Laurel Lynch began her dance training at Petaluma School of Ballet in California before moving to NYC to attend The Juilliard School. At Juilliard she continued her ballet training as well as studying Limón, Graham, and Taylor techniques and performing a variety of choreographic works. After graduation Laurel worked with choreographers Sue Bernhard, Pat Catterson, Stephan Koplowitz, and Dusan Tynek before joining the Mark Morris Dance Group in 2006. During her time at MMDG Laurel participated in the creation of dozens of new works and interpreted several roles originally performed by Mark Morris in addition to teaching master classes and MMDG company class. Laurel retired from MMDG in December 2021 and moved to New Haven where she has been teaching ballet at Choate Rosemary Hall and modern dance at New Haven Ballet.

 Class description:

Laurel’s classes focus on rhythmic and qualitative specificity while exploring the body’s full range of movement and healthy, anatomically based alignment. She emphasizes a grounded and stable lower body and a flexible and expressive spine and port de bras. Musicality, focus, and play are always welcome in her class.

Vija (pronounced Vee-ya) Kemanis began her ballet training in Oakland, California, where she studied with an affiliate of England’s Royal Academy of Dance. She mastered the RAD syllabus, was elected a member of the RAD, and performed with ballet companies Dancer’s Theatre and Dance Spectrum in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her subsequent training and performance credits in New York City include a wide range of modern jazz and contemporary styles. Vija has years of experience teaching and choreographing for ballet and jazz dancers of all ages and levels in Westchester County. She is also a lawyer, recently retired from her legal career, and a novelist, publishing as V.S. Kemanis.

Candice Schnurr is a graduate of SUNY Purchase College (BFA) and Montclair State University (MFA) and danced professionally with a variety of choreographers in New York for over a decade. Her influences include study with the Trisha Brown Dance Company and six years of exclusive practice in Ohad Naharin’s Gaga movement language with LeeSaar the Company and members of Batsheva Dance Company. She has performed on stages in Germany, Portugal, Poland, Mexico, and Korea as well as at the American Dance Festival, The Joyce Theater, and the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. She has taught at Dance New Amsterdam, the Mark Morris Dance Center, and for the cast of the off-Broadway show Sleep No More.

Maria Bauman-Morales - Muscles. Beads of sweat. Exertion. Inversion. Carving out selfhood. These images and ideas are linked for me. As a woman dancer, a person of color, a southern not-quite-belle who grew up poor, and a queer person, clear ideas of physical labor, beauty, and body presentation are each held in my every movement.

I am a multi-disciplinary artist and community organizer from Jacksonville, FL. My choreography for MBDance is based on physical and emotional power, desire for equity, and fascination with intimacy. I bring the same tenets to organizing to undo racism in the arts and beyond with ACRE (Artists Co-creating Real Equity), the grassroots body I co-founded. In particular, my dance work centers the non-linear and linear stories and bodies of queer people of color onstage.

In New York, my work has been showcased at Dixon Place, BRICstudios, and DTW (now NY Live Arts), Harlem Stage, 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center, the Kumble Theater, the Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance (BAAD!), WOW Café Theater, and SummerStage NYC. I’ve danced with Urban Bush Women, Nia Love, Adele Myers and Dancers, Angela’s Pulse, Mendi + Keith Obadike, Jumatatu Poe, and jill sigman/thinkdance, and apprenticed with Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance. During my eight-year tenure with Urban Bush Women I originated multiple roles, and eventually served as Associate Artistic Director. I have played Capoeira with Mestres Rony, Ralil, and Foca for over a decade. I am also an accomplished dance improviser, having studied various approaches with Merián Soto, Kathy Westwater, Jawole Zollar, Lynda Davis, Curt Haworth, and Dianne McIntyre. My training includes a Bachelor of Fine Arts in dance and English from the Florida State University and a Masters of Fine Arts (Fellowship) from Temple University.

Ellie Kusner - When I was five I fell in love with ballet class; the party polka, spring points, physical rigor, and music were all completely enthralling! I eventually engaged in professional training at The Boston Ballet School, performing regularly in large scale productions at The Wang Center, initially in children's roles and eventually with the corps de ballet. At The Boston Ballet School, I was introduced to pilates, taking weekly mat classes for almost 10 years. Ultimately I decided that a career in pointe shoes was not my destiny and attended Barnard College of Columbia University where I studied modern dance as well as literature, architecture, psychology, economics, women's studies, and much more. After graduating, I worked as a professional freelance dancer, simultaneously supporting my performance career by teaching dance and pilates. Eager to increase my understanding of the moving body, in 2012 I moved to London, England to pursue an MSc in Dance Science from Trinity Laban. Back in NYC, fortified with this degree, I investigate the multitude of questions about the body in motion that intrigue me while teaching or performing. I teach pilates, modern dance, and ballet and host wellness talks throughout the NYC area. I am also a co-creator of DanceWell Podcast, a resource that provides 360-degrees of health and wellness content for dancers, as well as the chair of the Dance Educators’ Committee for the International Association of Dance Medicine and Science. 

