New York State Summer School for the Arts, BrownUniversity’s Department of Dance, Providence Ballet, California Dance Theater and was most recently the Ballet Mistress for Carolina Youth Ballet. She has danced for Pacific American Ballet Theater, Heidi Henderson’s Elephant Jane Dance and with choreographers such as Kraig Patterson and Brenda Daniels. Maggie received her BFA in Dance from CornishCollege of the Arts and completed her high school diploma with a concentration in ballet from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. Maggie teaches Ballet IA, Creative Ballet I & II, and Ballet III for Dancewave.
Meghan McCoy Classes: Modern I 10-13 yrs, Young Movers Ensemble, Choreolab II Meghan McCoy is a New York City based artist. She grew up in Wisconsin, where she received her BFA in Dance from the University of Wisconsin – Madison and then packed up and moved to NYC. She currently performs with Becky Radway Dance Projects and iN.D.dance/Nicole Durfee and Dancers, and has had the pleasure of performing with Nora Stephens / noranewdance, Jin-Wen Yu Dance, Eva Dean Dance, Esse Aficionado, and Katherine Keifer Stark. She is a founding member of Collective Dance NY, an organization dedicated to creating performance opportunities for independent artists through financial, administrative, and artistic collaboration. CDNY has produced three full-length shows, performing to sold-out audiences in both NY and DC. Her works have been presented at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, WAXworks (Triskelion Arts), and Movement Research Open Performance (DTW). Meghan will graduate in May 2009 with an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. Photo by Paula Court
Clement Mensah Classes: Modern III 13 yrs & up
Clement Mensah was born and raised in Ghana, West Africa. He moved to the Netherlands at the age of 11. After high school and graduating from CIOS (sports academy) he went to Amsterdam School of Arts and graduated in June 2008. He came to the Alvin Ailey School in 2007 as an exchange student where he received a fellowship to study. He was also member of the Student Performing Group at the Alvin Ailey School. Clement is a former member of the Kisshoffmoves Company based in Amsterdam. He has apprenticed at the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. He has also been part of the Francesca Harper Project, Performing at the Harlem stage, Venice (Italy) and Summer Stage East River Park. Clement has been dancing with the Elisa Monte Dance Company since June 2008. He also danced the male lead role of “John” in the Dance Theater “Voodoo-Queen which premiered in January 17th 2009 at the Ailey Citigroup Theatre, The Joan Weill Center for Dance in New York City. Clement joined ASEID in April 2009 and is very excited about the opportunity to work with this company. As a Modern Comptemporary teacher and choreographer, Mr. Mensah has also taught Master classes at THE ALVIN AILEY SCHOOL, Codarts in Rotterdam, Amsterdam school of Arts (The Netherlands) and DANCERS’ WORKSHOP in Wyoming. He has also choreographed for the Junior Repertory Company in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
Pam Pietro Pamela received an BFA from Florida State University and MFA from University of Washington. She is an Assistant Arts Professor at New YorkUniversityTischSchool for the Arts. Pamela has performed professionally with Anthony Morgan Dance Company, Michael Foley Dance, RaceDance and bopi’s black sheep/dances. She was a dancer and the rehearsal director for Houlihan and Dancers from 1991–1999, artistic director Gerri Houlihan and rehearsal director for the New World Dance Ensemble Australian Tour in 1994. Pamela served as Mark Haim’s assistant for the Saint Joseph Ballet projects (2002,2004,2007) and part of their summer faculty in 2004. She has been on the faculty at the American Dance Festival since 1997 and a guest teacher with the ADF linkage programs to Guangdong Dance Company in Guangzhou (China) and the Dance Library summer conference in Tel Aviv, Israel. Pamela has been on the faculty at FloridaInternationalUniversity, New WorldSchool of the Arts, Hollins University, New York University Tisch School for the Arts, Dance New Amsterdam and a guest artist at universities all over the country. Pamela's choreography has been presented by Dancespace in Miami, BookerSchool for the Arts in Sarasota, Florida, Momentum Danza Company in Panama, MeredithCollege in Raleigh, NC and presented at the ACM Multimedia Conference in Santa Barbara, CA. She is a certified personal trainer and Pilates instructor as well as the assistant to Irene Dowd in New York City. Pamela received the first place award for academics and performance from the National Society of Arts and Letters in 1985. Her latest research was presented at the Hawaiian Arts and Humanities Conference in Waikiki in 2007.
Christina Noel Reaves Classes: Creative Movement C 2.5 yrs-3 yrs, Creative Movement A 20 mos-2 yrs, Creative Modern II 4-5 yrs, Creative Modern I 3yrs, Creative Movement B 22 mos-2.5 yrs After a BFA in Music: Voice Performance from Georgia State University, and an MFA in Dance from NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Christina Noel Reaves pursues dance and voice performance and instruction, choreography, and music composition. In addition to singing in Operas and Musicals, she has had the privilege of dancing for David Dorfman, Doug Elkins, Ivy Baldwin, Curt Haworth, Christopher Williams, Gary Abbott, and Candess Giayan and Melanie Lynch-Blanchard of Zoetic Dance Ensemble-Atlanta, with whom Christina Noel was a dance instructor to children and adults.
