Dance Alumni

Ellen Oliver (12F) is currently a dancer in Fusionworks Dance Company and Lorraine Chapman The Company, and has recently performed for Ali Kenner Brodsky & Company. Oliver, along with a colleague, recently received the 2018 NEFA Grant for the ProviDance Project.

Mary Rose Blandino (08F) spent the summer after graduation working stage crew for every performance art presentation at MassMOCA in North Adams, MA. In the fall, she began rehearsing with Teresa Fellion's company in New York City, which culminated in a performance in a pedestrian walkway in Times Square. In October, she reprised the opening solo from her Division III at Judson Church in their event, STUFFED. Currently, Mary Rose is working with Lindamood-Bell Learning Processes, helping people with reading-based learning difficulties.

Olana Flynn (08F) and colleague Katie Aylward received a grant from the Northampton Arts Council in the fall of 2013 to create Workbench: a monthly series designed to provide local emerging to professional choreographers a venue to perform and discuss their works in progress.

Chani Bockwinkel (07F) is a performer and filmaker. Her work was most recently shown at: BRIC (NYC), Ponderosa (DE), Acre T.V. (IL), Destiny Arts (CA), INCITE/EXCITE (PA), somARTS (SF), QUEERSTIAN , (Amsterdam), BAMPFA (CA), and the Collage Festival (PA)., She is also a founding member of SALTA, a feminist dance collective. Since its conception in 2012,: SALTA has curated over 30 events at venues such as somAarts, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Berkeley Art Museum, and AUNTS. SALTA also holds a Goldie Award.

Laura Ann Samuelson is a choreographer, dancer, and teacher of contemporary performance. She produces original work under the name Hoarded Stuff Performance and has collaborated with groups such as Joanna and the Agitators, square product theatre, Buntport Theater Company, and Screw Tooth Theater Company. Laura Ann was named one of Colorado's most creative minds in Susan Froyd's 100 Colorado Creatives Series in Denver's Westword (2014), and has been an artist- in-residence at the Denver Art Museum, Dance Initiative (Carbondale, CO), Colorado Conservatory of Dance, and at SKOGEN arts (Gothenburg, SWEDEN). Currently, she is pursuing an M.F.A. in dance at CU Boulder and is a Center for the Humanities Arts & Sciences fellow. She is also a Feldenkrais Method practitioner-in-training.

Noelle Serafino (05F) is now the administrative assistant and educational outreach coordinator at Pioneer Valley Ballet in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Jen Rosenblit (05F) makes performance in New York City and Berlin. Rosenblit is a 2015-16 Movement Research artist-in-residence, a recipient of a 2016 MAP Fund, a 2014 New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award for Emerging Choreographer, an inaugural recipient of THE AWARD, a 2014-2015 workspace artist through LMCC, a 2013 Fellow at Insel Hombroich (Germany), a 2012 Grant to Artists from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and a 2009 Fresh Tracks artist (Dance Theater Workshop). Rosenblit has received commissions from The Kitchen, New York Live Arts, Danspace Project, and Issue Project Room. Rosenblit was a part of MoMA PS1 Greater New York 2016.  Her recent work Clap Hands (2016) and the companion work Swivel Spot (2017) have lead her on an inquiry toward the uncanny and maintenance of care. Recent works focus on an improvisational approach to choreographic thought, locating ways of being together amidst impossible spaces.

Lily Gold (04F) makes paintings, objects, experimental short films, and music. Gold’s work aims to expose and promote the culturally-marginalized intelligence of our emotional and intuitive selves, and has been presented by the Museum of Modern Art, Danspace Project, Chez Bushwick, Dixon Place, Aunts, First Street Gallery, Movement Research Spring and Fall Festivals, and Movement Research at Judson Church. Gold’s latest work Sticky Sister and 8hrs of Whale (in progress, 2018), was performed at the Museum of Modern Art at Judson Memorial Church, New York, NY.

Olive McKeon (04F) is a dancer and researcher from Northern California, who writes on the intersections between Marxism, feminism, and dance studies. She holds a doctorate from the University of California, Los Angeles, completing a dissertation on historical materialist approaches to San Francisco modern dance history. Her recent articles include "Dance, Real Estate, and Institutional Critique: Reconsidering Glorya Kaufman’s Dance Philanthropy in Los Angeles" in Lateral and "The Wallflower Order and Social Reproduction: Gender, Work, and Feminist Dance," in TDR: the Drama Review. She has danced with the choreographers Abby Crain, Hana van der Kolk, Sophia Wang, and Jamy James Kidd as well as in her own work.