Rita Martinez Corridon was born in New Orleans, LA to Cuban parents, but grew up in Miami, FL., where she studied ballet, flamenco, modern and jazz at Ballet Concerto School with teachers from the National Ballet of Cuba. She attended New World School of the Arts High School. As a student she attended summer workshops at The School of American Ballet, The Joffrey San Antonio Workshops as well as The Joffrey Ballet Summer Intensives.

At 17, she was a junior semi-finalist at The Jackson International Ballet Competition, and that summer she was invited to join the Joffrey II dancers. She joined the main company the following year and was there for 7 years, where she danced many leading roles including Clara in The Nutcracker, Frivolity in Leonid Massine's Les Presages, Blue girl in Frederick Ashton's Les Patineurs as well as many Gerald Arpino ballets. She did extensive touring with them, performing around the world with Billboards, a full length evening ballet to music by Prince.

Upon leaving the professional ballet life, she focused on raising her 4 kids, earning personal training certifications through the American Council on Exercise (ACE) and The American Collage of Sports Medicine (ACSM), as well as courses on Nutrition at NYU. She taught the New York City Ballet Workout in NYC. While living in London for 2 years she worked as a private personal trainer and at a private gym, and while living in Paris for 3 years, was a teacher at the Academie Americaine de Danse de Paris. She has been living in Westport CT for the past 10 years, first teaching at Ballet Etudes/ The Studio in Norwalk, and now at The Spot, teaching adult dancers.

Tyler Schnese began his training with Jeanette Makaroff in Appleton, WI. He received his BFA in Dance from SUNY Purchase in 2014 which included studies at Codarts (Rotterdam). Tyler danced as a soloist with the Hessisches Staatsballett (Wiesbaden) and later with Gibney Company (New York City). As a dancer, he received a nomination for the German Theater Award (Der Faust) in 2016 and was nominated by Gibney Company for a Princess Grace Award in 2018. Tyler served as assistant choreographer on “2 in a million” by Steve Aoki feat. Sting and SHAED. In addition, he has made work for Neo’s Dance Theatre and Gibney Company. Currently, Tyler lives in Brooklyn and teaches ballet at SUNY Purchase and Greenwich Dance Studio.

Manuel Vignoulle, French choreographer based in New York, studied at The Conservatoire National Supérieur de Danse de Paris and went on to work with many french companies. He was a dance artist with both Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève (Switzerland), and Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet (New York). Manuel appeared as a guest for La La La Human Steps (Canada), Het Nationale Ballet (Netherland), State Theatre (South Africa) and The Forsythe Company (Germany). Manuel’s work, has been commissioned by Ailey II, Whim W’Him, Satellite Collective, 10 Hairy Legs, Chicago Repertory Ballet, The Ailey School , Rutgers University among others. He has performed his work with Manuel Vignoulle - M/motions both nationally and internationally including at at Jacob’s Pillow, Monterrey International Ballet Gala (Mexico) and The Dance Gallery Festival, among others.

Manuel says "My class draws its inspiration from the various experiences I have had throughout my career, whether in contemporary, modern-jazz or ballet training. We start with a pre warm-up inspired by yoga with active stretches to loosen the body and create more space within; already connecting the breath with the movement, proposing a centered and available body for more complex movements. The warm up will be at the barre or in the center, with a mixture of classical technique, as well as upper body movement, body weight, opposition, breathing and sound. The class then leads up to a piece of set choreography, where the dancers will challenge their technique, their understanding of space (around and within) and their own interpretation."

Christopher Rudd began dancing at the age of 9 in Miami, FL at the Thomas Armour Youth Ballet (TAYB). Mr. Rudd became the first black person in the US to dance the title role in Balanchine’s The Nutcracker, an accomplishment for which ABC’s Peter Jennings named him Person of the Week in 1991.  He attended New World School of the Arts (NWSA) in Miami, Florida and was a scholarship student of The Dance Theater of Harlem's Summer Program for four summers.  Mr. Rudd performed with numerous professional companies including  Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montreal, where he rose to the rank of soloist.  He has choreographed for The Alvin Ailey School’s Summer Intensive, Earl Mosley's Institute of the Arts, North Carolina School of the Arts and Harlem Stage. He started RudduR Dance in order to have a platform to investigate themes of the human condition, emphasizing what unites us through dance.

