Sharon Mansur

2018 Dancer Fellow

Photo by Tim Rummelhoff

Sharon Mansur is a dance and interdisciplinary experimental artist, educator, curator, and community mover and shaker of Lebanese heritage based in Keoxa/Winona, Mni Sota Makoce/Minnesota, Dakota country. Her creative practices weave movement making, improvisation, visual environments, food, screendance, audience participation, and site-situated/responsive art to offer multi-sensory and immersive experiences rooted in body, imagination, and environment. She loves creating artistic opportunities for people from all walks of life to connect and engage.

Sharon has recently received support from the McKnight Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council, the Winona Fine Arts Commission, and Springboard for the Arts. She was also a 2019-20 National Arts Strategies Creative Community Fellow. Mansur is the director of The Cedar Tree Project, presenting and amplifying regional, national and international creative voices of the SWANA/Arab diaspora.

www.mansurdance.com 

Sharon Mansur Touring Information

2021 SOLO Commissioned Choreographers Yara Boustany, Andrea Shaker & Mette LouLou von Kohl

Sachiko "La Chayí" Nishiuchi

2017 DANCER FELLOW

Photo by Tim Rummelhoff

A native of Osaka, Japan, Sachiko “La Chayí” Nishiuchi is a Twin Cities-based Flamenco dancer, teacher, choreographer and organizer.  Besides her work as an independent artist, she dedicates her time for community work in Flamenco including directing Twin Cities Flamenco Collective.  Sachiko attained her artistic name “La Chayí” from one of her great teachers, Pilar Montoya Manzano “La Faraona”, to honor and remember her.

She has received awards, recognition and grants from Minnesota State Arts Board, Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, the Jerome Foundation, the Minnesota SAGE Awards for Dance, and New York State Flamenco Certamen.  Sachiko is the recipient of a 2017 McKnight Dancer Fellowship, administered by the Cowles Center and funded by the McKnight Foundation.

Her dance and choreography have been commissioned and/or presented by The Walker Art Center, Zorongo Flamenco Dance Theatre, Intermedia Arts, Minneapolis Guitar Quartet, The Southern Theater, and Hamline University.  She was a resident artist of Zorongo Flamenco from 2003 to 2009. She attributes her artistic formation to her most significant mentor, Zorongo's Artistic Director Susana Di Palma.

She lived and studied the art of Flamenco in Seville, Spain from 2010 to 2015 which became the foundation of her current dance and work.  Besides her daily life surrounded by the culture of Flamenco in Seville, she owes her current artistic direction and foundation to the following incomparable artists and teachers; Farruquito, Javier Heredia, Juan del Gastor, Luis Peña, Miguel Funi, and Pilar Montoya Manzano “La Faraona”.

SOLO Choreographers Pepe Torres, Angelita Vargas, Luis Peña

www.sachikolachayi.com

Krista Langberg

2017 DANCER FELLOW

Photo by Tim Rummelhoff

Krista Langberg is originally from Great Neck, New York. She is a freelance performer currently touring and performing Soft Goods, made by the visionary artist Karen Sherman. In a professional career spanning over thirty years, she has had the opportunity to work with many other exceptional artists. Most recently she performed and toured SHORE (2014/15), made in collaboration with choreographer Emily Johnson and director Ain Gordon, and worked with choreographer Chris Schlichting from 2010-2015, on the creation and performance of Stripe Tease and the Minnesota SAGE Award-winning production, Matching Drapes.

Krista was a member of Susan Marshall & Company in New York from 1994-2002, creating original parts in six evening length works, including the role of Lise in the Susan Marshall/Philip Glass Opera Les Enfants Terribles. Previous to that, she danced with New Dance Performance Laboratory (MN), Zenon Dance Company (MN), and the Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble (CO). In these formative years Krista had the chance to work with outstanding artists, including Douglas Dunn, Bebe Miller, Donna Uchizono, Milton Myers and Donald McKayle. She has been an adjunct faculty member at Macalester College since 2007, working as a teacher, advisor and choreographer, and lives with her two daughters in Saint Paul, MN.

