Claire Alrich (Costume Designer) is a freelance dance artist, costume designer, and educator in Washington DC. She is one-fourth of the performance collective Area Woman, a company member with darlingdance company, a teaching artist with Artstream Inc., site coordinator for the Field/DC, and the Director of Programs and Operations for the Friends of the U.S. Botanic Garden. Claire received a 2017 DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities artist fellowship. She loves silk, sequins, and surprises. www.clairealrich.com

Emily Amey (Performer) recently graduated from James Madison University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Dance and Media, Arts, and Design. While at JMU, she performed in seven student dance concerts and her choreography was selected for four. She was a member of JMU’s pre-professional performing company, the Virginia Repertory Dance Company. This past year, she performed Gregory Dolbashian's work Thread in JMU's New Dance Festival, as well as at the American College Dance Association's Mid-Atlantic Festival. Emily also performed at Dixon Place in their festival 8 in Show. Emily just finished her Dance Place internship and is so excited for her first post-grad performance!

KT Aylesworth (Performer), a senior Dance and Musical Theatre double major at American University, is excited to be making their performance debut at Dance Place after 2 semesters as a Technical Theatre intern. Recent performance credits include DANCEWORKS: Fulcrum at American University and Twelfth Night at the British American Drama Academy. They are super grateful to the DC dance community as a whole, and to Ben and Ava for giving them this opportunity!

Holly Bass (Choreographer) is a multidisciplinary performance and visual artist, writer and director. Her work has been presented at spaces such as the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian Museums, the Seattle Art Museum, Art Basel Miami Beach (Project Miami Fair) and the South African State Theatre. Her visual art work spans photography, installation, video and performance and can be found in the collections of the Corcoran Gallery of Art and the DC Art Bank, as well as private collections.

A Cave Canem fellow, she has published poems in numerous journals and anthologies. She studied modern dance (under Viola Farber) and creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College before earning her Master’s from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. As an arts journalist early in her career, she was the first to put the term “hip hop theater” into print in American Theatre magazine.

She has received numerous grants from the DC Arts Commission and is a 2019 Red Bull Detroit artist-in-residence and a 2019 Dance/USA Artist Fellow. A gifted and dedicated teaching artist, for four years she directed a year-round creative writing and performance program for adjudicated youth in DC’s Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services as well as facilitating workshops nationally and internationally. She is currently the national director for Turnaround Arts at the Kennedy Center, a program which uses the arts strategically to transform schools facing severe inequities. 

Amanda Blythe (Collaborator and Performer) serves the Washington, DC dance community as a dance artist and administrator. Classically trained in ballet, she first experienced modern dance and contact improvisation in college where she studied under Chris Aiken, Peter DiMuro, Colleen Thomas, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Tania Isaacs and many others. She currently dances with Heart Stück Bernie, RebollarDance, Spacetime Dance, Britta J. Peterson, Human Landscape Dance, UpRooted Dance and Extreme Lengths Productions, as well as collaborating on independent projects. Prior credits include Nancy Havlik’s Dance Performance Group, ClancyWorks Dance Company, and DancEthos. Amanda also has experience as a freelance marketer, social media manager, graphic designer, digital media specialist, theatrical costume designer, photographer, videographer, Q&A facilitator, stage manager, sound technician, flash mob coordinator and is willing to try anything once. akblythe.com

Kiyara Bryant (Performer) was born and raised in Tacoma, Washington, but has been located in the DMV area for the past 12 years. She studied dance at George Mason University, where she performed works by Mark Morris and Robert Battle. Since graduating, she’s had the opportunity to perform at the Kennedy Center for the Mark Twain Prize with Priore Dance Company, join ReVision Dance Company in DC, and perform in various dance projects around the DC area. In addition, she’s also had the opportunity to work with the Beth Elliot Dance Group and Terre Dance Collective.

Sarah Chapin (Assistant Stage Manager) is a stage manager, dancer, production manager, and theatrical electrician who calls both DC and Vermont home. With degrees in dance and Portuguese from Middlebury College, she has worked on the tech crew at Dance Place in DC and as the Technical Director of Bennington College's Dance Department in Vermont. She is currently the Production Manager at Joy of Motion Dance Center, but will be transitioning to Dance Place as the Technical Director in mid-September. An avid social dancer, Sarah travels to Lindy Hop events around the United States.

