Stephanie Clemens
Stephanie Clemens (Director, Ballet) began her dance studies with Adolph Bolm in Southern California. As a child she made her stage debut with The Ruth St. Denis Concert dancers and then continued her dance studies with Maria Kedrina, Michael Panieff, Gene Marinaccio and at the San Francisco Ballet School. She attended Juilliard in the late fifties; there her teachers were Anthony Tudor, Alfredo Corvino, Lucas Hoving, José Limón and members of the Graham Company. She has performed on the West Coast with The American Concert Ballet and The Cosmopolitan Opera Company and in the Midwest as a guest with Chicago Contemporary Dance Theatre. She is the owner and director of The Academy of Movement and Music in Oak Park and is one of the artistic directors/performers/choreographers of MOMENTA, a Performing Arts Company that has been actively involved in the reconstruction of works by Doris Humphrey. She appeared as a soloist with MOMENTA in New York and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., during 1989-90, performed a one-woman concert of St. Denis solos in summer, 1993, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and in 1994 at the Harold Washington Library in Chicago. Since 1988 she has worked on reconstructions of works by St. Denis, Doris Humphrey and Eleanor King with Karoun Tootikian, Ernestine Stodelle, Letitia Ide and Eleanor King. She is a founding member and was executive director of the Doris Humphrey Society and is a founding member and director of the Tidmarsh Arts Foundation. She served on the board of the Oak Park Area Arts Council for more than ten years. In 2000, she received an award of recognition from the American Library Association for her efforts in producing six videos documenting the work of Doris Humphrey. In 2001, she was awarded a Ruth Page Award for Lifetime Service and received the Oak Park Area Arts Council’s Joseph Randall Shapiro award. Stephanie has served on the Dance Panel for the Illinois Arts Council and on the Awards Committee for the Chicago Dance and Music Alliance.
Laura Brand
Laura Brand (Ballet) has performed extensively in classical and modern concert dance companies as well as in musical theater, commercial and industrial shows. Her concert work includes performances with the Chicago Ballet Theater, MOMENTA, The Beverly Dance Ensemble, The Polish Opera Company, the Lyric Opera Company of Chicago, The David Puszh Company, the Ukrainian Folk Dancers and in the Tribune Charities production of Ruth Page’s Nutcracker. She has also been in the PBS television production of Page’s Die Fledermaus. Laura appeared in a number of musicals at the Theatre at the Center in Indiana and conducted workshops for dance teachers in Omaha. In February, she was a judge at the Dance Olympus competition in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Laura has studied with Loretto Rozak, larry Long, Richard Arve, and Lou Conte. She currently works at a number of Chicago area schools including the Academy of Movement and Music.
Karen Castleman
Karen Castleman (Ballet) is a native of Bakersfield, California where she fell in love with dance at Civic Dance Center. Further studies took her to San Francisco Ballet School and Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre School before earning a BA in Dance from Belhaven College in Jackson, MS. Karen has worked with Ad Deum Dance Company in Houston, Texas and at Marah Dance Theatre in Philadelphia. As a soloist with MOMIX, she has performed in the United States as well as Europe, Asia, Australia and the Middle East. Karen has had the pleasure of working with many inspiring women including Nina Watt, Lesley Main and Gail Corbin, among others. She has performed the works of Doris Humphrey, Martha Graham and Jose Limon and has studied with Hedwig Dance Company and performs regularly with MOMENTA. Karen serves on the dance faculty of Loyola University Chicago as well as teaching at the Academy of Movement and Music in Oak Park. Karen, her husband, Dayton, and their daughter, Anna, live in Oak Park.
Mei-Kuang Chen
Mei-Kuang Chen (Ballet, Modern), a 2003 Chicago Dance Achievement Award recipient, was born in Kaohsiung, Taiwan and began her dance training in Chinese folk dance and ballet. Ms. Chen earned a BFA in Dance from Ohio State University and an MFA in Dance from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. Dancing professionally with Hedwig Dances since 1999, she was hailed at her debut by the Chicago Sun Times as a “dancer of tremendous authority.” Presently, Mei is a faculty member of the Academy of Movement and Music in Oak Park. Ms. Chen continues to perform, choreograph and teach in the Chicago area. In March of 2005, Mei and her husband, Paul, became the proud parents of a beautiful baby girl, Jessica Park. Life is full!