Christopher-Rasheem McMillan (04F) is a performance related artist and scholar. He has a joint appointment between Dance and Gender, Women's & Sexuality Studies at the University of Iowa, receiving his M.F.A. in experimental choreography from the Laban Conservatoire (London). He received his Ph.D. in the department of theology and religious studies at King’s College (London).His interests concern choreography in an expanded field, something that he has approached through experimental practices and creative processes in multiplicity of formats and expressions. He uses video, performance, photography, and oral storytelling to explore themes of race, memory, queer desire, religion, personal and public mythology.

Mariana Valencia (02F) is a Bessie Award recipient for Outstanding Breakout Choreographer (2018).  Her work has been presented by Danspace Project, Roulette, the Center for Performance Research, The New Museum, The Women and Performance Journal, Ugly Duckling Presse, and AUNTS as well as internationally in Serbia and Macedonia. As a performer, Valencia has worked with Lydia Okrent, Jules Gimbrone, Elizabeth Orr, Kate Brandt, AK Burns, Em Rooney, robbinschilds, Kim Brandt, Fia Backstrom, and MPA. She is a founding member of the No Total reading group and she has been the co-editor of Movement Research’s Critical Correspondence (2016-17).  As a teaching artist, Valencia has developed performance composition workshops that look at spatial improvisation and authorship through CLASSCLASSCLASS (2010-11) and the Movement Research Summer MELT program (2017).

Cass Ghiorse (01F)  joined Dance Alloy Theater, Pittsburgh's premier modern repertory company, in the fall of 2000. With DAT she has worked with Pilobolus, Kevin Wynn, Stephen Keoster, David Shimotakahara, Mark Taylor, and Beth Corning, among others. Ghiorse now teaches Yoga in NY.

CJ Holm (00F) has lived as a production professional (Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, Becket MA; Dance Place, Washington D.C.; Lincoln Center Out of Doors, New York NY), and Pilates instructor (Equinox, New York NY; Physio Logic, Brooklyn NY) while working and making work throughout the New York area. Holm's choreography has been presented in New York by BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange, CPR, STUFFED at Judson Church, and many more. Her 2014 work Rare Birds was selected for FLICFest at the Irondale Ensemble Center in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. 

Kimberly Brandt (99F) received an M.F.A. in sculpture from Tyler School of Art, and has presented her work in New York City at MoMA/PS1, The Kitchen, Pioneer Works, SculptureCenter, ISSUE Project Room, Artists Space, Abrons Arts Center, and AVA Gallery, among others. She has received residencies at MoMA/PS1 (2017-2018), Djerassi (2018), Movement Research (2016-2018), Bogliasco Foundation (2016), and Issue Project Room (2015). She also showed new at Movement Research at Judson Church in February 2014 with Effie Bowen, Addys Gonzalez (05F), Ryan McNamara, Sam Roeck, and David Velasco.

Julia Skloot (99F) danced for the Crispin Spaeth Dance Group in Seattle; taught dance at the Creative Dance Center, which she helped to start; and was a member of the Left Field Dance Collective, which performs throughout Seattle in theaters, warehouses, and public spaces. She studied for an M.F.A. in choreography at Sarah Lawrence College.

Zoë Klein (97F) In 2005 she co-founded Paradizo Dance with David Paris and since toured 28 countries over 6 continents. She won multiple first place cabaret dance awards, was seen on So You Think You Can Dance, and was a top Finalist on America’s Got Talent in 2009.  She created 22 different choreographies, self produced 2 full evening productions, curated acrobatic dance showcases of emerging NYC artists, led acrobatic dance workshops for thousands of people worldwide, and became a leader in the international Latin dance performance community. In March 2017 Zoë was invited to lecture at an indigenous contemporary choreographers festival at the Ordway Theater curated by Rosy Simas in Minnesota. Zoe mentored San Francisco artists as CounterPulse producing director 2013-2017.

Nicole Bindler (95F) holds a degree in Muscular Therapy from the Muscular Therapy Institute and certificates in Embodied Anatomy Yoga, Embodied Developmental Movement and Yoga, and Practitioner of Body-Mind Centering from the School for Body-Mind Centering (BMC). Her performance work and teaching have been presented at festivals and intensives throughout the U.S., Canada, Argentina, Europe, and in Tokyo, Beirut, Bethlehem, Mexico City, and Quito. She has been presented by High Zero Festival, Transmodern Age Festival, Shawinigan Street Theater Festival, FringeArts (formerly Philadelphia Live Arts Festival,) D.C. Improvisation Festival, The Kennedy Center, Danspace Project, Links Hall, Performance Mix Festival, Earthdance's Moving Arts Lab, Cultivate, nEW Festival, X Fest, Bowerbird & ThirdBird, CEC New Edge mix, First Person Arts, and Irtijal09’. She is currently teaching contact improvisation classes in PA.