Hannah Church (Rehearsal Director and Performer) is a native of Statesville, NC. She moved to Washington, DC after graduating Magna Cum Laude from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance. Hannah has worked for Dance Place in the Individual Giving department since 2017 and dances with Gin Dance Company, DEVIATED THEATRE, and various companies in the area as a freelance artist. She danced in the premier of I made this dance and nobody cares but you in June of 2019 and is excited to be on the other side of the audience at Dance Place in the Season Opening show of Extreme Lengths.

Mark Costello (Projections Designer) is a Washington D.C.-based projection designer and theater maker. Recent credits include Orange Grove Dance’s Remnants (Kennedy Center/Terrace Theater) & Waking Darkness, Waiting Light (Clarice Performing Arts Center, Dance Place), Eurydice (Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center), Full Circle (Dance Place), and Broken Glass (Theater J). Mark currently works as multimedia designer and art director at Quince Imaging, and specializes in live design for sports, events, and video installations. He received an MFA in Theater Design from University of Maryland, and a BFA in Drama from NYU/Tisch.

Hayley Cutler (Choreographer and Performer), MFA is a choreographer, performer and dance educator based in Washington, DC. She is the founder and Artistic Director of darlingdance, an avant garde feminist dance company currently in its ninth season. As a maker and performer, Hayley pushes the boundaries of intimacy and comfort and encourages her audience to expand their notions of what dance making is; her work allows audiences to witness what total autonomy looks like for female bodies in public spaces. Next up for darlingdance is the world premiere of Target Practice in January 2020 at Dance Place, Washington, DC.

Molly Kate Dalton (Performer), originally from Oxford, Mississippi, is a recent graduate of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. There, she was an Artistic Merit Scholar and received her BFA in Dance Performance from Meadows School of the Arts. While at SMU, Molly Kate had the opportunity to perform student works and master works by choreographers such as Brandi Coleman, Adam Hougland, Delfos Danza Contemoporánea, Robert Dekkers, Moncell Durden and Danny Buraczeski. She is currently living in Washington, DC pursuing a professional performance career and teaching and working on the administrative staff at CityDance POP!

Alyssa George (Performer) is a Cum Laude graduate of Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with specializations in Business Administration and Performance & Choreography. She has attended American Dance Festival in Durham, North Carolina as well as performed at American College Dance Association at West Chester University and attended the Gibney Dance Experience in NYC. She has been in multiple student and faculty works including Ursula Payne, Jennifer Keller, Thom Cobb, Nola Nolen, Jaya Mani, Bill T. Jones (Staged by Jenna Riegel), and Heike Salzer. She is currently working with the Cleveland Dance Project.

Emily Godfrey (Performer) is a senior Linehan Artist Scholar at the University of Maryland Baltimore County pursuing a B.A. in Dance and a minor in Psychology. Born in South Korea and raised in Bel Air, MD, Emily trained with Harford Dance Theatre and Dance Conservatory of Maryland. She has performed at the UMBC Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement Day, the BIDA Choreographers’ Showcase, and the annual American College Dance Association Conference. Professionally, Emily has performed with Baltimore Dance Project. In June 2018, Emily had the honor of performing at the John F. Kennedy Center under the choreography of UMBC alumni Maia Schechter, whose work was performed and selected from the finals of the 2018 American College Dance Festival. She has attended the Hubbard Street Dance Chicago’s Summer Intensive, the Paul Taylor American Modern Dance Summer Intensive, and the Peridance Blueprint Summer intensive.

Madeline Maxine Gorman (Performer) is a Maryland native who graduated as commencement speaker from Towson University with her B.F.A. in Dance. Gorman has performed with the Towson University Dance Company, The Collective, RawArts Dance, and BlueShift Dance. She has worked for Christopher K. Morgan & Artists, Dance Place, and Jacob’s Pillow. Gorman self-produced ADDICT, a show that ran for two sold-out nights at Baltimore Theatre Project. Over $4,000 in ticket sales benefitted a new Baltimore homeless shelter for those affected by addiction. Most recently, she was commissioned by Joe’s Movement Emporium to present her work Veritas in May 2020.

Carolyn Hoehner (Performer) is a performer & maker in Washington D.C. Her choreography has been presented at Gibney Dance, Triskelion Arts, Dance Place’s New Releases, the Richmond Dance Festival, and galleries & site-specific locations across NYC and DC. She was a 2016 resident at the Trinity Fellows Academy, a 2017 recipient of Doug Varone’s DEVICES choreographic mentorship program, and a 2019 artist-in-resident at Art Omi: Dance. She currently performs for Ann Sofie Clemmensen as apart of the Kennedy Center’s Local Dance Commissioning Project. She’s charmed to be apart of her second project with the darlingdance company and her first with the ambitious talent of Ben Levine.