SOLO Choreographer Karen Sherman

Herb Johnson III

2017 DANCER FELLOW

Photo by Tim Rummelhoff

Herb Johnson III graduated from Perpich Center for the Performing Arts in 2010 and studied 3 years at Lundstrum Center for Arts. Herb is now at the University of Minnesota as a Hip-Hop dance instructor. He currently choreographs and performs solo and in groups 612 Crew, DeadPool, and Kudeta. Professional work includes iLuminate from America’s Got Talent, ROOTED: Hip Hop Choreographers’ Evening, and The Ordway Theater's production of A Chorus Line. 

Herb also travels the nation as his alias “Jus Herb” to compete in battles in places like Los Angeles, Chicago, and Las Vegas. In the future, Herb plans to continue traveling and challenging himself creatively in performance, choreography, and battles to further optimize his talents. 

SOLO Choreographer Tight Eyez

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Lisa "MonaLisa" Berman

2016 Dancer Fellow

Photo credit: Tim Rummelhoff

Lisa “MonaLisa” Berman, founder and Artistic Director of BRKFST Dance Company, has been working as a dancer, choreographer and instructor since 2004. Berman is the recipient of the 2008 Jerome Travel and Study Grant for Choreography, and 2016 McKnight Dancer Fellowship, providing opportunities to work with Bgirl Aruna, founder of HipHopHuis in Rotterdam, Netherlands and Victor Quijada, founder and Artistic Director of RUBBERBANDance Group in Montreal, Canada.

Locally MonaLisa has performed at the Southern Theater, Walker Art Center, The Ritz Theater, MIA, Xcel Energy Center, Target Center, Palace Theater, The Cowles Center, Intermedia Arts, First Avenue. Beyond the Twin Cities she's been seen at NJPAC, Paradise Theater, Lincoln Center, Performa Biennial via Salon 94 NYC, Art Basel-Miami, Corcoran Gallery in Washington D.C., Kunsthal Museum, Gallery Tribute to Women in Hip Hop Rotterdam, Netherlands, and The National History Museum of Amsterdam.

MonaLisa is currently working as a Breaking instructor/choreographer for Saint Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists, The Cowles Center, Breck School, and Hamline University. 

SOLO Choreographer Victor Quijada

https://deskgram.org/bgirlmonalisa 

Christopher Hannon

2016 Dancer Fellow

Photo credit: Tim Rummelhoff

Christopher Hannon is in his 28th year as a professional dancer. Chris has performed soloist and principal roles with Ballet Austin, Ballet Florida, Ballet British Columbia, Alberta Ballet, Kokoro Dance in Vancouver BC, Gina Patterson's Voice Dance in Austin Texas, and Compania de Danza21 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He was a member of the James Sewell Ballet in Minneapolis for 11 years. 

Chris trained at the Houston Ballet Academy while studying classical and jazz guitar at the High School for Performing and Visual Arts also in Houston, Texas. He later completed a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Texas in Austin. 

SOLO Choreographer Gina Patterson

Chitra Vairavan

2016 Dancer Fellow

Photo credit: Tim Rummelhoff

Chitra Vairavan is a contemporary Indian dancer and choreographer of Tamil/South Indian-American descent. Vairavan is immersed in both Tamil culture and progressive brown politics here in the U.S. She dances to heal and creates dance to help heal others.

Her contemporary Indian dance foundations began as a founding member of Ananya Dance Theatre in 2004 and a dance collaborator with Aniccha Arts since 2007. She has labored as a professional dancer for fifteen years and continues exploring and experimenting with her Indian-based artistic roots. The aesthetic of her movement is through both yoga and contemporary Indian dance forms – mainly a mixture of training in Bharatanatyam, Odissi and Yorchha.