Mandy Stallings Classes: Ballet IA 10-13 yrs, Intro to Ballet 7-10 yrs
Mandy Stallings, of Brooklyn, NY, is currently performing with the Cleo Mack Dance Project. CMDP has been presented by Mulberry Street Theater, Dance Theater Workshop, Judson Church Movement Research, Mason Gross School of the Arts, PS1, Kennedy Center, Joyce Soho, George Street Playhouse and was selected by Dance Magazine as “25 to watch in 2002”. She has also had the pleasure of performing the works of Larry Keigwin, Nicole Wolcott, Pascal Rekoert, Gerri Houlihan, Neta Pulvermacher, Paul Taylor, Jose Limon, Scott Rink, Brenda Daniels, Sean Sullivan and FARMdance. Mandy's own choreography has been shown in venues such as Dance Forum, Peridance Center, HATCH Performance Series, Cunningham Studio, SWEAT Series, Studio A.I.R, Agnes DeMille Theater and Galapagos Art Space. She is currently directing and choreographing for the Brooklyn Children's Theater and is teaching all around town! Mandy is a certified yoga instructor and a graduate of the North Carolina School of the Arts.
Tanesha Sumerset Tanesha Sumerset began her dance training at the age of 13 at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts in Jacksonville, Florida. After graduating from there, Tanesha enrolled at Florida Community College of Jacksonville were she was a member of the Repertory Company and the director of the Ensemble company for three years. Tanesha then transferred into the college division of New World School of the Arts in Miami, Florida were she studied ballet, Graham, Horton and choreography with Gerald Ebitz, Peter London, Rebecca Cannan, and Frederick Bratcher, respectively. After college, Tanesha moved to New York to pursue dance on a professional level where she currently dances in Arch Dance Company under the direction of Jennifer Archibald.
Natalie Thomas Classes: Choreolab III: Improvisational Movement (Forsythe based), Ballet IIB, Ballet IV 14 yrs & up
Natalie Thomas has an extensive background in both dancing and acting, which are integrated into her approach to teaching. Natalie developed Improvisational Movement during her work on The Wooster Group’s Poor Theater. Natalie’s dance credits include Woolf Phrase at Brooklyn Academy of Music, Minus 16 at Lucent Danstheater and Eidos Telos at Sadler’s Wells. Natalie was a company member with Nederlands Dans Theater II, Berlin Komische Oper, and a soloist with William Forsythe’s Ballett Frankfurt. She has choreographed for Ballett Frankfurt, Nederlands Dans Theatre Workshop, Korzo Workshop and Panacea Festival. She has assisted staging at Lyon Opera and The Ailey School. Natalie’s theater credits include Lucid at the Cherry Lane Theatre, 52 Pick-Up at the Gene Frankel Theatre and The Wooster Group’s House/Lights at St. Ann’s Warehouse. Her film credits include Payback, directed by Jen Li, and Heute Nacht, directed by Brock Labrenz and produced by An Films. Natalie is currently a member of An Films and Moving Theater, and is the movement coach on The Wooster Group’s Hamlet. Photo by Susan Shacter
Astrid Von Ussar Astrid von Ussar came to New York City from her native Slovenia in order to pursue dance. Since her arrival, her choreography has been presented throughout the United States and she’s become a faculty dance teacher at The Ailey School and Columbia University. Her company, VON USSAR danceworks premiered at the Joyce Soho in New York in April of 2002. VON USSAR danceworks was presented at the Jacob’s Pillow Festival in the summer of 2003. The company’s 2004 season will be held at the Joyce SoHo in New York from July 15 – 18, 2004. In addition, the company has been presented at the dancenow/nyc, the Rivertown Arts Council Dance Series in Dobbs Ferry, The Remember Project 2002 & 2003, the Collage Festival in Texas, the Dumbo Dance Festival and SWEAT Dance Series. Von Ussar’s choreographies are part of the repertory of the The Ailey Showcase Group, Houston Metropolitan Dance Company, and Plesna Izba in Slovenia. After teaching throughout Europe, von Ussar has developed into a highly-regarded dance teacher in New York City. Currently, she is a faculty member at The Ailey School, Columbia University, and previously, von Ussar has taught at Ballet Hispanico, Dance Space Center, Peridance, and held workshops throughout the U.S. In the summer of 2004, she will be teaching a repertory workshop at The Ailey School. Von Ussar is also the co-founder and artistic director of EVON ARTS, a non-profit arts organization with the purpose of initiating events for the emerging artist. One of Evon Arts’ chief aims is the COMING TOGETHER Dance Showcases, which are presented biannually. Finally, von Ussar graduated with a Masters in Dance/Dance Education from Columbia University Teacher’s College.