Anastasia Johnson (Performer) is a dance artist, teacher, and choreographer born and raised in Richmond,Virginia. After receiving her B.A in Dance along with a PreK-12 Virginia Teaching Licensure in Dance Arts from James Madison University in 2017, Johnson relocated to Maryland to further her artistry in the DMV area. Currently, she holds the title as the Energizers Afterschool Club Manager at Dance Place located in Washington, DC. Since relocating, Johnson has performed with companies and artists such as, Coyaba Dance Theater, VTDance, Ben Levine, Rachael Luebbert, and Juanita Maria Dance Company. Recently, Johnson has been developing her own dance company called A.J. Collabs, who has already had the opportunity to perform at the 2019 Small Plates Festival in Lorton, VA and Works In Progress Showing in Washington, DC.

Stephen Johnson III (Sound Designer) explores avant-gardism and examinations of culture in concert and electronic music, blending of these practices and employing graphic scores, extensive audio editing techniques and the repurposing of familiar songs and sounds. Stephen received the prestigious Linehan Artist Scholar award at UMBC where he graduated with two BAs, in 2017, one in music technology and one in composition. Stephen’s work investigates the conventions of various mediums- concert performance, video art, and streamed music. Stephen has directed and co-directed various projects, including a multi-site performance, a collaboration entitled x, and ‘america’ the premiere work of his music/dance company Forward Movements, co-run with choreographer, Sarah Schmitz. Stephen continues to pursue new perspectives on music in concert, electronic, and dance settings.

Faryn Kelly (Stage Manager) is originally from Lexington, KY and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance from Wright State University (Dayton, OH). She is a performer, choreographer, theater technician, and designer. Faryn completed her first season with Dance Place as a technical theater intern and is heading into her second season as the Master Electrician. She has a deep interest in many dance styles, forms of media, expressions of art, and perspectives of life. Among her favorite things are travel, instant film, haute couture, space, and chocolate covered espresso beans.

Dylan Lambert (Performer) is a DC-based performer and student at American University entering his senior year. He has worked with Michel Kouakou, Zoe Scofield, and Meredith Rainey as well as Britta Joy Peterson of bjpdance and Terre Dance Collective. IG: @chillin_with_dylan

Sadie Leigh (Choreographer) is a dancer, performance artist, and teacher born and raised in the DC/Metropolitan Area. She's one quarter of the performance collective, Area Woman, and a company member with Heart Stück Bernie and Pointless Theatre Company. Her own choreography is derived from source material ranging from idiosyncratic and pedestrian gestures to disappointing text messages to fever dreams and happy accidents.

Ben Levine (Producing Director and Set Designer) brings over a decade of experience to his roles as the Producing Director of Extreme Lengths Productions; Director of Production/Technical Director at Dance Place in Washington, DC; and Production Manager at the National Performance Network.  In addition, he is a freelance lighting, scenic, and projection designer.

In 2012, Ben was named "Best Up-For-Anything Technical Director" by the Washington City Paper. He has served as a judge for the Helen Hayes Awards. In 2016 he conceived and produced the Kitchen Sink Fest, a mega-collaborative one-minute dance extravaganza featuring DC’s 22 most daring dance makers. In 2017, Ben created and produced the Momentum Series, nine movement-based installation works, which engaged audiences in a series of dream-like environments. Also in 2017, Ben was awarded a Sister Cities grant from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities (DCCAH) which enabled him to travel to Pretoria, South Africa to collaborate with Usuthu Arts Productions for a performance at the South African State Theater. In 2018, he created and produced Filament, a three-week exhibition featuring live music, installation art, and dance performance.  

Additional recent awards have included the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Artist Fellowship (2018, 2019), DCCAH project grant (2018, 2019), and Anacostia Arts Center Performing Arts Incubator Artist in Residence (2019).  Ben holds degrees in Theater Arts and Mathematics from Drew University.

