Special guest artists
Karla Grotting
Karla Grotting is a dancer, choreographer, educator, and producer working with a unique blend of jazz, tap, modern, and percussive dance techniques. She is founding member, principal dancer, and artistic associate in her 25th year with Joe Chvala's The Flying Foot Forum. She has performed with companies such as Jazzdance: by Danny Buraczeski, MN Jazz Dance Co, Keane Sense of Rhythm, Off-Leash Area, and Combustible Company. Karla has been on faculty with the University of Minnesota Department of Theater and Dance since 1998, and a guest artist and instructor at St Olaf College since 2014. Her awards include the U of M Student’s Choice Award for Outstanding Teacher in the College of Liberal Arts, a 2007 McKnight Artist Fellowship for Dancers and a 2010 Sage Nomination for Outstanding Educator. Her project, Lost Voices in Jazz: The Choreographers of the Minnesota Jazz Dance Company was recognized with the Sage Award for Outstanding Performance and Karla was named a City Pages' Artist of the Year in 2015. Karla creates her own dance works which blend the unique styles of her tap, jazz, modern and percussive dance experiences and has set original works on the Flying Foot Forum, The Eclectic Edge Ensemble, Macalester College, St Olaf College, Gustavus Adolphus College, St Paul Conservatory for the Performing Arts, UW-Whitewater, Southwest High School Dance Program, Keane Sense of Rhythm Social Club and others.
Christine Maginnis
Christine Maginnis, a native Minneapolitan has been an active dance artist in her home town for over three decades, much of that time spent as a member of Zenon Dance Company. She toured internationally with Zenon, Cathy Young Dance, Shapiro and Smith Dance and Tim Latta. In the more recent past, let's say in her fifties, she has had the pleasure of working with Ballet of the Dolls, DADance, Off Leash Area, Arena Dances, Live Action Set as well as with Lisa Conlin, Sally Rousse, Penelope Freeh, Jennifer Mack and Gerry Girouard. Her choreography has been presented by James Sewell Ballet, Minnesota Dance Theater, Renovate, Rhythmically Speaking, Red Eye Collaboration, the Minnesota Fringe Festival and L1 Dance Lab in Budapest. Christine is the recipient of a McKnight Fellowship for Dancers (2001) and a Sage Award for Outstanding Performer (2016).
Marlayna Locklear
Marlayna Locklear hails from Milwaukee,WI. She began her training at the age of 12 at city ballet theatre and went on to graduate from Milwaukee High School of the Arts and University of the Arts In Philadelphia, PA with a BFA in Ballet and Jazz. Marlayna was one of the founding members of The Milwaukee Dance Connection and has gone on to dance with Eleone Dance Theatre, Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble, Dallas Black Dance Theatre II , Deeply Rooted and Dayton Contemporary Dance company where she served as the company jazz and contemporary instructor as well as resident choreographer for DCDC II. She has performed works by Christopher Huggins, Dwight Rhoden, Ron Brown, Donald Byrd, Diane McIntyre and Ray Mercer to name a few. She also has worked with members of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, Momix, Martha Graham Company, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Milwaukee Ballet, Philadanco, Koresh, Full Circle Dance Company and members of seasons 1 & 2 of So you think you can dance.
Marlayna is a freelance artist and teaches and choreographs at Universities around the nation. She is also the founder and director of Indurance Dance Intensive. She most recently finished filming the James Franco Film "Blood Heist" and studying abroad in Italy with VIVO Ballet. Marlayna will head to Bulgaria in the Spring to work with South African choreographer Fana Tshabalala on the INDUMBA project.
Eric Campros
He has appeared on numerous television series and specials including the MTV Movie Awards, the MTV Video Music Awards, the Grammy’s, the BET Awards, and the Blockbuster Awards. Eric has danced with several artists including Aaliyah, The Backstreet Boys, Lil’ Kim, Mikaela, and Usher. He appeared in the smash hit musical Grease on Broadway and in a National Tour of Hello Dolly. Eric danced in the hit movie musicals Jaaneman and Across the Universe, and has danced in several commercials. As choreographer Eric toured Germany with the bands B3 and M*Pire, creating live and recorded stage work. Eric is the Youth Artistic Director for the Brooklyn Dance Festival, guest faculty at Sacred Heart University, Hillsborough Community College, and Yale, and permanent faculty at Broadway Dance Center in NYC.
Brian J. Evans
Brian J. Evans is a Professional Performing Human. An artist striving for social justice, Evans places high value in process and product, having had most of his training out in the 'Arts field' of the Twin Cities, working with over 50 artistic directors on more then 200 projects from solo endeavors to collaborating as a self-employed professional performer & teaching artist. Brian J. Evans is a recipient of a 2015 McKnight Dance Fellowship, administrated by The Cowles Center and funded by The McKnight Foundation. Primarily as a principle dancer and musical director for Stuart Pimsler Dance & Theater, Evans has continued to investigate the idea that connections exist between us all and it's the responsibility of the Arts to rediscover those connections, highlight them and allow us to feel holistically human.
