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25/26 SEASON
Dance Project and the NC Dance Festival are pleased to announce the 2025-26 Artists in Residence!
This initiative nurtures North Carolina choreographers and supports the development of high-quality dance work. This program provides space, peer support, and professional development for both the seasoned choreographer and those newly emerging who are looking to create new work, explore new territory, develop an artistic practice, and/or gain additional experience developing their craft.
We continue to partner with Barriskill Dance Theatre School to provide studio space to choreographers in Durham.
A brand new 18+ drop-in only intermediate/advanced contemporary dance class intended for dance professionals and collegiate level dancers. This class is based in Safety Release Technique yet also integrates various other release-based contemporary techniques and supportive methodologies through a somatic approach. Previous dance experience is highly suggested. Offered as part of the Dance Project Spring 2023 Semester January 9-June 3.
George Barrett came to the Triangle area in 2010, by way of Charlotte, NC, as a student at UNC-Chapel Hill. He graduated in 2014 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Anthropology. George is a local dancer, performer, and movement maker, with a passion for facilitating groups and communities to reach their self-determined goals. George has worked with local artists such as Killian Manning (company member- No Forwarding Address), A an A Dance Company, and Pavani Peri. He has participated in dozens of site-specific movement pieces around the Triangle, and was part of the creative team that developed “Affordable Housing: The Musical” and original musical satire in 2019 produced by Carolina Performing Arts. In 2024, he joined forces with Pavani Peri to produce their orginal work “The Dance Show” which they will develop as part of the 2025-2026 NCDF residency. When he is not dancing or making work, George serves as the Executive Director of a local non-profit, the Marian Cheek Jackson Center for Saving and Making History (jacksoncenter.info)
Jenny Sinfield Braswell nurtured her passion for dance from a young age, dancing in studios in Western NC. Upon graduating from UNCG in 2009, she earned a BFA in Dance Choreography and Performance, and a North Carolina K-12 Dance Education license. Over the past 16 years, Jenny has dedicated her career to teaching dance to elementary-aged students in the NC Public Schools system. As an accomplished arts educator, Jenny has choreographed and directed numerous productions for her students, fostering their understanding of the creative process and encouraging them bring their artistic visions to life. Beyond the classroom, Jenny enjoys spending time with her husband and two daughters, going on outdoor walks, reading, drawing, sewing, and solving logic puzzles. Jenny will be collaborating with Amelia Byrd during this residency.
Amelia Renee Byrd (Memphis, TN) holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Theatre/Dance and a Bachelor of Professional Studies alongside a teaching licensure in K-12 Dance Education from the University of Memphis. Amelia has presented work with Project: Motion, the University of Memphis Theatre and Dance Department, the UNC-Greensboro School of Dance, Playhouse on the Square’s Summer Youth Theatre Conservatory and the Greensboro Fringe Festival. Amelia is a 2014 graduate of UNC-Greensboro, receiving a Master of Fine Arts Degree in Dance/Choreography and is currently working as the Dance Educator at Penn-Griffin School for the Arts in High Point, NC where she also serves as co-lead Dance Educator for Guilford County Schools. Amelia was a member of JOYEMOVEMENT, a dance company in Greensboro, NC having performed for four seasons (2014-2018). Amelia served as a board member for the North Carolina Dance Education Organization (NCDEO) in the position of Dance Advocacy (2020-2024). Amelia most recently presented a piece entitled Womanifesto in the North Carolina Dance Festival in 2022. Amelia will be collaborating with Jenny Braswell during this residency.
Shilpa Darivemula is an OBGYN physician and Creative Director of the Aseemkala Initiative. She began Kuchipudi training at age 8 and performed her Rangapravesham in 2011 at Kalanidhi Dance. As a Thomas Watson Fellow, she studied traditional dance for women’s health in low-resource settings and performed at national festivals, including the Jaipur Literature Festival in North Carolina. Shilpa served as AMWA National Artist-in-Residence and continues to perform medical narratives at several festivals, conduct research, and address racial and social inequities through Aseemkala, blending medicine and art to inspire change, promote health education, and advance healthcare equity.
Lee Edwards (they/them) is an artist, educator, and arts administrator with a deep commitment to the convergence of art, care, and sociopolitical action. Their practice takes shape through the use of performance, installation, improvisational and somatic techniques, collaboration, and writing. Lee earned their BFA in Dance from the University of the Arts and their MFA in Dance: EIP, and Master’s Certificate in African and African American Studies, from Duke University. They are a recipient of the 2021-2022 Kenan Institute of Ethics Graduate Arts Fellowship in Social Choreography and Performance, and the 2023-2024 Durham Arts Council Artist Support Grant. To learn more about Lee visit leeedwards.org .