Becky Radway

MiXt Co. Guest Artist Spring 2015 and Winter 2017

Becky Radway has been creating original dance works in NYC since 2002, and has had the pleasure of performing professionally with the Kevin Wynn Collection, Heidi Latsky Dance, Ezra Caldwell, Incidents Physical Theater, and Leanne Schmidt and Company, among others. She was a finalist for the Arts Management Fellowship program at The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and is currently the Operations Manager at Triskelion Arts in Brooklyn, NY. Becky Radway Dance Projects has been featured at a number of East Coast venues; has set new work on schools and companies in MD, PA, CT, and NY; and has been supported over the years by the Brooklyn Arts Council, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the Mertz Gilmore Foundation, and the Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance. 

Diana Deaver

MiXt Co. Artist - Winter 2017

Diana Deaver is a dance artist, performer and teacher currently residing in Easton CT. She is a lifelong student of the arts, beginning as a youth in performing arts schools in Dallas, TX. She received a BFA in Dance from Florida State University and an education in and of itself from her 15 years living as an artist in NYC.  She has performed and toured extensively with the companies zoe | juniper of Seattle and KIDCO of Chicago among others. Diana is a founding member of Adele Myers and Dancers where she has collaborated for over 15 years on the company's original productions. She was the assistant artistic director for several projects and has taught and set work nationally including at the American Dance Festival, Ball State University and Greenwich Academy.  Diana is a certified yoga, Pilates and core fusion instructor and the mother of an excellent two year old son named Luca. 

Kendra J. Ross

MiXt Co. Artist - Fall 2016

Kendra Ross is a dancer and teaching artist from Detroit, MI. She received a BFA from Ailey/Fordham University in Dance where she performed the works of Sean Curran, Alvin Ailey, Nathan Trice, and Jacquline Buglisi. She has worked with Oyu Oro, Andrea E. Woods/Souloworks, Genesis Dance Company, Vissi Dance Theater, Ase Dance Theater Collective, Ronald K. Brown/Evidence, and Sonic Leroy and Motionsickness with Monstah Black. Kendra specializes in teaching Hip Hop, Afro-Cuban, Pilates and Contemporary dance with a focus on understanding the history, cultural contexts, and idiosyncrasies of those various styles while also recognizing the influences from other genres. 

PATRICIA KENNY

MiXt Co. Artist - Fall 2016

A native of Manhasset, New York, Patricia studied with Jean Yienken Lee and Olga Berest and went on to receive her B.F.A. from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. After graduating, she performed, taught and staged works both nationally and internationally for seven seasons with The Parsons Dance Company. In 1997 she was awarded "best emerging female choreographer" by The Pennsylvania Council for the Arts and in the following year was a founding member of Kevin O'Day's company. Ms. Kenny Reilly's choreography has been shown at The Tilles Center, The Duke Theater, Evolving Arts Theater, Riverside Church, Peridance, Chelsea Piers,The Dicapo Opera Theater, Adelphi University, Suny Purchase, University of Massachusetts, CALARTS, Hampshire College, The American Dance Festival and at the Arcade Theater in Fort Meyers Florida. In 2001, Patricia founded and was Artistic Director of Patricia Kenny Dance Collection. 

John J Zullo

MiXt Co. Artist - Fall 2014 and Fall 2016

John J Zullo is originally from the Bronx and currently resides in NYC. He holds a B.A. in Anthropology an M.A. in Dance from American University where John was privileged to perform in the work of Ohad Naharin. While at American, his work was presented at Dance Place in Washington,DC and he was awarded the Arts Club of Washington’s Award for Outstanding Choreographer. John worked with Regina Nejman Company and Jeff Rebudal Dance as a performer, Rehearsal Director & Associate Director. He has taught at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, The Dance Complex and Green Street Studios in Boston, American University, Adelphi University among other national and international venues.

Zullo/RawMovement presented its 2013 season at Danspace Project at St. Mark's Church as part of the Dance:Access series and was presented for a sold out run at the LaMaMa Moves! Festival 2013. RawMovement toured the Memory Suite evening of works to the Dance Complex in Cambridge, MA in June 2014.