Madison Elliott
Madison Elliott started dancing at Balleraena Dance studio in 2003. Her sophomore year of high school, she was accepted into the University of North Carolina School of the Arts dance program, where she finished her last 2 years of high school. She is now attending SUNY Purchase College, Conservatory of Dance in New York. Elliott has attended American Dance Festival, Sidra Bells Winter Module, Spring Board X Iconic Women and Mark Morris Dance Company workshops. She performed works by Trisha Brown, Ming-Lung Yang, Abby Zibikowski, and Sherone Price to name a few. Elliott has a passion for exploring different types of movement and enjoys food.
chloe grace Michels
Grace Michels graduated with a BFA in Dance from Columbia College Chicago in May 2015. Upon graduating she has worked with choreographers Margi Cole (The Dance Colective), Paige Cunningham (Off Center Project), Shannon Edwards, Emily Stein and Karl Watson. She has created work for The Coincidentals' Mess Hall installment #1 and #2, and is currently working with Bessie Award winning choreographer, Timothy Buckley.
Angelina Gibson
Angelina Gibson’s choreographic aesthetic is defined by the juxtaposition of contemporary ballet; militant, masculine elements; and intellectual inspirations. As an artist, Gibson wishes to challenge the traditionally feminine associations with ballet and females alike. Athleticism and stamina are two elements which define her work. Aside from her trademark choreographic style, Gibson remains dedicated to a dancer’s musicality and auditory sensitivity. As a trained classical pianist, she requires an intense amount of listening and knowledge from her dancers; since her approach is compositional by nature, each musical element is to be represented by movement.
LiRa Dance Theatre Company premiered Gibson’s Exodus, a piece depicting the emotional turmoil during and following the Holocaust. The Balleraena Dance Company premiers A Muse’s Threnody, an East Indian-inspired examination of artists without work. In addition to concert works, Gibson frequently creates competitive pieces. A judge’s “Artistic Movement” award was given to her self-choreographed solo, The Caged Bird’s Battlecry. A number of her competitive works continue to receive awards for their concept, composition, and creativity.
Daintry TenNapel
Daintry TenNapel graduated with a BFA from Belhaven University in 2010, a semester of which, She spent in NYC studying at the Limon Institute. In 2012 she directed and produced Freedom: Unveiling the Cries of a Sex Slave, a production using both dance and cinematography which portrayed the realities of sex trafficking happening in her city. She has choreographed for the LiRa dance theatre (2018), Storling Conservatory's ADP dancers (2019), and produced a dance on film called Wonder (2014). Daintry is passionate about using dance in abstract ways in collaboration with other art forms to create space for vulnerability and change.
Tracie Stanfield
Tracie Stanfield is an award-winning choreographer, educator, creative consultant, and the founder/Artistic Director of SynthesisDANCE in New York City. Her work has been commissioned throughout the US, Canada, Mexico, Japan, and Latin America. Her signature voice as a choreographer has helped create and define contemporary lyrical movement in concert and commercial dance. Dance Magazine calls her classes "inspiring'” and the Huffington Post UK says Tracie "thrilled and mesmerized with her masterful fusion of contemporary and classical dance forms.” Tracie’s choreography has been presented throughout NY at Symphony Space, Jazz at Lincoln Center, BAM Fisher, The Duke Theatre, Brooklyn Museum, Rose Nagelberg Theatre, Bryant Park, Brooklyn College, Dixon Place, Brooklyn Music School and Untermyer Park in Yonkers. Internationally, her work has been produced at the Benicassim, Spain , Edinburgh EICC in Scotland, St. Petersburgh, Russia throughout Mexico in MC, Monterrey and Ixtapa. Stage commissions include Tec de Monterrey Universidad, Verismo Opera Company, Tapestry Dance Company, Kilgore Rangerettes, Brooklyn Dance Festival Company and Flux Dance Company.
One of the “Nine DanceMakers Making History” (Dance Spirit), Tracie travels the world teaching dancers, dance educators and aspiring professionals. Tracie is on faculty at Broadway Dance Center in NYC and tours with Fluid Dance Conventions. Recent teaching highlights include Joffrey Ballet, Yale University, Amarbaillar in Paraguay, TDR Tour in Ixtapa, Encore Officer Camp and Marymount Manhattan College. Her SynthesisDANCE Teacher Training Workshops have been produced in Mexico City, Monterrey, Mexico and throughout the US.
Erinn Liebhard
Erinn Liebhard is a Twin Cities, MN-based dance artist making opportunities for people to experience the reflective and connective power of groove through performance and education. Having grown up dancing socially at her dad’s rock band’s gigs, she discovered young the exhilaration of playfully experiencing groove alongside others. Guided by this inspiration and a fondness for jazz and American social dance ideas and their shared elements of groove, interaction and improvisation, she's worked with creatives as varied as hip-hop dance theater artists Rennie Harris and the Wild Goose Chase Cloggers Appalachian clogging company. In performance, she makes and perform new staged works and present those of others through my company Rhythmically Speaking, is a member of Afro-Brazilian contemporary company Contempo Physical Dance, and perform as self-created character “Nerdette” for St. Paul Saints Baseball’s Entertainment Team. In education, she's an active jazz dance residency artist in higher education and for professional dance companies, works as a Teaching Artist for the Cowles Center for Dance and the Performing Arts and as faculty at Zenon Dance School and St. Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists. She is also an active writer and conference presenter. Erinn is driven to help connect people to themselves, one another and the moment through rooted and innovative embodiment of groove.
