 Photo: Adina Fradkov |
Mark Bankin is a choreographer and dance diagram specialist. His work has been presented at Fondation des États-Unis (Paris), Hošek Contemporary (Berlin), Power Station of Art (Shanghai), and The Tank (NYC). He’s a commissioned choreographer with notAmuse Theater, Dances We Dance, ACUD Theater Berlin, and The Why Collective, and has danced with Yoshito Ohno, Gekidan Kaitaisha, and Tetsuro Fukuhara. Mark studied with Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch at the Folkwang School and received a Fulbright for his MFA at the Conservatoire de Paris. His work has been described as “grotesque and beautiful—sometimes both at once” by Malini Singh McDonald at Theatre Beyond Broadway. |
Photo: Nisian Hughes |
Sophie Bortolussi is a French choreographer, performer and director living upstate NY. She is currently a core collaborator and performer in Geoff Sobelle’s latest creation: “Clown Show”. Sophie has won multiple awards as a choreographer and performer in the genre of immersive physical theatre. She was a contributing choreographer and original cast in “Life and Trust”, directed by The Kuperman Brothers and Teddy Bergman. She worked with Punchdrunk over a decade, playing the lead role of Lady Macbeth in “Sleep No More” in NYC and of Wendy in “The drowned Man: A Hollywood Fable” at the National Theater in London. Her performance was nominated for the 2013 UK Broadway World Award for “Best leading actress in a new production of a play”. In 2011 the received the World Falstaff Award for “Best Principal Dancer”.
She is the co-director and choreographer of Wilderness production “The Day Shall Declare It”, for which she was nominated for a 2015 Ovation Award for best Choreography.
Sophie is also recognized for her work for the stage. She movement directed and choreographed “Red Eye to Havre De Grace”, a production from Lucidity Suitcase Intercontinental/ Thaddeus Phillips at New York Theater Workshop in NYC.
She met Martha Clarke while she was performing in the Martha Graham Dance Company in 2005. Since then she worked on multiple Clarke’s projects, including “Angel Reapers” “The Threepenny Opera”, “Garden of Earthly Delights”, “Kaos”. She was Martha Clarke’s choreographer assistant for “The Threepenny Opera” at the Atlantic Theater in NYC. |
Photo: Larry Felton |
Liv Butowsky is a performance artist from New Paltz, NY, with training from former New York City Ballet dancers, Chicago Joffrey Academy, School of American Ballet, L’Ecole Supérieure de Danse de Cannes, Skidmore College, and the northeastern contact improvisation scene. Liv specializes in explorations of movement and language, and believes it necessary to engage with art as both performance and communal practice. She has choreographed for productions at the Experimental Media & Performing Arts Center, notably M.G. (aka I Want A Baby! Reimagined) and Queer Space Network, and has been a participant and collaborator in Hana van der Kolk’s research and performance art. She has choreographed for Dirt Picture Studio’s forthcoming documentary With The Meltwaters, So Too We Go, and through 2025 debuted These Words with Laura Coe (O+ Festival, International Human Rights Arts Festival). Liv has written poems for The Mount, Winter Tangerine, CapCity Slam, and various zines, and has performed across the country with the National Poetry Slam. She has led ongoing dance workshops for the Arc of Rensselaer, Oakwood Community Center, and other Troy movement spaces. Liv is an adjunct faculty member in the Skidmore Documentary Studies Department, and a member of the Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company. |
Photo: Ava Pellor |
Jessy Crist (she/they), from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, began her formal dance training at the age of 15, at Capital Area School for the Arts. Jessy graduated with a BFA in Dance Performance from Montclair State University. Jessy has worked professionally with EMPARA/Megan Paradowski, Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber, Alan Lucien Øyen, Dimitri Chamblas, Dark Circles Contemporary Dance Company (Las Cruces, NM), and VOID Movement Project (Turkey). They joined LA Dance Project as a guest artist for the 2022-2023 season. As a freelance artist, Jessy creates their own work in collaboration with multimedia artists. Her dance film, GYPSUM, has screened at Dare to Dance in Public Film Festival in Los Angeles, and was selected as an installation for Currents: New Media Festival in Santa Fe, NM. Jessy premiered her solo work VAMP for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, and has been an artist in residence at Moulin/Belle (France), and Keshet Dance Center (Albuquerque, NM). She choreographs, teaches, and performs throughout the Hudson Valley, NYC, and Los Angeles. |
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Photo: Youssef Nassar |
Maya June Dwyer is an interdisciplinary performing artist and director/choreographer who creates theatrical, design-forward choreographic works in unexpected places. Her projects plunge audiences into secret worlds, merging folkloric, character-driven storytelling with contemporary design tools in intimate proximity. Growing up working class in Syracuse, NY fuels Maya’s interest in interclass tension and shifting power. The patriarchy’s psychophysical imprint is also intrinsically linked to her creative inquiries around how intrusive psychological impulses—planted by external systems—exert control over a body’s animation. This translates into a movement style with a billowing, supernatural texture interrupted by physical glitches seemingly compelled by external entities.
