STUDIO STORIES: REMINISCING ON TWIN CITIES DANCE HISTORY

Jess Forest (Jesse Neumann-Peterson) is a dancer, theater performer, choreographer, and visual artist residing in Minneapolis, Minnesota. As a nationally touring company member, teacher, and community outreach worker with Stuart Pimsler Dance and Theater (SPDT) for eight seasons he has performed in the following company repertory works, Tales From the Book of Longing, Matinee, Bohemian Grove, Walk...

Stephen Yogi Rueff grew up in Minneapolis collecting comic books in the 1960s and loves his role as co-founder of SuperMonster市City!, where he is a curator and managing director. SuperMonster市City! places American monsters, superheroes, and villains as represented in toys, games, posters, and more, into social and political contexts. Through informative texts, artist profiles, and commentary, th...

Megan Mayer I am an award-winning Minneapolis-based artist working with choreography, dance, experimental video and photography. My work pulls from minimalism, transposition, mimicry, grief, tenderness, wry humor, loneliness, social anxiety, fake bad timing and exacting musicality. By exposing tiny emotional undercurrents, I find virtuosity through vulnerability and gesture. Drawn to the edges of...

J’Sun Howard is a Chicago-based dancemaker. He holds an MFA in Dance and a certificate in World Performance Studies from the University of Michigan. He is a 2020 3Arts Awardee, a recipient of their inaugural Esteemed Artist Award from the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE), and a 2019 Asian Cultural Council Fellow. A Links Hall Co-MISSION Fellow, a Ragdale Foundation...

Native to St. Paul, MN, Berit Ahlgren trained at Minnesota Dance Theater with Loyce and Lise Houlton, and was a founding company member of TU Dance, performing between the years of 2006—2016. Receiving Metropolitan Regional Art Council’s Next Step Grant in 2011, Ahlgren studied the Gaga Movement Language in Tel Aviv, and shortly thereafter moved to Israel to pursue an intensive, yearlong teacher c...

Maria Gomez Tierney has been choreographing, dancing and teaching in the Twin Cities since 1989. She received a B.A from the University of Minnesota and an M.F.A. from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Tierney has directed Gomez Dance Group since 1998. Her dance work has been presented at many venues throughout the St. Paul and Minneapolis area.  She was a faculty member at Gustavus Adolphus Coll...

Mariusz Olszewski, ballroom artist, coach and choreographer whose work has been presented at the biggest ballroom venues, dance festivals, theaters and television around the world. He choreographed for the World, American, Polish and Ohio Star Ball Champions and other top ranking ballroom couples including Blackpool Dance Festival American Smooth finalist. Mariusz, moved to Minneapolis in 1996 to...

Megan Flood danced for over a decade as a member of Zenon Dance Company, was a founding member of Wynn Fricke's Borrowed Bones Dance Theatre, performed as a guest artist with Bill Young and with Wil Swanson, and collaborated with a myriad of independent choreographers in the Twin Cities.  In collaboration with guitarist/composer Dean Magraw, Megan created improvisation-based work, including t...

Duncan C. Schultz, born and raised just outside the Twin Cities in Minnesota, received his early dance training at Metro Dance Center. After completing his B.A. in Dance at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities he worked with Mathew Janczewski’s ARENA Dances, Olive Bieringa and Otto Ramstad’s BodyCartography Project and Toni Pierce-Sands and Uri Sands’ TU Dance. While in the United States, he h...

Leslie has danced professionally since 2004. She began her formal training at age 18 at the University of Wisconsin at Green Bay and received her BFA in Dance from the University of Minnesota in 2003. Leslie was a founding member of Black Label Movement from 2005 – 2009, and joined nationally acclaimed repertory company Zenon Dance in 2006. She built a rich and diverse performance career at Zenon...

Diane Elliot was born in Chicago and grew up in the north suburbs. Trained in dance from an early age, she received extensive training in dance and theatre at New Trier High School in Winnetka and in 1971 graduated summa cum laude, phi beta kappa from the University of Michigan, with a major in American Arts. For the next 25 years, Diane enjoyed a varied career in dance and theatre, studying with...

Cynthia Stevens/ INSITU slips into swamps, streams and forests creating environmental performance and media. This multidisciplinary work explores the interconnections of dance with original music, somatics and ecology to foster a visceral sense of place.  Over the past 40 years her productions have been presented in the United States, Canada, Europe and New Zealand. She has created over 60 works i...