Savannah Jenkins, Greensboro NC, began her dance training in a competitive studio setting and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Performance and Choreography from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, complemented by minors in Anthropology and Arts Administration. She has had the privilege of training with esteemed artists such as Elizabeth Sullivan, Clarice Young, Leah Cox, Kyle Marshall, among others. Savannah actively participates in a wide range of classes, workshops, and creative processes both in North Carolina and beyond. She remains deeply engaged in performance projects throughout the Triad, contributing to collaborative endeavors that promote community, curiosity, and creative exploration. Savannah’s own work hopes to challenge both artists and audiences to reconsider their perspectives and embrace a deeper understanding of the interconnectedness of art, culture, and humanity.
Emma Little is located in her hometown of Raleigh, NC. She graduated from Ohio University with a BFA in Dance. A current company member of the Triangle-based Nine Movement Collective, she also holds teaching/choreographic roles at the Living Arts Collective and Arts Together. Currently, Emma works primarily with expanded post-modern movement improvisation, training in contact improvisation and hip-hop, particularly breaking. Emma has worked with choreographers Brian Brooks, Shen Wei, and David Dorfman—as rehearsal director, performer, and student, respectively. She recently wrapped up collaborations with students at Duke University, performing and serving as rehearsal director in their graduate thesis research.
Pavani is a classical Indian dancer, performer, and choreographer trained in the style of Bharatanatyam. A Durham, NC based dancer, Pavani is a principal soloist and performer with the Natyarpana Dance Company. She has experimented and performed in showings with the American Dance Festival, in works commissioned by the Martha Connerton NC Choreographer’s Residency, in the Choreographers’s Showcase at the Oklahoma Dance Festival, and has choreographed for and performed dance alongside the NC Symphony. Currently, she is working on finding the timeless contemporary nature in her classical Indian art form so that more audiences can relate to the characters and stories within the form more easily. Pavani will be collaborating with George Barrett for this residency.
foster JANAE weems is a fat black queer and trans interdependent-disciplinary artist whose life and work takes cues from the black baptist church, black queer kink community and an ever-expanding adoration of the audacity of black imaginative embodiment. foster is a dancer of the black improvisational dance tradition, a painter, musician and photographer who works to create care-driven spaces for ushering fat black queer and trans folks into experimentation that facilitats a deepened intimacy with- and trust of themselves, their desires and vision(s). foster is a 2024 Grounded Possibilities Fellow and 2024 BLK Transcendence SEEDS Writing Fellow. they are the facilitator of Black Intimacy Practice (a body laboratory for fat black queer and trans artists, healers and dancers) and the steward of Play Church (a community art space for black queer and trans folks in the south based in Charlotte, NC).
Lindsay Winthrop is a local dancer, choreographer, and teacher based in Raleigh, North Carolina. A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, she holds an MFA in choreography and a BFA in dance education from East Carolina University. Lindsay teaches movement at Raleigh Oak Charter School and is co-owner of Tobacco Road Dance Productions. She has presented and performed in dance works in local festivals, including Emergence, North Carolina Dance Festival, Sites in the City, Hillsborough Independent Dance Artists River Park Showing, Wake Forest Dance Festival and WFDF’s Virtual Tour in Motion.
24/25 SEASON
Born and raised in Kannapolis, NC, Lilly Beaver is a May 2024 graduating senior at Elon University obtaining degrees in Dance Performance & Choreography and Psychology with a minor in Teaching and Learning. Lilly began her dance training at age 2 and danced competitively for 14 years. She has trained in various techniques, including ballet, pointe, tap, jazz, West African, hip-hop, lyrical, modern, and contemporary. Lilly has performed works by numerous local and guest artists, including dancing in American Dance Festival’s Footprints Showcase, where she also trained at their summer intensive. She is an apprentice for Joyemovement Dance Company in Greensboro, NC, and has enjoyed dancing for several artists’ dance films, shows, and residencies affiliated with the North Carolina Dance Festival. Lilly has presented choreography in Elon’s Fall and Dancing in the Landscape Concerts, Little Pink Houses of Hope Gala, Alamance Children’s Theatre Productions, as well as at dance festivals in Chicago and Washington. Lilly teaches dance at Miss Kim’s in Burlington, NC where she also works with children with special needs. Lilly was awarded the Outstanding Senior Award for Elon’s Dance Performance and Choreography major.