Dance Magazine named her "25 to Watch" in 2017, and she was awarded the 2018 Naked Stages Fellowship to create a site-specific performance in January 2019. 

SOLO Choreographer Eiko Otake

"Bird"
Solo performed by Chitra Vairavan, Choreographed by Ananya Chatterjea
Moreechika: Season of Mirage | Ananya Dance Theatre (2012)
 

Eddie Oroyan

2010 Dancer Fellow

Photo credit Cameron Wittig

Eddie Oroyan dances with companies such as Black Label Movement, Shapiro & Smith, and Zenon while also creating his own work. He has danced with Creach/Company in New York and has worked with ARENA, Maggie Bergeron, Joe Chvala and the Flying Foot Forum, Metropolitan Ballet, Nautilus Music Theater, and the Minnesota Opera.

Eddie began his dance training at UW-Stevens Point, a 2001 graduate of their dance program. He was featured as dance artist of the year 2006 in City Pagesand given the honorable mention in the Star Tribune's 2006 Artist of the Year. Also, a 2008 Minnesota SAGE Award recipient for Outstanding Performer, his Momentum commissioned work, Brown Rocket, was nominated for a SAGE Award in Outstanding Performance, and he received Metro Magazine's 2009 Keeper Award.   

Related

• Solo Choreographer Roberto Olivan

Leslie O'Neill

2010 Dancer Fellow

Photo credit: William Camero

Leslie O'Neill began her dance training at the University of Wisconsin at Green Bay as a member of the Fighting Phoenix Dance Team. After two years, she transferred to the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities to continue her training in the hopes of becoming a professional where she had the opportunity to work with artists Doug Elkins, Shouze Ma, Judith Howard, and to perform in master works by Paul Taylor. She completed her BFA and went on to dance for local choreographers Ray Terrill, Rosy Simas, Maggie Bergeron, as well as Oregon-based Robin Stiehm. In 2005 Leslie joined Carl Flink as a founding member of Black Label Movement, where she honed her technique and began to find her voice as a performer. 

Leslie began making her own work in 2005, which first presented in the Minneapolis Fringe Festival. She also presented a solo, Trigger, which she premiered at the Red Eye Works-In-Progress series. It was later performed by Emilie Plauche-Flink, artistic director of Black Label Movement in 2009. Leslie joined Zenon Dance Company in 2006 as an apprentice and is now a company member. 

Leslie's choreographic endeavors include Tri, a trio for the scholarship students at Zenon's Dance Zone, and a recent presentation of her solo These Years, for the Minneapolis Fringe Festival.  Leslie was nominated for a Minnesota SAGE Award 2009 for her performance in BLM's Fieldsongs and Zenon Dance Company's spring season, and her solo Trigger was mentioned in "Top 5 Dance Events of 2009" in the Star Tribune.  

Related

• Solo Choreographer Jeanine Durning

Emilie Plauché Flink

2010 Dancer Fellow

Photo credit: William Cameron

Emilie Plauché Flink is the Artistic Associate of the Twin Cities based performance group, Black Label Movement (BLM) alongside her life partner and BLM Artistic Director Carl Flink. 

A member and soloist with the Limón Dance Company from 1989 - 1999, Emilie performed the masterworks of Doris Humphrey and Jose Limón, as well as, dances by Ralph Lemon, Doug Varone, Annabelle Gamson, Phyllis Lamhut, Garth Fagan, Jiri Kylian, and Anthony Tudor.  During her time with Limón, she was a regular Limón Institute faculty member in New York City. She continues to reconstruct Limón's choreography for dance companies and university dance programs across the country. 

Other performing credits include work with Lila York, David Grenke, Colin Connor, Shapiro & Smith Dance, and Off-Broadway in Martha Clarke's Garden of Earthly Delights and Miracolo D'Amore. In the spring of 1998, Emilie was a Sage Cowles Guest Artist at the University of Minnesota's Dance Program, where she taught Limón technique influenced by her own movement explorations from 2001-2008. In 1999, she was the first Guest Artist-in-Residence at Stanford University's Dance Department.