Chitra Vairavan is an artist, seeker, contemporary indian dancer/choreographer and educator born in Milwaukee, WI (occupied Potowatami, Ho Chunk and Menomonee land) and culturally raised as an artist based in Mni Sota Makoce / Minnesota (occupied Dakota Oyate land). With ancestral roots in Kandanur and Rayavaram, she is immersed in Tamil/Thamizh culture and progressive politics in the U.S. Her emb...

Erinn Liebhard (MFA University of Colorado Boulder, BFA University of Minnesota) is a dance artist making opportunities for people to experience the reflective and connective power of groove through performance and education. Guided by this inspiration and a fondness for jazz and American social dance ideas, she's worked with creatives as varied as hip-hop dance theater artists Rennie Harris...

LISA 'MONALISA' BERMAN is the founder and Artistic Director of BRKFST Dance Company. She is the recipient of the 2019 Artist Initiative Grant to produce “Dreamers,” a short experimental dance film choreographed and performed by members of BRKFST and directed by Maria Juranic, 2016 McKnight Dancer Fellowship, and 2008 Jerome Travel and Study Grant. In collaboration with Joseph Tran and BR...

Annie Enneking has been a performing artist for over forty years. In her various capacities as actor, dancer, songwriter and fight director, her work has been seen on almost every stage in the Twin Cities, as well as across the country. She fronts and founded the band Annie and the Bang Bang, with whom she goes on many rock and roll adventures. She was a 2010 Playwrights’ Center McKnight Theater A...

A dance artist born on occupied land and deeply rooted in the neighborhood  named the Rondo community of St. Paul, MN. She holds a BFA from Esther Boyer College of Music and Dance, a MFA in Dance from Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, The Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts and The Dresden Frankfurt Company in Frankfurt, Germany and is a 2017 Bessie award recipient.  As a dance creative, she...

Sherry Saterstrom helped shape the life of the dance program at St. Olaf College from the late 1960’s when she was a student there. A twist of fate brought her back as a guest artist and teacher after completing a Master’s Degree in Dance/Humanities at Arizona State University. Over the years her fascination with invention yielded classes such as The Body Movable, Power Play, The Beat Goes On, Mov...

Brian J. Evans (He/Him/His) is a Citizen Artis t , defined by the Aspen Institute Arts Program as:  Individuals who reimagine the traditional notions of art-making, and who contribute to society either through the transformative power of their artistic abilities, or through proactive social engagement with the arts in realms including education, community building, diplomacy and healthcare.   Mixi...

Stephen Schroeder began his dance career at the ripe age of 6, danced for a couple years then picked it back up before high school. While pursuing his Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Dance from the University of Colorado at Boulder, he danced professionally with local Boulder companies Blue Moon Dance Theater, Helander Dance Theater, David Capps/Dances, Interweave Dance Theater, The Boulder Ballet...

Holly Farnsworth Schramm is a native of Minnesota. She received an Associate Arts Degree in Dance from Stephen’s College in Columbia, Missouri in 1981, and a B.S. in Dance Education from the University of Minnesota in 1985. She performed with the Rezone Dancers in 1983 and was an understudy for The Minnesota Jazz Dance Company in 1985. She went on to be a founding member of Ballet Harren, where sh...

Julia Tehven Sutton began her professional career with Minnesota Dance Theatre under the Artistic Director and Founder Loyce Houlton, performing in many of her original works as well as ballets of renowned choreographers such as Balanchine, Glen Tetley, Frederick Ashton, Petipa and Michael Fokine. In 1988 Julia joined Myron Johnson’s Ballet of the Dolls dancing in countless original works includin...

Judith James Ries grew up in Wales Great Britain and was 4 when she started dancing at the Royal Academy of Dance. After moving to Minnesota with her family she continued training at Larkin Dance Studio. After choosing a business degree at the University of Minnesota, she made her way back to dance when she joined the Zenon Scholarship program where she met Danny Buraczeski. Judith spent ten years...

“Choreographer Heidi Spesard Noble…created dances that bring us into our leads’ inner lives, Thais, Rob Hubbard, Pioneer Press, (2018) and “able to blend dancers and singers seamlessly” Lydia Lunning, Rusalka, twincitiesarts.com (2016). Heidi Spesard Noble is a multifaceted choreographer telling stories through Opera and Theater. Ms. Spesard Noble has developed strong relationships with Minnesota...

Gretchen Pick has a BA from Sarah Lawrence College, an MFA in Dance from the University of Wisconsin, and is a certified Laban Movement Analyst. She has been an active dancer, teacher and choreographer in the Twin Cities since 1993. The companies and choreographers she has danced for include 45 Chartreuse, Gomez Dance Group, 10,000 Dances, Flying Sisters Theater, Dancing People Company, Sarah Haus...