Madeline Braxton received her BFA in Dance Performance and Choreography from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Her work strives to reflect human experiences through the process of collaboration and movement research. She has participated in the local dance community, performing and presenting work in artists series such as, The Bipeds present: Shadowbox Sessions, PROMPTS (hosted by Durham Independent Dance Artists), North Carolina Dance Festival and Greensboro Fringe. In 2019, Madeline premiered “I Didn’t Mean to Stay Here” a concert dance work commissioned and presented by Tobacco Road Dance Productions. In addition to her dance practice, Madeline works as an IT Content Specialist, focused on event planning and graphic design for Behavioral Health Springboard (UNC- CH School of Social Work).
Teresa Heiland, PhD, is a Professor at UNC Greensboro School of Dance, where she pioneers leadership in various aspects of the performing arts, teacher education, somatics, creative practice, and dance wellness. With a focus on inspiring personal growth and leadership potential in dancers, she cultivates pedagogical, creative, and research initiatives. At UNCG, Teresa collaborates with students on impactful research and challenges them to innovate in choreography, artistry, social and environmental justice, and culturally relevant lesson planning. She also fosters a safe and empowering environment for students through mentoring, encouraging them to deepen their understanding of their potential as artists, educators, and lifelong learners and leaders. Teresa’s leadership extends beyond the classroom. She organizes events like Community Dance Day, which fosters collaboration among high school students, teachers, and university educators and students. Additionally, she plays a pivotal role in curriculum development at UNCG, ensuring its relevance and currency. Notably, she introduced a Language of Dance Foundations certification at the graduate level. Before arriving at UNCG, Teresa taught at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles for 15 years. During her time there, she orchestrated a collaborative dance performance about clean water and environmental concerns, involving her university dancers and a local community college. Teresa’s mentorship transcends academia, as she supports teachers worldwide and unites diverse choreographic and teaching approaches in her publications. She has choreographed over 40 dances and authored a book titled “Leaping into Dance Literacy through the Language of Dance,” along with over 15 articles and book chapters on dance, approaches to dance training, and dance pedagogy. Her extensive training includes certification in Cortical Field Re-education, Franklin Method, Language of Dance teacher training, Labanotation certification, Pilates, and Gyrotonic. Teresa’s expertise also spans various dance techniques, from Wigman, Holm, Limon, Hawkins to Javanese dance, which she studied intensively as a darmasiswa scholar at Institute Seni Indonesia and nDalem Pujokusuman in Yogyakarta, Java, Indonesia.
Kristin Taylor Duncan is a native of Durham, NC. She is a BFA graduate of the UNC School of the Arts. Mrs. Duncan has trained at Jacob’s Pillow, and on scholarship at the Lou Conte Dance Studios in Chicago. In her early childhood years she danced with Collage African Dance Company and at Dance Arts Unlimited. In New York, she apprenticed with Urban Bush Women, and worked with choreographers Nathan Trice, Bridget Moore, Christal Brown, Shani Collins, Ayo Jackson and Sidra Bell. Kristin has performed with Dr. Kariamu Welsh and Nnenna Freelon in the Clothesline Muse, cellist
and vocalist Shana Tucker, Dr. Andrea E. Woods Valdez, Mexico City-based Tania Perez-Salas Compania de Danza, Juel Lane, Gaspard Louis, nosi DANCE theatre, as well as created and performed works with Yuxtadanza Compania de Danza of Venezuela.
Kristin performed with Helen Simoneau for the DANCE X Tour traveling to Montreal, Tokyo and Busan, South Korea. She has taught for the UNCSA’s preparatory program, the Festival of North Carolina Dance, Slippery Rock and also as a guest teacher at Durham School of the Arts and Tri-Cities Performing Arts School in Atlanta, GA.
For two seasons Kristin joined the Community Choral Project at UNC Chapel Hill as the High School choreographer. She has also worked with the Glenwood Elementary award winning 5TH grade Show Choir. Kristin has choreographed works for the elementary students participating in Evening to Shine presented by Durham Public Schools performed at the Durham Performing Arts Center.
Kristin has worked with choreographer Jasmine Powell performing in Approximation of a Woman and in the “Problem PSA” music video by music vocalist Kwanza Jones. She has participated in the “Feedback: The Institution for Performance” program hosted and directed by Carolina Performing Arts. Through Carolina Performing Arts she has
performed with Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company as a community performer in the work, “What Problem”.
Mrs. Duncan is a proud recipient of the Ella Fountain Pratt Emerging Artist Grant and the Artists Support Grant. Since the founding days of her company KT COLLECTIVE Dance Company, she has been commissioned to create works by Helen Simoneau, American Dance Festival, NC Museum of Art, the Nasher Museum, NC Museum of History, Myra Weiss of Proxemic Media and North Carolina Central University. KT COLLECTIVE has performed at the Dumbo Dance Festival, the Richmond Dance Festival and most recently had the honor of performing at the Carolina Theatre for the Confronting Change celebration.