As a choreographer, she has created commissioned work for San Jose State University, Roger Williams University, Chattanooga Ballet, Of Moving Colors Dance Company, Purchase College Senior Concert Series, Baton Rouge Ballet Theatre, Ballet Arts Minnesota, and Zenon Dance Company. 

Emilie holds a B.F.A. in Dance from the Juilliard School.  She and Carl are the proud parents of three wonderful daughters, Willa, Iris and Freyja.  

Related

• Solo Choreographer Sara Hook

Nic Lincoln

2011 Dancer Fellow

Photo credit: Jim Smith

Nic Lincoln, originally from Grand Rapids Michigan, studied dance at Interlochen Arts Academy, Grand Rapids Ballet and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago.  James Sewell Ballet (JSB) has acted as a creative incubator for Nic's artistry and he has danced in over a dozen works created on him by James Sewell as well as world premieres by Jennifer Hart, Morgan Thorson, Patrick Corbin, Hijack and Kenna Cottman. He relocated to Minneapolis to join JSB after dancing professionally with the Graz Ballet, Malaika Kazumi's Ballet Theatre Frankfurt and La Compañia de Juan Carlos Santa Maria. Before living in Europe he danced professionally with Dayton Ballet, Cleveland San Jose Ballet and Grand Rapids Ballet where he was featured in roles by Roland Petite, Dennis Nahat, George Balanchine and Robert Joffrey among others.

He was named Best Dancer of 2011 by City Pages for his work in Judith Howard's Dressage. Nic performed Dressage again in 2012 as well as solos created for him by Megan Mayer, Rosy Simas, Penelope Freeh, and Wynn Fricke. He invited these five female choreographers to create new works to help ignite society's recognition of women in the arts.

Lincoln is an advocate for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community. For several years running he has contributed his choreography to the Human Rights Campaign which has helped to heighten the community's awareness of diversity. Apart from choreographing independently, his works have been performed by JSB, Grand Rapids Ballet, Flint Youth Ballet and the 2008 Walker Art Center's Choreographer's Evening. He produced his own show at the Red Eye Theater in June 2009. His newest work Tempered Glasspremiered at O'Shaughnessy's Snapshots; Reflections of Women in 2010. In addition to his work in choreography and dance Nic is a professional visual artist.

RELATED

• Solo Choreographer Larry Keigwin
• Nic Lincoln

Amanda Dlouhy

2011 Dancer Fellow

Amanda Dlouhy dances with Ragamala Dance, a Minneapolis-based company celebrated internationally for presenting the classical Indian dance form of bharatanatyam with passion, innovation, and integrity. Amanda was introduced to bharatanatyam by Ragamala Artistic Directors Ranee Ramaswamy and Aparna Ramaswamy in 2004 and began intense study in January of 2005. 

Since 2005, Amanda has toured with the company extensively, performing in over 25 states and various countries. US venues include the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC, the New Victory Theatre in New York, and the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall in Sarasota, Florida. International venues include the Bali Arts Festival (2006), the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (2008 and 2009), and the Soorya Festival in Kerala, India (2010). 

In her work with Ragamala, Amanda has had the privilege of performing with world-class musicians, notably Rajna Swaminathan, Anjna Swaminathan, Lalit Subramaniam, Prema Ramamurthy, Shubhendra Rao, Saskia Rao-de Hass, Waidaiko Ensemble Tokara, and the Cudamani Ensemble of Bali, Indonesia. With four other Ragamala dancers, she workshopped and performed a 40-show run of The Iron Ring with the Children's Theatre Company in Minneapolis in 2008 and 2010.

Amanda teaches bharatanatyam technique in the Ragamala School and participates in the company's outreach program, giving performances year-round to school and community groups in and around the Twin Cities.