Rachel Dreist
Rachel Dreist is a performer, choreographer, and teacher. She started her training at DanceWorks, in Milwaukee, WI. She continued her training at Burlington Dance Academy (BDA), WI. There she would study ballet, jazz, and lyrical. To expand her ballet training she took summer intensive classes at Milwaukee Ballet. Subsequently, she joined Sparrow Dance Co. in Lake Geneva, WI as a performer and choreographer. Rachel continued her dance studies at the University of Minnesota, Mankato (MSU), where she completed her BFA in dance and her BS in Dietetics. At MSU, Rachel has choreographed work that has gone to the American College Dance Association and there her piece Existence’s Edge was chosen for Gala and performed Peak choreographed by Daniel Stark at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Currently, Rachel is teaching dance at a local studio in St. Cloud, MN. She also recently completed her Masters of Professional Practice in Dietetics at Iowa State University. Rachel hopes to keep performing, teaching, and choreographing throughout her life, while incorporating healthy eating into her lifestyle and in the lives of others.
Kelsey Freidel Nelson
Kelsey Freidel Nelson started dancing in high school where she was both cheer and dance captain her junior and senior years. She danced for four years in college at Augustana University and the University of South Dakota. During that time, she choreographed for the teams and attended four national championships. In April 2008, her team took first place at the West Coast Championships in Los Angeles, CA in the college hip hop division, and second place in the Jazz division.
Thomas Tu Nguyen
Thomas Tu Nguyen was born on May 14, 1992 and was raised in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. He began his dance journey in 2009 when he was 17 years old. Thomas auditioned for the Washington High School dance team and by 2010 he competed in his first World dance competition in Disney Florida. He currently holds two World Champion titles: one in All Male Hip Hop (2014) & another in Open Coed Jazz (2021). Thomas is a USASF certified coach that continues to take classes and training to enhance his ablities to help others.
For 3 consecutive years from 2016-2018 Thomas generously devoted countless hours into the “Dancing With the Sioux Falls Stars” put on by NAMI Sioux Falls and helped raised funds for local families affected by mental illness. In his second year of DWTSFS, he and his partner Jessica Speckmeier won the spinning disco ball trophy!!
Thomas graduated from South Dakota State University where he studied a French Language Major & a Dance Minor. He was the Assistant coach to the O’Gorman High School Dance Team for two years 2020-2021 & currently coaches multiple teams at Dynamic Cheer & Dance. Thomas also instructs at Balleraena Dance Studio teaching technique, lyrical and contemporary classes. He is also an award winning Choreographer, Private Dance Instructor, as well as a returning cast member & Choreographer for the LiRa Dance Theatre Company’s 8th season.
Georgia Conlin
Georgia Conlin has been dancing since the age of 3 and hasn’t stopped since. She trained at various studios in Minneapolis, MN, such as TU Dance Center and Continental Ballet. After moving to Sioux Falls, SD, she began dancing at Balleraena Dance studio. She joined Balleraena Dance Company in the eighth grade and continued dancing for them through high school. She’s worked with various guest choreographers and performed pieces around Sioux Falls for special events.
Georgia has also participated in LiRa Dance Company as a dancer for 3 consecutive years. She is a dance major at Chapman University and will be graduating in the Spring of 2023. At Chapman, she performed in many student choreographed pieces, joined Chapman Dance Alliance and choreographed a solo that went on to be awarded Best Choreography her sophomore year.
Madeleine Titze
Madeleine Titze is a founding company member and danced with LiRa Dance Theatre Company for six years. She has choreographed two pieces for LiRa in Season 5 and Season 8. Before coming to South Dakota, she danced professionally at Walt Disney World in Orlando, FL, as well as in the Las Cruces Chamber Ballet in Las Cruces, NM. She went to college at Gonzaga University, where she was the captain of the school’s hip hop dance crew, the Bomb Squad. She is a management and organizational effectiveness consultant with Bridges Consulting, a firm based in the Twin Cities.
Hannah Nichols
Hannah Grace is a performer and performance-maker who works at the intersection of art and holistic healing. As an early-career creative based in London, she uses her backgrounds in dance, theatre, song, meditation, energy healing and hypnotherapy to create distinctive live performance works centered around healing in all its forms. Her work is brave, unapologetic, and aims to explore how audiences may be pushed to a new edge and come into a deeper relation with themselves through individual and shared experience.
Hannah was born in the USA and grew up dancing, singing and performing all her life. She has been a part of activist art collectives across the United States, Mexico and Europe since the age of 19 and has travelled the world teaching and performing in live art projects, recently completing an MA in Dance Performance from London Contemporary Dance School. She holds 400 hrs of accredited yoga teacher training, is a reiki healer, a hypnotherapist, an Inner Voice Facilitator and is currently training to become a birth doula alongside her career in dance.