DANI KUEPPER
Artistic Director
Dani joined DPC in 1998 and has since choreographed 19 works for the company. Four of these were evening length collaborations with former Artistic Director, Sarah Wilbur. These joint choreographic ventures produced Lucky Seven and the Wide Sky Dance Project – a formatwhich draws inspiration for dancemaking from the community. Danceworks’ Summer Dance Lab provided Dani the opportunity to collaborate with other local artists in Mixed Six, 2004 and the Mixed Six Cabaret Show, 2006. In addition to her commitment to DPC, Dani has done a wide variety of community work on Danceworks’ behalf over the past nine years. She has organized and/or implemented residencies for numerous Milwaukee Public Schools, aiming to integrate the arts and academics. Two years ago, Danceworks began the Intergenerational Multi-Arts Project (IMAP), which pairs senior adults with children in the community to create visual art and dance together. Dani has worked extensively with the clients at Aurora Adult Day Center and Golda Meir School, developing the dance component of this project. Ms. Kuepper received both her BFA and MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where she has been teaching modern technique as an adjunct faculty member of the UWM dance department since 1999. As an undergraduate at UWM, Dani choreographed the solo, Mrs. Schultz, which was selected to be a part of the American College Dance Festival concert, held at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. in 1998. Dani has choreographed extensively in the Milwaukee community and surrounding areas. Her work has been seen at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, the University of Wisconsin – Whitewater, the University of Wisconsin – Washington County, First Stage Children’s Theatre, Next Actors (Theatre for Youth Training Program), North Shore Academy of the Arts, Schauer Arts Center, John Michael Kohler Arts Center and the Monomoy Theatre in Chattam, Massachusetts.
Kelly Anderson
Dancer
Kelly is a BFA dance graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where she performed in the works of Janet Lilly, Ed Burgess, Simone Ferro and Andre Tyson. Kelly’s first performance with DPC was in 2001. She is happy to join DPC again as a company member. She also performs with Gerald Casel Dance, based in NYC. Kelly has performed locally with Wild Space Dance Company, Your Mother Dances and Foothold Dance Performance. Through these local connections, Kelly had the opportunity to perform the work of many guest artists, including Sean Curran, Heidi Latsky and Lisa Race. Kelly has just returned from Portland, OR, where she was a guest artist for Suniti Dernovsek and David Stein’s “Avian Fable”. She is also an active choreographer and has produced two independent concerts, “Bad Meat” (a collaboration with Jacob Neumann and funded in part by a Wisconsin Arts Board Grant) and “Vacant” (a collaboration with Kelly Zwiers, presented by Danceworks). Kelly has participated in several of the choreographic Dance Lab Summer Series concerts. These include Mixed Six (2004), Art to Art (2005 and 2006) and the Danceworks Cabaret in August 2007. As an undergraduate, Kelly’s work was selected to be presented at three ACDFA festivals and two National Conferences of Undergraduate Research. She, along with Kelly Zwiers and John Bielecki, has organized and performed five variety shows in Milwaukee, and two in Portland, OR, alongside John Bielecki and Suniti Dernovsek. This January, her choreography will be featured at an independent concert in NYC and this Spring, she will be collaborating with local composer Jason Seed on the DPC show with Present Music.