RELATED

• Solo Choreographers Ranee and Aparana Ramaswamy

Ashwini Ramaswamy

2012 Dancer Fellow

Photo by Tim Rummelhoff

Ashwini Ramaswamy has studied Bharatanatyam with Ragamala’s Artistic Directors Ranee Ramaswamy and Aparna Ramaswamy—her mother and sister—since the age of five and has toured extensively with Ragamala, performing throughout the U.S. and in Russia, Taiwan, Indonesia, Japan, the U.K, and India. Ashwini is a 2011 recipient of a Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant for Dance and was recently accepted for one-on-one study with Bharatanatyam master Alarmèl Valli. Ashwini is Ragamala’s Director of Publicity and Marketing and also works as a freelance publicist for the publishing company The Penguin Group in New York City. She holds a degree in English Literature from Carleton College and is currently on the board of Arts Midwest.

Related

• Solo Choreographer Alarmel Valli

Stephen Schroeder

2012 Dancer Fellow

Photo by Tim Rummelhoff

Stephen Schroeder currently dances and has danced with Zenon Dance Company since 2001. He’s also been seen in the Twin Cities with the likes of Minnesota Dance Theater, ARENA Dances, TU Dance, the Minnesota Opera, and Nautilus Music Theater. Originally, he hails from Colorado where he earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Since becoming a professional dancer in 1996, Stephen has taught and performed across the country and internationally. He seeks the essence of movement and strives to share it with all who’ll listen.

An avid lover of horses, good music and live performance, Stephen will attempt to combine all three in his largest endeavor yet, the raising of his daughter Paityn Joy.  

“Many thanks to all I’ve worked with throughout my years here in the Twin Cities and to those I continue to and will work with as we strive to better ourselves, our lives, and the lives of others with our artistry.  And of course the most thanks and love to Stephanie, my wife, my love, my life.”

Related

• Solo Choreographer James Morrow

Taryn Griggs

2012 Dancer Fellow

Photo by Tim Rummelhoff

Taryn Griggs is a cataloger of rare forms for a handful of independent choreographers. In the Twin Cities these choreographers include Angharad Davies, Jaime Carrera, Justin Jones, Dustin Haug, Tamin Totzke, and Chris Yon.  

Taryn has been dancing with and for her husband, Chris Yon, since 2002 after meeting during the Bessie Schonberg residency at The Yard in Chilmark, Massachusetts. With Yon she has performed at The Fulton Ferry Warehouse, Broadway-Lafayette Subway Station, La Mama ETC and Annex, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Dixon Place, Danspace Project, Ur, WAX, Galapagos, Dance Theater Workshop, Walker Art Center, The Southern Theater, Bryant Lake Bowl, Tangente (Montreal), Freehold Arts Center (Seattle), ODC (San Francisco), Velocity (Seattle), Philadelphia Dance Project (Philadelphia), Citedanse (Grenoble), Project Art Center (Dublin), as well as at various regional theaters in Ireland. 

Before relocating to Minneapolis, Taryn was a member of David Neumann's advanced beginner group from 2004-2009. Other performance credits include work with Liz Roche (Ireland), Sara Rudner, Susan Rethorst, Yoshiko Chuma, Karrinne Keithley, Sara Smith, Ivy Baldwin, Johannes Weiland, Anna Sperber, Mary Cochran and Sara Hook. Taryn received a Minnesota SAGE Award for Outstanding Performer for her work with Chris Yon and Justin Jones in 2009. 

Taryn holds a B.F.A in dance from the North Carolina School of the Arts. She is the proud mom of Beatrix who was born in February 2012.  Taryn worked “The Very Unlikeliness (I'm Going to KILL You!)”, a duet with Chris that was performed at the Bryant Lake Bowl and LA Mama in 2012-2013.