Sarah Cullen Fuller
Sarah Cullen Fuller (Ballet), born in Santa Cruz, California, began her dance training at the Academy of Movement and Music in Oak Park and spent summers studying with the schools of the Boston and Joffrey Ballets. She studied dance and psychology on scholarship at the University of Illinois (Champaign/Urbana) and received the Lisa Carducci award for outstanding performance. She has danced in the The 58 Group in Chicago and received scholarships from the Paul Taylor Dance Company and Dance Space NYC. Sarah was also the recipient of a Ford Foundation grant to study in Madrid, Spain. She joined Hubbard Street 2 in January 2002 and moved into the main company in November 2004 and danced through January 2008.
Caroline Deziel
Caroline Deziel (Ballet, Jazz, Tap) graduated from Point Park University in Pittsburgh with a BA in Dance Performance, with a jazz concentration. She grew up at the Academy and was a member of MOMENTA for nine years. She was also a member of Orchesis dance troupe at Oak Park and River Forest High School. She has performed at Dance Chicago and in 2003, accompanied MOMENTA on their first trip to the Tanzsommer festival in Austria. In addition to the Academy and Point Park, Caroline has studied at the Milwaukee Ballet School, Lou Conte Dance Studio, Ruth Page, and River North Chicago. Through Point Park University, she has had the honor to work with choreographers Nicolas Petrov, Ron Hutson, Douglas Entz, Judith Leifer-Benz and Ron Tassone. Caroline has choreographed for Point Park and MOMENTA and is thrilled to be performing once again with MOMENTA. She currently teaches at the Academy, works in the A.R.T.S. program, and teaches at the Dance Center of LaGrange.
Valery Dolgallo
Valery Dolgallo (Ballet) is a graduate of the Vaganova Institute in St. Petersburg, Russia – the training school of the great Kirov Ballet (formerly the Maryinsky), which premiered many of the great classical ballets of the last century. The school has recently been named the Academy of Russian Dance; Valery taught ballet technique and pas de deux there from 1971-1979, and later became first soloist and then director of the Maly State Opera Ballet, with whom he toured internationally. Valery has performed many of the great classics including Albrecht in Giselle, Konrad in Corsaire, Andre in Sylvia, the prince in Sleeping Beauty and Siegfried in Swan Lake. During his fourteen years at the Academy, Valery has staged classics for both the school’s recitals and for MOMENTA, including the full length Sleeping Beauty, two acts of La Bayadere, Harlequinade, Les Sylphides, Paquita, Giselle – Act II, Aurora’s Wedding, Le Spectre de la Rose, Don Quixote, Coppelia, and Pas de Quatre. He has choreographed and created three full-length original ballets for MOMENTA ~ Baba Yaga in 1996, Seven Beauties in 1999, The Clever Little Horse in 2001 and Doctor Ouch I. Hurt in 2003. Still active as a performer, Valery has been seen here as Hilarion in Giselle, Baba Yaga and Puss in Boots in Sleeping Beauty - and with Salt Creek Ballet as Drosselmeyer in The Nutcracker and the Witch Madge in La Sylphide.
Autumn Eckman
Autumn Eckman (Ballet) received her classical ballet training from Tom Pazik of the Atlanta Ballet and from the Houston Ballet Academy under Clara Cravey and Steve Brulee. She has performed with the Cangelosi Dance Project, Giordano Jazz Dance Chicago, as a principal dancer for State Street Ballet, Luna Negra Dance Theater, and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago.Deborah Goodman
Deborah Goodman (Ballet, Modern) began her dance training at Northern Illinois University and continued in New York at the Martha Graham School, Peridance and with Yuriko as Yuriko’s assistant and demonstrator. She has performed with Richard Move, Sandra Kaufmann Dance, Goldhuber & Latsky, Pearl Lang, Colleen Heffernan and Lacy James' Merriminne Dancers, among others. Deborah has served on the faculty of the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance, New York University, Long Island University, The Connecticut Conservatory of the Performing Arts and Usdan Center for the Creative and Performing Arts. Additionally, she has taught modern dance workshops at St. Paul's School in New Hampshire and Interlochen Center for the Arts. In New York, she conducted science/dance workshops to foster excellence in learning. Currently, Deborah is back in Chicago dancing for MOMENTA and teaching at Loyola Univeristy, The Chicago Academy for the Arts and at the Academy of Movement and Music.