Training highlights: Hofesh Shechter, Big Bang (Montréal); Pilobolus, Meredith Monk, Punchdrunk; Dual B.A. in Movement Theatre, Community Engagement Through the Arts from SUNY Empire State; mentorship from Kimberly Bartosik and Adam Barruch. Maya’s work has received support from NYSCI, NYSCA and the Alliance of Resident Theatres of New York. Recent choreographic work includes Pansy Craze, an immersive evening length at a queer nightclub, and Mad Scene (techno/dance-theatre/installation) solo work set in a freight elevator inspired by Nina’s Seagull monologue. In 2026, she makes her UK choreographic debut with Edgar in the Red Room at the Hope Theatre in London. She is also an adjunct professor of theatre and movement at Le Moyne College, where she frequently guest directs and choreographs mainstage plays and musicals. |
Photo: Jaqlin Medlock |
Teresa Fellion has shown work at Baryshnikov Arts Center, Public Theater, St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery, UF, ENTPE University France, NYU, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Ailey Theater, Bryant Park SummerStage, BDF Edinburgh EICC, Gibney, NY City Center, Dixon Place, UME, ICA Boston, 92nd St. Y, Naropa University, Franco-American Cultural Center, CPR, 14th St. Y, Dance Complex, Southampton Arts Center, Triskelion, and in concerts with Phish.
She has received choreographic fellowships from SummerStages Dance Festival/ICA Boston, Jacob’s Pillow’s Choreographers’ Lab, NYS Dance Force, LEIMAY Outsight. Teresa’s choreography has been commissioned by NYC DOT, chashama, 13 commercial dances for Sylvannia Lighting, Island Moving Company, MixT Company, Hudson River Museum. Her choreography, Book of Saints, commissioned by Marigny Opera Contemporary Ballet won the Best of New Orleans 2018 Gambit Award for Best Dance Presentation (Full Length). She was dance director, performer, choreographer, and lead faculty at Studio Republik Dubai creating tap, hip-hop, jazz, contemporary, contact-improv, tango, salsa, swing productions for two years. Teresa was named Artistic Liaison between Cameroon & U.S. by president Paul Biya, while performing dance + percussion with National Ballet du Cameroun and at National Soccer Cup Finals. She has performed for Lucinda Childs, Sarah Skaggs, Kimberly Young, M’Bewe Escobar, Skip Costa, Martha Bowers, and works by Twyla Tharp, Deganit Shemy, Liz Lerman, Megan Boyd. |
Photo: Andrea Gluckman |
Hailing from the village of Trumansburg NY, George Mechalke began dancing at 3 years old. After developing technical training in ballet and jazz, he went on to pursue a B.A. in Dance Studies at the University of Rochester, with a focus on dancefilm, meta and experimental work. Before graduating, he was awarded both the Hook-Taylor Award (Pooka Dance Prize) and the Dean’s Award for his symposium research and presentation in Dancefilm. Four Dancers (2024), The Body in Reel Time (2025) and Table for Two (2025) are notable works created during Mechalke’s tenure as an undergrad. Four Dancers was performed for the American College Dance Associate’s Northeast Conference in the Spring of 2025, and during the Rochester Fringe Festival in Grachel Behalkee Dance Co.’s premiere show, “Table for Two” and Friends. Co-authored by Rachel Bast, the evening showcased contemporary works from new professional dancers and finished with the eccentric duet Table for Two. Mechalke resides in Rochester NY, where he teaches dance at Strike It Up Artistic Studio and serves wine at Living Roots Wine Company. Outside of dance, he has a passion for planted fish tanks, bunny rabbits, and reading. |
Photo: Alana Taub |
Nicki Miller (she/her) is an interdisciplinary theatre maker, aerial artist, writer, and movement educator uplifting art and performance that ignites the imagination, troubles the intellect, and nourishes the body. Nicki has made several original aerial dance/theatre works and is also a freelance choreographer and consultant for theatre, opera, and dance productions seeking to integrate aerial arts into their dramaturgy and staging. She was co-founding artistic director of Only Child Aerial Theatre (with Kendall Rileigh 2012-2021). She and aerial rigger/performer Benny Oyzon developed several aerial counterweight duets to make their signature interdisciplinary duo show “Sticks & Stone” in 2022. They are now developing it for touring in 2026. Notable mentors include Lisa Natoli, Nita Little, Lake Simons, Diana Lopez Soto, Paper Doll Militia, and Leo Hedman. Residencies include Cirkus Cirkör (Sweden), the 2016/17 New Victory LabWorks Program, the Santa Barbara Floor to Air Festival, Toronto Circus Sessions, 5th Wall Studio, and The Hupstate Circus Residency, and WildHeart Center among others. She currently teaches Aerial Arts for Pace University’s Sands College of Performing Arts and throughout the Hudson Valley to children and adults. Nicki holds an undergraduate degree in Drama from Syracuse University, several athletic and applied neuroscience training/coaching certifications, and an MFA in Theatre from Sarah Lawrence College. www.nickimiller.com |
Photo: Al Mosher |