Related

• Solo Choreographer Jodi Melnick
• Taryn Griggs and Chris Yon

Kari Mosel

2013 Dancer Fellow

Photo by Tim Rummelhof

Kari Mosel hails from Eau Claire, Wisconsin where she grew up riding horses, climbing trees, and tripping over her own feet. She received her BFA in Dance from the University of Minnesota in 2004. In 2002 Mosel began her professional career with an apprenticeship for Shapiro & Smith Dance. She became a full company member in 2006, while tour managing and understudying for ANYTOWN. Mosel also serves as the administrative assistant and board secretary for Shapiro & Smith Dance. In 2005 she became a company member and teaching artist with Stuart Pimsler Dance & Theater (SPDT). Performing with them nationally and internationally for the past 8 years, Mosel has assisted in SPDT workshops and residencies in educational and healthcare. She was SPDT’s company manager from 2009-2011 and now serves as their video editor and archivist. Mosel has also danced with Time Track Productions, Kats D and the Paneer Project, Marciano Silva dos Santos, Jim Lieberthal, Black Label Movement, Jenny Pennaz, Julie Warder, Cade Holmseth, and as apprentice for Zenon Dance. In October 2012 Mosel was nominated for a Minnesota SAGE Dance Award for Outstanding Performer. In addition to performing, she creates her own work, which has been presented at The Women’s Club, Patrick’s Cabaret, and The Ritz Theater in Minneapolis and has also been commissioned by The University of River Falls Dance Program for the past several years. Mosel is also the performance coach for the Hudson High School Gymnastics Team.

Related

• Solo Choreographer Lane Gifford
• Shapiro and Smith Dance
• Stuart Pimsler Dance & Theater

Tamara Ober

Photo by Tim Rummelhoff

2013 Dancer Fellow

Tamara Ober is a dancer, choreographer, and multidisciplinary creator based in Minneapolis. She has received Minnesota SAGE Award nominations for Performance, Performer, and Design (2012) and has been presented in Red Eye’s Isolated Acts (2013) with solo show, Sin Eater. Ober’s critically acclaimed multidisciplinary solo show, Pipa toured across the U.S., Canada, and to Budapest, and received Montreal Fringe’s first-runner-up Centaur Award (2009), City Pages Best Artist (2009), MN SAGE Award for Dance for Outstanding Performer (2010), and Metro Magazine’s Keeper Award (2011). 

Supported by the MacPhail Center for Music Artist grant (2012), the Spotlight Series (2012), and the American Composer’s Forum Live Music for Dance MN grant (2013), Ober, composer/musician Julie Johnson, and New York filmmaker D.J. Mendel created a MN Fringe sellout, Standing on the Hollow. In 2015, Ober created an evening-length dance film for Johnson’s live music composition, Seasons of Time. She received a 2015 MRAC Next Step grant to create a new trio, premiering in June 2016.

Ober has served on panels, performed lecture/demonstrations, and workshops for various dance and theater educational institutions. She is Wonderlust Production's choreographer, and has collaborated on the NEA supported Veteran’s Play Project (2013), and the Adoption Play Project (2016).

A graduate of the University of Minnesota with a BFA in Dance and BA in Sociology, Ober joined Zenon Dance Company in 2002 and has worked with over 40 emerging and world-renowned choreographers, touring to New York, Russia, Hungary, France, and Cuba.

Related

• Tamara Ober
• Solo Choreographer D.J. Mendel
• Solo Commission by Brian J. Evans