Larry Ippel
Larry Ippel (Boys' Production Workshop, Creative Movement), a native of Chicago, has been performing, teaching and choreographing in Chicago over thirty years. He completed his B.S. in Comprehensive Art Education at Illinois State University in 1970 and followed it with three years of graduate studies in dance at the California Institute of the Arts. During the early 70’s, Larry performed with the Chicago Contemporary Dance Theatre, and from 1976 to 1983 he toured with the Arve Connection Dance Company. Larry received the first Orrin Kayan Memorial Award for Excellence in Dance Teaching. He is listed in Who’s Who in American Education and was a finalist for the Kohl-McCormick Early Childhood Education Award. For more than a decade, Larry has presented his “creative movement approach to problem solving” at the annual conferences of the Chicago and/or DuPage Chapters of the Association for the Education of Young People. Larry’s writings were published in two of their national publications. Larry has been on the faculty of the Academy of Movement and Music since 1975. Larry’s Creative Movement classes have been a part of the Academy’s Arts Readiness Training Preschool since its opening in 1983. Larry has served on the Board of Directors of the Chicago Dance and Music Alliance. In 2001, he was elected to the board of the Doris Humphrey Society. In addition to many contemporary roles, Larry has had the privilege of performing many major roles from classic American modern dances. For example, Larry performed José Limon’s roles in Doris Humphrey’s Day on Earth, Inventions and Night Spell, and Ted Shawn’s role from Denishawn’s Ishtar of the Seven Gates. Larry has also performed in Humphrey’s Water Study and My Red Fires and Charles Weidman’s Brahms Waltzes and Lynchtown. For the last five years, Larry danced the role of Drosselmeyer in Kenneth Von Heidecke’s Nutcracker.
Sandra Kaufmann
Sandra Kaufmann (Modern) danced with the Martha Graham Dance Company in New York and served as Artistic Director of the Martha Graham Ensemble. Additionally, she performed for several years with the Pearl Lang Dance Theatre and with Richard Move. Her company presented seasons at the Theatre of The Riverside Church, Dance Theatre Workshop, the Ohio Theatre and the Merce Cunningham Studio. Her choreography has been presented in musical and theatrical productions, regional dance companies, and in video festivals internationally. Currently, Sandra is based in Chicago where she works as an independent choreographer, as a repetiteur restaging works of Doris Humphrey and Martha Grahm, and as a dancer with MOMENTA. She has served on the faculty of Barnard College, New York University, the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance, the University of Chicago, the Academy of Movement and Music and is now the Director of Dance at Loyola University Chicago.
Cora D. Mitchell
Cora D. Mitchell (Jazz, Modern), originally from Knoxville, Tennessee, was formally trained by Irma Witt O’Fallon and went on to become a member of The Knoxville Ballet Company from 1980-1986. In 1990, she graduated with honors and received her BFA from The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and returned home to teach ballet, modern and jazz at Knoxville College. She moved to Chicago (1991) to accept a full scholarship with The Joseph Holmes Chicago Dance Theatre and danced for two years with the 2nd company under the artistic direction of Randy Duncan. Cora has ben a member of Winifred Haun & Dancers and The Body language Dance Company - artistic director, Tommy Gomez. She has also performed works by Dmitri Peskov (Dance Loop Chicago), Wilfredo Rivera (Cerqua-Rivera), Lisa-Johnson Villingham (Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre) Raphaelle Ziemba (Instruments of Movement, MOMENTA), Sandra Kaufmann (Martha Graham Dance Company, MOMENTA), Jon Lehrer (formerly Gus Giordano Jazz Dance Chicago, State University of New York at Buffalo) and many other well-known choreographers. In Tanzsommer, her piece Alright (2005) was premiered there along with other MOMENTA repertoire. Currently, she is a faculty member in the Fine Arts Department-Theater at Loyola University, Chicago where she teaches Ballet I and Jazz II. Since 1999, she has been an instructor at the Academy and is also a choreographer-company member of MOMENTA.
Emily Moser
Emily (West) Moser (Ballet), originally from Des Moines, Iowa, began her studies with Irina Vassileni-Uralsky at the School of Ballet Iowa and also with Susan Snider at Vine Street Ballet. She went on to earn a BFA in Dance Performance from Northern Illinois University where she trained under Randall Newsom, Judith Chitwood and Paula Fraz. While attending NIU, Emily performed many principle and soloist roles in ballets such as “Paquita,” “Les Slyphides,” “Giselle,” “Coppelia” and “The Nutcracker.” After graduating, she spent two years teaching and performing in the Chicago-Land area before moving to the east coast to perform with the Connecticut Ballet and Ballet Long Island. Married in August of 2007, Emily is excited to be back at the Academy to start her new life in a familiar place.