MEGAN WILLIAMS

MiXt Co. Guest Artist Spring 2016

Megan Williams is an independent dance artist, choreographer, teacher and repetiteur, with a BFA from the Juilliard School, and an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. She has performed and toured internationally with the companies of Laura Glenn, Ohad Naharin, and Mark Haim, among many others. In 1988, she joined the Mark Morris Dance Group, with whom she danced for 10 years, toured worldwide, taught, and appeared in several films, including Falling Down Stairs (with YoYo Ma), The Hidden Soul of Harmony, The Hard Nut and Dido and Aeneas. Ms. Williams continues her affiliation with Mark Morris as a guest performer (creating the role of Lady Capulet in Morris' 2009 Romeo and Juliet: On Motifs of Shakespeare and dancing Bijoux at the 2014 Bessie Awards), and guest teacher at the Mark Morris Dance Center. She has staged Morris' work on the Purchase Dance Company, Vassar Repertory Company, Fieldston Dance Company, the Boston Ballet, and the Pittsburgh Ballet Theater and on students at the Juilliard School, George Mason University, and Les Etes de la Danse (Paris), among others.  Her choreography has been produced by Dancenow NYC at Joe’s Pub and Dance Theater Workshop, and by the Rivertown Artist’s Workshop, Barnspace, and Purchase College. She is currently teaching Dance for Parkinson’s Disease in Rye, NY, and at the Juilliard School, was recently an adjunct professor in the Dance and Theater Department at Manhattanville College.

Leonides Arpon

MiXt Co. Guest Artist Spring 2016

Leonides D. Arpon (Filipino-American) born in Israel was mentored by Rosaline Subel Kassel at the Bat-Dor Dance School before joining it’s company directed by Jeannette Ordman where he worked with world renowned choreographers such as Luciano Cannitto, Igal Perry and Randy Duncan. In New York, Mr. Arpon has worked as a principal dancer with Karole Armitage, Earl Mosley, Kevin Wynn, Sean Curran and Johannes Wieland. He has performed, choreographed and taught in the US at the Ailey School, Princeton University and Peridance Capezio Center, in Israel at the Bat-Dor and the Thelma Yelin Performing Arts Schools as well as Ballet Philippines, Philippine High School for the Arts and the University of the Philippines. Mr. Arpon studied Argentine Tango with Dardo Galletto, Karina Romero, Ivan Terrazas, Sara Grdn and Jorge Torres and is a recipient of the Princess Grace Award and the America Israel Cultural Foundation Scholarships.

Megan Bascom

MiXt Co. Guest Artist Fall 2015

Megan Bascom is the Artistic Director of Megan Bascom & Dancers, a New York City based company, which has been produced by Triskelion Arts, Gowanus Arts + Production, Center for Performance Research, Dance New Amsterdam, and The Rover SoHo. Works have also been presented at The Clemento Soto Vélez Centre, Green Space, WAX Works, Amalgamate Artist Series, Movement Research, HATCH, Inkub8 Arts (Miami, FL), Florida Dance Festival (Tampa, FL), the FIGMENT Festival (Governor’s Island, NY), the Built on Stilts Festival (Oak Bluffs, MA) and through the Hoover Dam Collective’s events around NYC. Megan is a Florida native and graduated with honors from the University of South Florida where she received a Bachelor of Arts in Dance Studies, focusing on dance injury and prevention while additionally completing all the credits to qualify for a BFA in performance and choreography. In her earlier years, Megan both apprenticed and performed for Dance Alive National Ballet (Gainesville, FL). After moving to NYC, she spent many years dancing with white road Dance Media/Marisa Gruneberg, with whom she was a founding member. In the past Megan has had the pleasure of performing with Jody Oberfelder Projects, alex|xan: The Median Movement, Kendra Portier|BANDportier, Rebecca Lubart/lubartdances, Tara Burns Dance, Jeanne Travers, Michael Foley, Danny Buraczeski, Moving Current Dance Collective, Doug Varone, and others. In addition to her artistic pursuits, Megan is the co-author a book with Deborah Kayton Michal’s titled Up Down, Move Around: Active Learning for Preschoolers, which was published by Gryphon House, a subsidiary of Kaplan, in 2013. Currently, Megan works as a teaching artist and is a private Pilates instructor working in and around the greater NY area.