Melissa
Anderson
Dancer
Melissa Anderson, a native of Milwaukee, has performed in Soloist and Principal roles with companies as diverse as the Milwaukee Ballet, Ballet Teatro Municipal de San Juan, Southern Ballet Theatre (now the Orlando ballet), Michigan Opera Theater and the Icelandic National Ballet, among others. Melissa Anderson is also devoted to sharing her love of dance with others through Master Classes and Residencies in dance schools throughout the country. Melissa created and developed an ongoing Creative Movement and Dance for Physically Handicapped funded by Very Special Arts in Minnesota. She has also been involved in ACE (Art in Community Education) sponsored by the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, a program that takes ballet and music into the public schools. She is a master at working with groups of children of all ages and abilities. Her most recent Milwaukee Public School residency was with Elm Creative Arts Elementary where she worked with 1 st , 2nd and 3rd graders for two weeks. The project was coordinated with their music teachers, and culminated with each class performing their own narrated 'ballet' of Peter and the Wolf. Melissa has recently enjoyed teaching and choreographing for the Chicago National Association of Dance Masters CNADM, Dance Masters of Wisconsin, Dancenter North in Libertyville, IL, Performing Arts of Spring Grove, IL, Milwaukee High School of the Arts, and the BalletCenter Performance Company in Milwaukee, WI. Ms. Anderson has been featured in Dance Magazine's Dancer Online Chat, and in Dance Teacher Magazine. This is Melissa's fifth season with the company.
Liz Hildebrandt
Dancer
Liz Hildebrandt, a Wisconsin native, is a graduate from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (BFA, Dance). A competitive gymnast for seven years, Liz turned to dancing when she arrived at UWM in 2001. Liz is coming up on her sixth year with Danceworks, Inc and is enthusiastic about taking on a new role as Associate Studio Director. Hildebrandt has had the pleasure of working with some of the Milwaukee’s greatest artists and is looking forward to continuing her work in the theatre as well as the community. She is joining the Danceworks Performance Company for her fourth consecutive season and couldn’t be happier to be back.
Karly Hetebrueg
Dancer
Karly is a 2005 graduate of UW-Milwaukee’s Peck School of the Arts, with a BFA in dance (high honors). For the past two years, she has been a member of the Catey Ott Dance Collective, where she had the privilege of performing at the Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church in New York City. When Karly is not dancing herself, she is teaching dance at North Shore Dance Studio in Mequon. She also teaches gymanstics at North Shore Academy of Gymnastics in Cedarburg, where she was a rhythmic gymnast for eight years. It was there that her love for dance began and continued to grow. This Karly’s first season with the Danceworks Performance Company and would like to thank everyone who has helped her get here.
Kim
Johnson-Rockafellow
Dancer
Kim Johnson-Rockafellow began her dance training at age 10 in her hometown of Kingsford, MI. After completing one year at Western Michigan University, she transferred to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where she earned a BFA with high honors in dance. Her choreography represented the university at the American College Dance Festival. Kim joined DPC in 2000 and has since set four pieces on the company. Kim has been on the faculty of the Milwaukee Ballet School for the past seven years. She is branch manager of their west side school, where she teaches ballet to student and adult levels. She also teaches modern technique, composition and Mat Pilates (certified 2003) for the Milwaukee Ballet II (trainee company). She has choreographed two pieces for MBII. In addition to teaching for MBS, Kim recently became an adjunct faculty member of the dance department at UWM.
Diana
LeMense
Dancer
Diana LeMense grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin and Barcelona, Spain. She obtained a B.A. in International Studies (Magna Cum Laude) from St. Norbert College and an MFA in Dance from UW Milwaukee where she has been an adjunct instructor in the Peck School of the Arts for the past four years. Diana first performed professionally with Wisconsin Ballet Theater, a regional contemporary ballet company under the direction of Timothy Josephs. After three seasons with WBT, inspired by the human potential for beauty and committed to social justice, Diana left the field of dance in order to be more politically involved with her community, moving to Milwaukee to work as a legal advocate for low income families. In Milwaukee she found a way to balance her commitment to community and her passion for dance and artistic expression. She is the Movement Coordinator for Express Yourself Milwaukee, a collaborative creative arts project joining professional artists, art therapists and under served youth in the Milwaukee community. Every week Express Yourself Milwaukee artists work together with students from around the city, exploring music, dance, visual art and poetry, encouraging exploration, collaboration and artistic expression as a creative outlet and an alternative to violence and alienation. The year's work culminates each May in a city wide public performance and exhibit of visual art, choreography, poetry and music giving voice to a population that is all too often marginalized. The results are transformative for audience and performer! Diana also shares her love of dance with students at UWM, introducing students from a variety of backgrounds to the world of dance and to the expressive potential of the human body in motion. She is very proud of her long-standing work with Legal Action of Wisconsin where she works part time as a legal advocate for low income families who have been incorrectly denied public benefits.This is Diana's fifth season performing with Danceworks. Special thanks to Colin and Maite for their "commitment to my fruition" and to the company dancers for being inspiring people and great friends. I love you and am proud to share the stage with you!