Justine Lemos (95F), has trained as a teacher of  Hatha Yoga under Scott Miller of Western Yoga College, Kundalini Yoga at Yoga West and studied Yoga Philosophy under Pandit Sri Kumar in Kerala, India. Lemos currently teaches as faculty at Western Yoga College, and also holds a PhD in Cultural Anthropology from UC Riverside in addition to a Master’s degree in Dance from Mills College, a Master’s degree in Anthropology from UC Riverside. From 2003-2004 Lemos had a Fulbright Grant in India, researching the politics of gender as manifest in the sub-culture of classical Indian Mohini Attam (also transliterated as Mohiniyattam or Mohiniattam) dance in Kerala India. Lemos has performed and studied classical Indian Odissi dance with Guru Ranjanaa Devi as part of the Nataraj Dancers since 1995.

Katie Faulkner (93F) was featured on the University of Utah's new dance blog: Life as a Modern Dancer. Faulkner is a choreographer, performer, teaching artist, and the artistic director of little seismic dance company. Since founding the project-based company in 2006, Faulkner has received support in the form of numerous grants, commissions, residencies, and awards. She has been an active educator since 2002 and is currently on faculty at Stanford, the University of San Francisco, and the University of California Berkeley. She received her certification in Laban/Bartenieff Movement Analysis from the Integrated Movement Studies program and her M.F.A. from Mills College in Oakland, CA 

Norah Zuniga Shaw (92F), assistant professor and director of dance and technology at Ohio State University, is currently working with William Forsythe and the Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design to create an interactive score for One Flat Thing, Reproduced. She has been recently published in Performance Research Journal and was the assistant editor for the book and DVD Envisioning Dance on Film and Video, eds. Judy Mitoma and Elizabeth Zimmer, (Routledge, 2002).

Pele Bauch (91F) received a partial sponsorship for the creation and performance of Gilded Mammoth, Bewildering Sea from the Greater New York Arts Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, administered by Brooklyn Arts Council, Inc. (BAC). This work was created, in part, with a space grant from BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange with support from the New York State Council on the Arts, the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the New York Community Trust (Lila Acheson Wallace Fund for the Arts).

Nichole Canuso (91F) Founded the Nichole Canuso Dance Company, which has been presented by FringeArts (Philadelphia), New York Live Arts (New York), MA), Dance Theatre Workshop (New York), The Wilma Theater’s DanceBOOM! Festival (Philadelphia), DancePlace (Washington, D.C.), Judson Church Movement Research Exchange (New York, Philadelphia), and many others. NCDC is dedicated to creating performance experiences that embrace the complexity and absurdity of humanity while sitting at the crossroads of movement, visual art, and theater. Projects are developed through collaboration across disciplines with dancers, designers, musicians, writers, and software designers and range from small-scale movement explorations to large-scale immersive installations.

Michelle Marroquin (89F) received an M.F.A. in performance and choreography at Smith College, and has performed with various New York City choreographers, including David Dorfman, Zvi Gotheiner and Yanira Castro. Maroquin has certifications in yoga, Reiki, Thai Bodywork, Pilates, Gyrotonic and Gyrokinesis. Licensed in 2016 to be a Physical Therapist Assistant, and works in the rehab department of Mercy Medical Hospital while continuing to teach movement classes in the Pioneer Valley, as well as choreographing a wide range of events, including Day of the Dead Festivals. 

Yasuko Yokoshi (83F) received one of the most substantial awards given to a choreographer in the United States: $280,000 from New York Live Arts. The grant provides administrative infrastructure, rehearsal space, and a fully-produced world premiere. The program had seed funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation NYC Cultural Innovation Fund. Yasuko's work, BELL, premiered March 16-23, 2013.

Eva Dean (78F) made a special guest appearance at the Tord Gustavsen Quartet's performance at St. Peter's Church in February 2014. Eva Dean Dance company member Jessy Smith performed Eva Dean Dance's Poise set to "Token of Tango" by Tord Gustavsen from his album THE GROUND. The company will be performing Bouce Surfing, a gentle 45-minute workshop that encourages participation at the Museum of Modern Art in April.

Stephen Petronio (74F) has gone on to build a unique career, receiving numerous accolades, including a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, awards from the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, an American Choreographer Award, a New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award, and most recently a 2015 Doris Duke Performing Artist Award. He is the founder of Stephen Petronio Company (1984), which has performed in 40 countries throughout the world, including numerous New York City engagements and 24 seasons at The Joyce Theater. Petronio has created over 35 works for his company and has been commissioned by some of the world’s most prestigious modern and ballet companies, including William Forsythe’s Ballet Frankfurt (1987), Deutsche Oper Berlin (1992), Lyon Opera Ballet (1994), Maggio Danza Florence (1996), Sydney Dance Company (2003, full evening), Norrdans (2006), the Washington Ballet (2007), The Scottish Ballet (2007), and two works for National Dance Company Wales (2010 and 2013).

Sarah Smith (74F) is the editor of KINEBAGO, a printed journal of writing about dance and movement-based performance in New England.

(Page last updated January 2019)