Lane Gifford

MiXt Co. Guest Artist Fall 2015

Lane Gifford is artistic director of LaneCoArts a New York based multi-arts company that examines the intriguing relationship between dance, theater and the visual arts. The mission of the company is to create a rich and dynamic dialogue that fuses a distinctive movement aesthetic, deep emotional exploration and stimulating visual and dramatic components.  Performances include Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Boston Contemporary Dance Festival, Dance New Amsterdam/RAW Directions, the NY International Fringe Festival, Le Poisson Rouge, the 92nd Street Y, New York Theater Workshop (Works in Process Series) and ITE Festival in NYC. Commissions include new works for Ballet Nouveau Colorado/Redline Gallery, Boston Center for the Arts/Mills Gallery, Southern Utah University, McKnight Artist Fellowship for SOLO Commissioning Program with Kari Mosel 2014, a choreographic fellowship at University of Kansas 2014 and an artist residency with Boston Center for the Arts and accompanying performances 2015. www.lanecoarts.org

Nathan Trice

MiXt Co. Guest Artist Spring 2015

Originally from Detroit, MI, Trice began his training in 1988 under the direction of Aulani Chun in San Diego, CA at Mesa College. While training, he simultaneously completed his remaining two years of a four-and-a-half year contract with the U.S. Navy. Upon completion of his Naval contract, he was accepted into the Alvin Ailey Certificate Program in 1991. Since completing the program in 1993, Trice spent the following six years as a featured artist with MOMIX, Complexions Contemporary Ballet, Joseph Holmes Chicago Dance Theater, Kevin Iega Jeff, Donald Byrd/The Group and Forces of Nature Dance Company. During that period, Trice developed and began presenting his own choreographic work while simultaneously establishing his teaching philosophy, style and technique.  In 1998, Trice created nathantrice/RITUALS Project-by-Project Dance Theater as a means to share his own artistic vision. He and his company have toured throughout the United States, Bermuda, Aruba, Japan, Argentina and Hong Kong.  As an educator, Trice has taught his technique and brand of movement, given master classes, conducted workshops and lecture demonstrations and has choreographed for over 30 universities, colleges and performing arts high schools. He has been on faculty at Long Island University dance department in Brooklyn New York for over 10 years, and continues to be one of the most sought after teaching artists in the academic dance world as well as in the professional dance studios nationally and internationally for the past 18 years.

Pamela Pietro

MiXt Co. Guest Artist Winter 2015

Pamela received a BFA/Dance from Florida State University and her MFA/Dance with a minor in Medical Ethics from University of Washington. She currently teaches as an Associate Arts Professor at New York University Tisch School for the Arts, Department of Dance, and she has been on the faculty at the American Dance Festival since 1997. She has danced with incredible artists and taught/choreographed throughout the world.

Dante Brown|Warehouse Dance

MiXt Co. Guest Artist Winter 2015

Dante Brown|Warehouse Dance is a New York City based company that works collaboratively in hyper-physical creative processes to produce dynamically rich environments on stage. DB|WD enjoys questioning the social implications and physical limits of a moving body, in order to generate thematically drenched environments/worlds on stage. Since 2010, DB|WD has had the opportunity to show work at Columbus Dance Theater, Dance Gallery Festival, Dixon Place, East Village Dance Project, Gowanus Art & Production Green Building, The Howl Festival, LaMaMa Moves Festival, Movement Research, Sam Houston State University, Triskelion Arts, The Wild Project, Wexner Center for the Arts, and YourMove Dance Festival.

Gwen Welliver

MiXt Co. Artist - Fall 2014

Gwen Welliver is a dancer, choreographer, and teacher. Welliver performed with Doug Varone and Dancers (’90-’00), was a recipient of a “Bessie” for Sustained Achievement (’00), and served as Rehearsal Director for the Trisha Brown Dance Company (’00-’07). Welliver is a 2013 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow in Choreography. She has been a Movement Research faculty member since 1997 and currently teaches at Sarah Lawrence College.

Tara Lee Burns

MiXt Co. Artist - Spring 2014

Choreographer, media artist and artistic director of Burns Dance Media, Tara Lee Burns' works span live dance performance and film. Her choreography has been performed in Florida, Connecticut, NYC and England. She has performed throughout the US, Germany and the UK with various companies and currently dances with Adele Myers in addition to producing her own work. Tara received a BFA in Dance Performance Summa Cum Laude from the University of Florida and an MA in Digital Performance at The University of Hull/Doncaster, UK.

Peter Kyle

MiXt Co. Artist - Spring 2014

PETER KYLE is Artistic Director of Peter Kyle Dance. His choreography has been commissioned/performed across the U.S. and overseas in Scotland, Norway, Germany and Cyprus. In New York City his company has performed at One Arm Red, Abrons Arts Center, Chez Bushwick, Joyce SoHo, Symphony Space, DNA, 3LD Art & Technology Center, the 92nd Street Y and Triskelion Arts, among others. Kyle toured with Nikolais and Murray Louis Dance, Mark Morris Dance Group, Erick Hawkins Dance Company and P3/east, among others. He teaches at Bard, Sarah Lawrence and Marymount Manhattan colleges. His ongoing Tiny Dance Film Series (tinydancefilms.com) has been installed internationally since 2006.