Kristin is the Dance Director at Riverside High School as well as the liaison for the CAPS program. In addition, Mrs. Duncan teaches at the Ballet School of Chapel Hill and in the Duke Dance Program.
Aubrey Ludlow is a dancer, choreographer, and creative originally from Visalia, CA. During her time in Fresno, CA, her student-choreography and performance represented Fresno City College at the American College Dance Association in 2019 and was a company dancer for Fresno Dance Collective for their 2017-2018 season. She graduated with her Bachelor of Fine Arts from San Jose State University in 2022 where she worked under Heather Cooper, Raphael Boumaila, Camille A. Brown, Doug Varone, and Mike Esperanza. In 2022, she was on the Emerging Choreograghers Forum with Mark Foehringer Dance Project, where she performed a solo-work at Dancing In The Park in San Franscico, CA. Her most recent work was an evening length fundraiser, Hollowed Ground, for her Phase Two School with the Cageless Birds in April of 2023. After being Dance Project’s School Operations Intern in 2023, she now looks with eager anticipation at the opportunity to return but this time under the gift of choreography and collaboration on the Embark Track as an Artist in Residence in the 2024 cohort.
Christina McKinney is an interdisciplinary artist who combines her passion for movement with media. She creates a kinesthetic connection between art forms by exploring dance through mediums such as film and photography. Her work is inspired by the question: How can one experience dance?
Christina was raised in Memphis, TN, but currently resides in Durham, NC, where she works as the Graphic Designer and Marketing Associate for the American Dance Festival. She received a BFA from the University of Memphis—along with the Creative Achievement Award for her research in dance and photography—and an MFA in Dance from Texas Woman’s University. At TWU, Christina served as the Digital Media Coordinator and a Graduate Teaching Assistant for the Division of Dance while researching choreographies of dance, filmmaking, and multimedia performance.
Christina’s choreography and media work has been featured in performances on both stage and screen at COCO Dance Festival (Trinidad and Tobago), DancingStrong Movement Lab (UK), the American College Dance Association (MS & TN), Texas Dance Improvisation Festival, the University of Memphis, Texas Woman’s University, and Julien Baker’s “Appointments” music video (2017).
Alyssa Noble is a Dance Artist, Community Builder and Marketing Consultant in Durham, NC. She earned degrees in dance and journalism at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, then moved to NC in late 2011. As an NC resident, Alyssa has had the pleasure of working collaboratively with many local artists including Anna Barker, Monet Noelle Marshall, Allie Pfeffer, Meg Stein, Chris Strauss, and Leah Wilks, and has performed in local restagings of works by Joanna Kotze and Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. As co-director of A+A Dance Company, Alyssa produced two evening-length shows (What You Want in 2017 & Don’t Get Any Ideas, Little Lady in 2019), and, as an organizing member of Durham Independent Dance Artists (DIDA) from 2016-2020, Alyssa provided administrative & marketing support to many more! In 2023, she founded A. Noble Creative Solutions, which proudly provides marketing support to small businesses and artists in the Triangle. Alyssa also co-directs and produces RECITAL (@Recital_Durham), a joy-centered variety show series for working artists, held annually in Durham, NC (Upcoming shows on May 24 & 25)!
Jess Shell is originally from the Outer Banks of North Carolina, and has called Hillsborough home for over 25 years. She is a choreographer, dancer, teacher, and producer. Her work has recently been described as a “celestial narrative.” She holds an MFA in Choreography from UNCG, and a BA in Dance from Sarah Lawrence College. Jess’s performance career has included national and international stages, indoor and outdoor sites, and the occasional circle of sand. Planetary phenomena and somatic experience inform her choreographic process. Her work has been performed in North Carolina, New York, and Italy. Jess teaches choreography, dance composition, technique, improvisation, and somatics/self-care. For over 20 years, Jess has been producing new works for NC choreographers in both proscenium and site-specific settings, and she is the co-director of Tobacco Road Dance Productions. Jess is also a Licensed Massage and Bodywork Therapist and brings her extensive anatomical knowledge to her choreographic process.
Dance Project is a non-profit resident organization of the Greensboro Cultural Center, made possible by a significant in-kind contribution from Creative Greensboro, the City of Greensboro’s office for arts & culture.
Dance Project is a non-profit resident organization of the Greensboro Cultural Center, made possible by a significant in-kind contribution from Creative Greensboro, the City of Greensboro’s office for arts & culture.