Betsy Loikow (Performer) is a native Washingtonian who began studying dance as a child at the Washington School of Ballet and as a member of Rima Faber's Primary Movers. She continued her dance education at the Washington School of Ballet and the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange. She continued dancing and choreographing throughout college and graduated with a B.A. in film and political science from Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY. Betsy currently works at the National Dance Education Organization in Silver Spring, Md., and has worked on both local and national electoral campaigns in the U.S and abroad. She is always looking for new ways to combine art and activism. Betsy continues dancing on a daily basis in the D.C. area as a founding member and Co-Artistic Chair of Glade Dance Collective and co-founder and organizer of the National Choreography Month D.C. (NACHMO DC) annual regional festival.

Katherine Maloney (Performer) was born and raised in Richmond, Virginia and received a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre and Dance at James Madison University. While at JMU, Katherine was a member of the Virginia Repertory Dance Company and the Contemporary Dance Ensemble at James Madison University, as well as the co-director of the Associate Dance Ensemble. Since moving to Washington, DC in 2017, Katherine has enjoyed performing with Deviated Theatre and small shows around the city while working at Dance Place and Orangetheory Fitness.

Kaitlin Pennington (Performer) graduated from James Madison University with a Bachelor of Arts in Dance in 2018. Shortly after graduating, she moved to DC for the Youth Programs Internship at Dance Place. After interning, she began teaching at District Dance Arts in NE DC and has recently started with Imagination Stage in Bethesda. She has also performed with Jane Franklin Dance and AJ Collabs in the DMV area. She is so excited to be returning to the Filament cast to kick off the Amplify season at Dance Place!

Shannon Quinn (Choreographer and Performer) recently graduated with her MFA in Dance from the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee in May 2018. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Dance with K-12 certification from Winthrop University. In 2011, she co-founded ReVision dance company, a resident contemporary company at Dance Place, and currently serves as its Artistic Director. In 2014, ReVision was awarded a highly competitive Sister Cities Grant from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities to travel to Pretoria, South Africa for a week long residency at the Tiqwa School and Tshwane University of Technology. Since 2014, Shannon has traveled to Pretoria three times, collaborating with South African company, Usuthu Arts Productions and continues to be a guest artist at the Tiqwa School and Tshwane University of Technology. Shannon and ReVision have made a commitment to working with children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, teaching classes at The Arc in many DC and Baltimore locations and River Terrace Education Campus. In addition to her work with ReVision, Shannon serves as the Education Director at Dance Place. For the past twelve years, she has also served on the faculty at The Catholic University of America teaching beginning and intermediate modern dance classes and a frequent guest artist and choreographer at Montgomery College. In 2018, Shannon presented at the National Dance Education Organization’s National Conference and has been a leader in the DC dance community for her work with individuals with different abilities and community-based projects.

Erica Rebollar (Choreographer) was born in Madrid, began studies at Washington School of Ballet, and completed her BFA in dance at Cornish College of the Arts and MFA in dance at UCLA. As an undergraduate student, she received ACDA’s national award in choreography. With the founding of RebollarDance in 2003, Erica Rebollar created a modern dance collaborative where multi-genre artists can make innovative work.

Rebollar produced her first show in 1999 at Seattle’s Mime Theater. She was a 3-time Lester Horton Award nominee in Los Angeles. Awarded the prestigious Mabou Mines Suites residency program in NYC, Rebollar showed evening length works at PS 122 and St. Mark's Church. She was a recipient of Joyce Soho’s A.W.A.R.D show, performing at Judson Church, DTW (NY Live Arts), DNA, TPAC, and the Flea.

Upon relocating to DC, Rebollar has received funding from the Art Council of Fairfax County, Kennedy Center’s LDCP grant, Culture DC’s Mead Theatre Lab Program/CityDance at Strathmore, and space grants from American Dance Institute and Dance Place. RebollarDance has performed numerous evenings at Dance Place, VelocityDC/ Harman Hall/Shakespeare Theatre, Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage, ADI, Atlas, Roundhouse, and Jack Guidone Theaters.

Nominated for two Dance Metro DC Awards, Rebollar has been twice highlighted as a Season Pick in City Paper and Washington Post with features on WAMU radio, FOX 5, and NBC news shows, along with a feature in the “Arts and Power” issue of DC Magazine/Modern Luxury. Hailed as “exactly what the District needs”, she was the recipient of the 2013 Dance Metro DC Award for “Excellence in Choreography” and the prestigious Pola Nirenska award for “Outstanding Contributions to Dance”.