Natasha
Posey
Dancer
Natasha
Posey, a Georgia native, began her dance career performing with Autusta Ballet
Company. She earned a BFA in dance from Point Park College in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. She has since performed with
Lynda Martha Dance Company (Chicago), Wisconsin Ballet Theatre (Green Bay),
and Ballet Madison. Natasha's
"day job" is a schoolteacher. She earned her teaching certification
at UW-Madison where she graduated with honors. Natasha then began integrating the
arts into education with her project "Language Arts Learned Through the
Creative Arts". As an artist-in-residence at Schenk Elementary School in
Madison, Natasha taught classes that combined dance with reading, writing, and
arithmetic to the whole school. She has led teacher-training workshops through
Very Special Arts-Wisconsin where educators are taught how to integrate movement
with students of all abilities. Currently, Natasha is a middle school teacher
at Golda Meir School for the Gifted and Talented where she teaches math, science,
and pre-engineering (through dance, occasionally).In addition to performing
with the Danceworks Performance Company since 2001, Natasha also teaches the
Milwaukee Ballet School's summer dance camps. In her spare time, Natasha is
currently completing her Master's degree through National Louis University.
Korey Olivier
Dancer
Korey is a 2004 graduate of the UW-Milwaukee dance program (BFA-dance). He has performed choreography by Long Zhao, Ed Burgess, Janet Lilly, Andre Tyson, Susan Marshall and others. His choreography, “My Playpen” was featured in the American College Dance Festival gala showcase in Aimes, Iowa. Korey is a 2nd year student working on a Masters of Science in Oriental Medicine. After a year hiatus he’s thrilled to be dancing with Danceworks again and incorporating his loves dance and theater.
Ryan Rau
Dancer
Ryan Rau began his training at the age of 8 under the supervision of the Cechetti Council of America at the Randazzo Dance School in Ann Arbor, MI. He spent high school at Virginia School of the Arts, where he trained under Petrus Bosman, David Keener and Martha Faesi. Ryan spent his summers at the Interlochen Center for the Arts and Milwaukee Ballet Summer Intensive Programs. In 2005, he was accepted into the Milwaukee Ballet II program, where he spent two years as a trainee under the direction of Rolando Yanes. At Milwaukee Ballet, Ryan performed in company productions such as Dracula, Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, Don Quixote and Romeo & Juliet, under the direction of Artisitic Director Michael Pink. Ryan is also on the faculty of the Milwaukee Ballet School. This is his first season with Danceworks.
Christal Wagner
Dancer
Christal Wagner was raised in Ripon, Wisconsin and since the age of 5, has loved dancing. In May 2007, she graduated from the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee with her BFA in Dance. While at UWM, she has danced works by Daniel Gwirtzman, Laura Dean, Ron K. Brown and Clare Byrne. In her last year, she was proud to dance a duet in Winterdances ’07, choreographed by Simone Ferro, and a duet in Summerdances ’07, choreographed by Ed Burgess. While maintaining honors at school, she worked with Elizabeth Johnson’s dance company, Your Mother Dances, performing multiple works by Johnson and one work by Heinz Poll. As a three year member of the Panther Dance Team while at UWM, she competed at the Universal Dance Associations Collegiate Nationals in Walt Disney World, dancing in jazz and hip hop categories. Christal has recently premiered her own work, “Alva’s Baby’s Blues”, in the informal concert at American College Dance Festival 2007, and most recently, her well received “Sojourn” in the Danceworks show An Army of One. This is her first season with Danceworks Performance Company.
Photography by Rory Kurtz