Cat D. Olson / CAT + THE COYOTE is an award-winning performer and choreographer whose work blends movement, narrative, and immersive design across dance, theater, film, sound, set, and costume. Her performing credits include Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More (NYC), Gallim, Spiegelworld, Gideon Obarzanek (Chunky Move), Raja Feather Kelly, and Rihanna’s immersive Anti-Diary campaign produced by Punchdrunk and Samsung. As a choreographer, Olson creates works that are both physically rigorous and imaginatively expansive, shaping every element of the performance while collaborating with performers and creative partners. She has been commissioned twice through Vision of Sound in collaboration with the New York Society for New Music and has created four full-evening immersive theater productions with the long-standing Rochester Cocktail Revival. CAT + THE COYOTE has presented two full-length dance-theater works at the ESL Rochester Fringe Festival. Her work has also been presented at SUNY Brockport, Rutgers University, ARTS on SITE (NYC), and House of Yes (NYC). Described as a “stand-out choreographer” by CITY Magazine (Sydney Burrows), Olson explores themes of feminism, grief, and age through embodied performance, creating works that are visceral, immediate, and emotionally resonant. She is the founding director of CAT + THE COYOTE and serves on the Theater and Dance faculty at Nazareth University. |
Photo: Zach Lyman |
Kaley Pruitt is a performer, choreographer, and Assistant Professor at SUNY Brockport. She has been commissioned by Repertory Dance Theatre, Wasatch Contemporary Dance, Fem Dance, Idaho Dance Theatre, Steffi Nossen Dance, Society for New Music, Simantikos Dance Chicago, Illinois Shakespeare Festival, and Illinois State University. Select presentations: Amanda Selwyn Footprints Festival, NYS DanceForce, Terpsichore Collective, St. Louis Contemporary Dance Festival /Resilience Dance, Green Space, MADCO Dare to Dance, Rochester Fringe, Austin Dance Festival, Mark DeGarmo, Milwaukee Fringe, UW Milwaukee, Dixon Place, Triskelion Arts, Chez Bushwick and CPR, Secret Theater, Ketchum Arts Commission, and Movement Research. Pruitt received the Community Arts Grant from Genesee Valley Council on the Arts to implement a community building workshop series with Henreitta Public Library in 2026, and she presented her research in interactive performance at the National Dance Educators conference in 2024. Pruitt’s work was showcased at the American College Dance Association’s National Conference in 2023, and she won Repertory Dance Theatre’s national choreographic competition Regalia in 2021. Outside of Kaley Pruitt Dance, Pruitt has performed with Becky Radway, Leeanne Schmidt, Treehouse Shakers, Esmé Boyce, Maggi Dueker, Rose Hutchins, Project Agent Orange, Joshua Reaver, Eddie Stockton, Megan Sipe, Mary Angelo, Amanda Selwyn, and others. |
Photo: Kenneth Johnson |
Rooted in Trinidad & Tobago, and moving the world, Kieron Dwayne Sargeant embodies the essence of culture in motion. As a choreographer, dancer, drummer, scholar, and educator, his work lives at the powerful intersection of African-Caribbean tradition, research, and resistance. The Skidmore College Assistant Professor of Dance brings over two decades of global teaching and performance experience to the classroom and the stage. Sargeant has garnered numerous prestigious accolades. These include the 2021 International Artist Award from Nigeria’s Ayjano Folklore Heritage and Performing Arts Institution, the 2023 Mayor of the City of San Fernando Trinidad and Tobago Citation Award for his significant contributions to arts and culture, the 2020 UNESCO Dance Fellow, and the 2022 Grant Wood Fellow in Interdisciplinary Performance from the University of Iowa. Additionally, he serves on the National Dance Education Organization (NDEO) Awards Committee Board and is an artistic advisor for the Mojuba Dance Collective. His choreography and research span regions from the U.S. and the |
Photo: Kenny Rodriguez |
Mark Schmidt, BA, New School for Social Research, MFA, SUNY Brockport, is a choreographer, curator, educator and DJ who first found solace on the dance floors of New York City’s queer nightclubs and underground house scene in the 1990s. He is a co-founder of JoyFlux, a performance production collective that engages communities through live performance and social dance. As a choreographer, Mark has presented work at Dixon Place, Arts On Site, Triskelion Arts, Sia Gallery, Chen Dance Center, Center for Performance Research, Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit, Bol Theater, and the Rockwell Museum. As a guest artist, he has taught master classes and lectured at Hofstra University, Springfield College, Nazareth College, SUNY Brockport, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Alfred University and the online platform FreeSkewl. In 2025 he was awarded a NYSCA Community Arts Grant to curate, shape and produce EXPRESS, a public space activation featuring three musicians, four dancers and two DJs at the Nasser Civic Center Ice Rink in Steuben County. Currently Mark is a performance curator for the Southern Finger Lakes Pride Festival, held yearly in Corning, NY. |