Rebollar was a four year Visiting Artist and Lecturer of Dance at University of Maryland – Baltimore County and is now in her fourth year teaching at George Washington University, DC. RebollarDance will perform March 19, 2020 at Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater. For more information, visit rebollardance.com.

Robin Rodbell (Performer) is a dance artist and educator in the DC Metro area. She earned her A.A. at Anne Arundel Community College and B.F.A in Dance with a Business Administration minor from Towson University. Robin has performed with Towson University's Ballet Company, Moveius Contemporary Ballet, ICONS, Vaught Contemporary Ballet, BlueShift Dance, and RawArts Dance. Her choreography has been featured at NACHMO and The Collective’s Open Marley Night. Robin was a Technical Theater intern at Dance Place in 2019. She currently teaches at Core Allegro and performs with Ballet Embody and in other project-based works.

Ashley Shey (Performer) is a body linguist. She is a first generation Cameroonian American artist born in Washington, DC who carries on her cultural traditions of dance and storytelling as a means for remembrance and self-knowledge. Drawing on a past of performing in choreography based companies and competitive dance teams, her work has transitioned in the past five years to a more contemplative practice, focused on an experimental and meditative approach to study of movement. Constantly in pursuit of knowledge, she has recently been interested in studying Feldenkrais (a somatic movement practice), butoh (a Japanese avant garde performance art), Dharma yoga, Authentic Movement and Sufi whirling. Through improvisational dance and experimental performance, she engages the potential for alchemical transformation in each moment through use of meditative movement.

Sara Smith (Performer) is a dancer from Atlanta.

Stephanie Stoumbelis (Performer) grew up in Massachusetts and began dancing and performing at Macalester College. She was welcomed into the fold of Minneapolis dance and performed in works by Laurie Van Wieren, Supergroup, Megan Mayer and Angharad Davies. Stephanie was a member of Dykes Do Drag, the country’s longest running Drag King show and her King and Queen performances were named in the Best of 2015 on the Walker Arts Center blog by choreographer Kristen Van Loon. Stephanie received a Sage Award for Outstanding Design in 2016 for her work presented at the Red Eye Theater.

Vyette Tiya (Performer) is a recent graduate of American University where she studied International Relations and Dance. She was a member of the American University Dance Company (AU/DC) for three seasons as a performer, choreographer and rehearsal assistant. Among many artists, Vyette has danced for Britta Joy Peterson, Sarah Beth Oppenheim/Heart Stuck Bernie, Charles O. Anderson and Meredith Rainey. Currently, Vyette is a Partnering Artist at Dance Exchange and will be performing with SylviDances at Art All Night Tenleytown in September.

Sakiya Walker (Performer) is a proud alumna of Duke Ellington School of the Arts located in her native city; Washington D.C. With her great academic and artistic success, she was able to perform with Sting and Paul Simon and she was granted a full ride scholarship to attend George Washington University. While continuing her embarkation of being a college student, Sakiya is the choreographer/treasurer of the first R&B/Hip Hop dance organization called Queens Movement. Sakiya will be graduating from GWU in May 2020 with a degree in Dance(major), Public Health and Sustainability (minors). After graduation, Sakiya’s goal is to continue taking and teaching dance classes, getting a master’s degree in Public Health and pursuing a doctor’s degree in health administration.

Boris Willis (Performer) is the founder of Black Russian Games, Chief Artistic Officer of Boris Willis Moves and an Associate Professor of Experimental Game Design at George Mason University. He has performed with and Streb, Jacob’s Pillow’s Men Dancers and Liz Lerman. He the founder of the dance video blog danceaday.com. Willis has an MFA in Dance and Technology from The Ohio State University, a BFA in Dance from George Mason University and is a graduate of The NC School of the Arts. He is the recipient of a Kennedy Center Local Dance Commission and a Virginia Commission for the Arts Choreography Fellowship.

Kristen Yeung (Performer) is a Baltimore-based dancer & graphic designer. She received a B.A. in Studio Art & Graphic Design in 2013 from the University of Maryland, where she liked to pretend she was also a dance major. Kristen has been a company member with The Collective since 2014 and has also had the pleasure of performing with Heart Stück Bernie, Lynne Price, withhart.dance.projects, and Sadie Leigh. She received the 2017 Alumni Dance Commission at NextNOW Fest with Lynne Price, and their choreography was selected for the 2017 Baltimore Dance Invitational. She mostly spends her time making things like: dances, birthday cards, fried rice, travel plans, and demands for hugs.