Gregory Waletski

2013 Dancer Fellow

Photo by Tim Rummelhoff

Gregory Waletski grew up in Chanhassen, Minnesota and is a 1987 graduate of St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN. Inspiration for a dancing life began there with his first teacher, Toni Sostek. He has been a member of the modern and jazz repertory company, Zenon, for the past 22 years. As such he has worked with a wide range of choreographers including Susana Tambutti, luciana achugar, Netta Yerushalmy, Danny Buraczeski, Colleen Thomas, Bill Young, Sean Curran, Doug Varone, Morgan Thorson, Mariusz Olszewski, and Faye Driscoll. He has also performed in the companies of several Twin Cities' based choreographers including Megan Meyer, Wynn Fricke, Cathy Young, and Matthew Janczewski. In 2000 he was awarded a McKnight Fellowship for Dance and was the recipient of a 2011 Minnesota SAGE Award for Outstanding Performer. Waletski also has a rich and varied life outside of dance. For many years he has worked as a commercial salmon fisherman in Alaska's Bristol Bay. He is also an avid record collector and DJ at the monthly funk and soul dance night, Hipshaker. He left Zenon Dance Company but does plan on returning as a guest artist and also for the company's outreach residencies with the deaf, hard of hearing community.  He completed a two-year program for a Sign Language Interpreter/Transliterator AAS degree and now also works as an interpreter.

Related

• Solo Choreographer Karen Sherman

Sally Rousse

2014 Dancer Fellow

Photo by Tim Rummelhoff

Sally Rousse has built a distinguished, multi-faceted life in dance that includes performing, teaching, curating, advocating, choreographing, and writing, with noteworthy honors and grants. She is a two-time recipient of the McKnight Artist Fellowship for Dancers (2001 and 2014) and received a 2013 Sage Award for Outstanding Performer. Named “Artist of the Year” (City Pages, 2010), she began dancing in Barre, Vermont, going on to train at the School of American Ballet and with David Howard before performing as a leading dancer with Ballet Chicago, the Royal Ballet of Flanders, and James Sewell Ballet (JSB), which she co-founded in NYC 26 years ago. In addition to many roles in the classical and Balanchine repertoires, Sally has danced works by Maurice Béjart, Jiri Kylián, and more than 100 new works created on her by contemporary choreographers. The Cowles Center and JSB honored Rousse with a tribute and retrospective in 2014.

In 1994, Sally began studying and performing Improvisation and Contact, primarily with Patrick Scully, Chris Aiken, and Hijack, aiming to draw upon a larger movement palette to extend the definitions, aesthetics, and relevance of ballet and ballerina. Grants awarded by the Jerome Foundation and the Minnesota State Arts Board helped her delve deeper into the state of ballet and her place in it.

Rousse's work as a choreographer has been supported by diverse venues and organizations: the Southern Theater, Walker Art Center, VocalEssence, Marshall Field's, Harvard's American Repertory Theatre, the Cartoon Channel, Nickelodeon, Omaha Ballet, JSB, 3-Legged Race, the Jerome Foundation, and the McKnight Foundation. While Artist-in-Residence at the American Swedish Institute from 2013-14 she co-created Kom Hit! – a roving, immersive dance/theater work with Noah Bremer. 

Sally continues to work with several diverse dance entities in the Twin Cities and around the world, among those most recently, Hijack, Penelope Freeh, and Hong Kong’s Kanta Kanta Kochhar-Lindgren, Ph.D. She serves on several Boards and panels, awarding grants, fellowships, honors and opportunities in the performing arts that help shape the local and global cultural environment. She lives and raises her two children in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

SOLO Choreographer Arthur Pita

Max Wirsing

2014 Dancer Fellow

Photo by Tim Rummelhoff

Max Wirsing has been dancing in the Twin Cities since 2005. He has had the opportunity to perform and collaborate on works by Chris Schlichting, Emily Johnson, Justin Jones, Nick LeMere, and Karen Sherman, as well as dancing with Morgan Thorson as part of her last three touring projects. Max has created his own dance work as part of Jaime Carrera's Outlet Series, and the Jerome Foundation's Naked Stages Fellowship, and has been a part of various video installation projects such as Peter Becker Nelson's On Dying, Techtonic Industries' the desire to stay versus the inevitability of change, and Andy Underwood-Bultman’s Silver Lake. His recent design collaborations with Morgan Thorson, Emily Johnson, and Chris Schlichting have garnered many accolades including a Minnesota SAGE Award for Outstanding Design for Schlichting's Matching Drapes.

SOLO choreographer Lauren Simpson