Randall Newsom
Randall Newsom (Ballet) has performed and choreographed for companies throughout the world, including the Irish National Ballet, Repertory Dance Company of the Southwest, Louisville Ballet, and was co-artistic director of Cycles Dance Company (Great Britain).
He is a specialist in the renowned Benesh Movement Notation System. He frequently guest teaches and reconstructs the standard classical ballet repertoire for many midwestern dance companies. He is a member of Actors’ Equity Association and the Benesh Institute in London. He was a recipient of Northern Illinois University’s Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award in 1987-88.
Rebecca Pries
Rebecca Pries (Ballet) has a B.A. in Latin American Studies from Washington University and a M.S. in Early Childhood Education from the Erikson Institute. Rebecca began attending ballet classes at the Academy when she was five years old. She continued to study ballet through college, but chose a professional career working with children. After graduating from Wash U, she lived and worked in Chile, where she met her husband. Upon returning to the United States, she worked as Director of the School Age Program at Casa Central in Chicago for five years. After completing an M.S. in Early Childhood Education with Type 04 teaching certificate from the Erikson Institute, Rebecca taught in the Chicago Public Schools’ Head Start program. Since 1999, Rebecca has continued to teach ballet at the Academy part-time and work in the A.R.T.S. program during summers.
Julie Sanfilippo
Julie Sanfilippo (Ballet, Jazz) holds a BA from Beloit College. She has been studying dance since age four along with figure skating. Her modern training began in Santa Fe with Mary Ward and continued at Columbia College where she received the Community Scholarship. Julie has performed professionally with the Connolly Dance Company, Kanopy, Chicago Dance Medium, Perceptual Motion, MOMENTA, Tyego Dance Project along with Paula Frasz and Christy Munch. Her choreography has been presented at Dance Chicago and Vaudeville Underground. She currently teaches at the Academy.
Regina Sigismondi
Regina Sigismondi (Ballet, Jazz) began her formal dance training in Oak Park at the Academy of Movement and Music. Gina danced on scholarship for four years at Northern Illinois University, where she earned her B.A. in Dance Performance. After receiving her degree, she returned to Oak Park to dance with MOMENTA. Her professional experience includes dancing for Chicago area independent choreographers Paula Frasz, Kirby Reed, Winifred Haun, Sarita Smith Childs and as a member of Fox River Dance Company and MOMENTA Repertory Ensemble. Gina is currently teaching students ranging in age from pre-school to high school at the Academy of Movement and Music.
Sarita Smith Childs
Sarita Smith Childs (Ballet) is a classically trained dancer, choreographer, educator, entrepreneur, and investment professional with eleven years of investment sales experience from the institutional trading floor and private client groups of three global institutions, she merges the creative with the analytic in all her endeavours.Sarita's professional performance experiences span the genres of modern, jazz, ballet & contemporary dance. As a choreographer, master class instructor and choreographic assistant for international choreographer Randy Duncan (www.duncandance.com), she conducts guest residencies at the high school and university levels, for professional companies, and private studios. An avid supporter of the arts, her arts management experience comes from five years as a Board Member for the Oak Park Area Arts Council in Illinois and as a former Vice President of the Board of Directors for Thodos Dance Chicago.
A dance and fitness educator with twenty plus years of teaching experience, she has taught company classes for Gus Giordano Jazz Dance Chicago, Thodos Dance Chicago, Joel Hall Dancers, and the MOMENTA Performing Arts Company. She was on the faculty of the Dance Conservatory of Barat College of DePaul University, the Lou Conte Dance Studio (home of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago), Gus Giordano Dance Center, the Academy of Movement and Music, the East Bank Club of Chicago and directed the dance department of Whitney Young Magnet High School in Chicago.
Sarita's choreography can be seen on the fashion, commercial and concert dance stages.TV, theatre and film credits include being a featured choreographer and performer in the 2006 Emmy Award Winning PBS Special "The Chicago Dance Project", choreography for The Congo Square Theatre Company's, "King of Coons" directed by Harry Lennix (Matrix Reloaded, Matrix Revolution, Barber Shop 2) and as a Principal Ballet Dancer for Paramount Pictures, Save the Last Dance , in which she was cast as one the six principal ballet dancers / stunt artists alongside Joffrey Ballet principal dancers.
Sarita is a winner of the Ruth Page Award for Dance Achievement (Chicago's highest dance honor) and a six time nominee and the 2001 winner of the Black Theatre Alliance Award for Best Performance in a Music/Dance Program for Randy Duncan's "Shanequa's World".