Dance and Body Arts Studio in Ledyard, CT
Here are the bios for Dragon’s Egg Presents at University Settlement at 2 pm on Saturday, September 20th, 2025.
They are arranged in the order of the performers. Enjoy! Xo marya
The Celestials
Clare Byrne is a dance educator, choreographer, writer, and musician. Her work in song and dance has been performed across the United States and Europe. She’s taught in the dance programs at Muhlenberg College, Long Island University, and University of Vermont, and currently teaches at Emerson College, Sacred Heart University, and Neighborhood Music School. She’s always grateful to Marya and Dan and the Dragon’s Egg for “making space” for the next creative thing.
Nicholas Leichter has taught throughout the United States and at festivals in Africa, Asia, Canada, Eastern and Western Europe, and he has been on faculty at Wayne State University, University of Iowa, Rutgers, Tisch School of the Arts, Bates Dance festival and the American Dance Festival in Durham, New York, Russia, Korea, and Shanghai. He’s currently working in arts education as an arts programmer @ArtsConnection, providing arts programs to NYC public schools in over 100 sites.
Garet&Co.
Garet&Co is a non-profit professional contemporary dance company based in CT. Garet&Co’s mission is to create a safe, sustainable and uplifting space for local dancers to train and perform at the highest level of contemporary dance. Garet&Co has created a home for contemporary dancers, where dancers can gain both training experience and paid work opportunities in a positive environment, while being supported as both dancers and humans.
Garet&Co’s choreographic work dissects emotions on the stage, dealing with themes of struggling mental health and the search for peace within chaos. Pulling from her own experiences first and then collaborating conceptually and in movement with the dancers, Garet hopes that her work gives audiences the opportunity to fully experience the joy, devastation, and catharsis of contemporary dance. Garet strives to create art that comes from a place of personal truth; work that is both guttural and beautiful. Garet&Co believes that art changes the world, and the company is passionately and actively working to be generators of light. Inspired by her own experiences, both positive and negative, in the dance world, Garet works to create safe and positive environments where art and humanity can be at the forefront.
Garet&Co has performed across the Northeast, most notably at Jacob’s Pillow, Symphony Space, Ailey Citigroup Theatre, The Warner Theatre, Dixon Place, and TADA Emerging Artists Theatre.
Kyleigh Olivier: Kyleigh began dancing at the age of three in Massachusetts and trained in a variety of styles, including ballet, jazz, tap, contemporary, modern, hip hop, and pointe. She graduated summa cum laude from The Hartt School in May of 2021 with a BFA in Dance and a concentration in Ballet Pedagogy, along with a Business Management minor. While she was training at The Hartt School, Kyleigh had the opportunity to perform repertory by multiple prominent choreographers, including Martha Graham, José Limón, Merce Cunningham, Jules Perrot, Gabrielle Lamb, and Lar Lubovitch. Kyleigh is also honored to have received the 2019 Elena Delvecchio Rusnak Dance Education Scholarship and the Hartt Dance Division Senior Outstanding Achievement Award while pursuing her BFA degree. In her time at The Hartt School, Kyleigh discovered her passion for teaching dance and community outreach as she worked with diverse groups of students in her internships. She is also grateful for her opportunity to serve as Dance Director of the Prism Project in 2020, leading movement activities for children with exceptionalities. Kyleigh has been teaching at Connecticut Dance Academy since 2019 and has greatly enjoyed helping the talented and ambitious students to continue to grow in their technique and artistry. She is excited to join Garet&Co again in its fifth season and continue to dance alongside many talented artists as the company grows!
Sydney Champagne: Professional member Sydney Champagne is originally from New Hartford, CT, and has been dancing for over 18 years. As a teen, she served as captain for the competitive dance team at D.A.N.C.E. by Kristin for several years, while training in ballet, lyrical, tap, and jazz. She then began to expand upon her dance journey at Central Connecticut State University (CCSU) as a dance education major with a specialization in entrepreneurship. There, she dances and choreographs for the CCSU contemporary dance company, Dancentral, also serving as its president. During the week, she teaches dance to students ages 4-17 at the Alyce Carella Dance Center in West Hartford, CT, and Dream Believe Achieve Dance in New Hartford, CT. Sydney adores making meaningful connections with audience members, peers, and students. It is imperative to her that she takes dance education beyond just learning dance techniques to integrate real-world skills like resilience, empathy, self-concept, and creativity. When she is not dancing, Sydney enjoys practicing yoga, hiking, reading, cooking, making art, and spending time with her kitties!
alexx makes dances
alexx shilling is a movement artist, filmmaker, writer and educator whose deeply collaborative, multidisciplinary performance pieces prioritize the body as the primary research site for invigorating memory and investigating transformation. Her practice leaps between ecstatic expressions of borrowing and becoming, and pieces born from ecological fieldwork, often at sites of atrocity.
Shilling co-founded the popular Los Angeles-based dance series, Hi, Solo, the Gold Collective and Gold Series. With Quintan Wikswo, she co-directed the interdisciplinary company FIELDSHIFT | FURTHER and with Ann Robideaux, the site-specific dance company ann and alexx make dances. As a collaborating performer, she has most notably worked with Victoria Marks, Richard Rivera/Physual, Alan Danielson, Artichoke Dance, Laurel Jenkins, Sarah Leddy, Ros Warby, Ariane Anthony, Rebecca Pappas, Christine Suarez, DaEun Jung, Keith Johnson and Mimi Yin/NUUM Collective. Dance Band is the current vehicle for collaborative projects created with Laurel Jenkins and Sarah Leddy.
Currently teaching at Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers, Shilling holds an MFA in Choreography from UCLA’s Department of World Arts & Culture/Dance, Bachelor’s degree from Skidmore College and teaching certificates in Pilates, Yoga, Simonson Technique, Maureen Fleming Technique and Open Source Forms.
She identifies with her International Jewish Labor Bundist ancestors and their concept of doikayt, or “hereness.” Here is where home is, in this body, as it moves.
http://www.alexxmakesdances.com
Leslie Satin
Leslie Satin is a choreographer, dancer, writer, and long-time member of NYU’s Gallatin Arts Faculty. Her dances have been performed in the US and abroad. She has performed with Einat Amir/PERFORMA, David Botana, Yoshiko Chuma, Marjorie Gamso, Sally Gross, Meredith Monk, Jeremy Nelson/Luis A. Lara Malvacias, Elaine Shipman, and others. She has taught at Bard College, Ailey/Fordham University, Empire State University, University of Chichester/UK, Hamidrasha/Israel, Centro Coreografico/Brazil, Center for Contemporary Arts and Railyard Performance Center (Santa Fe), and elsewhere. Supporting grants and residencies include Yaddo and Dragon’s Egg. Satin’s performance texts and critical writings on dance appear in such journals and edited collections as Literary Geographies, Choreographic Practices, Women & Performance, Dance Research Journal, Performing Arts Journal, Movement Research Performance Journal, Everything Was Possible: Reinventing Dance in the 1960s (ed: Sally Banes), and Georges Perec’s Geographies: Material, Performative and Textual Spaces (eds: Forsdick, Leak, Phillips). Satin’s recent book, Dancing with Georges Perec: Embodying Oulipo (Routledge 2024), explores the experimental French writer’s work from a dancer’s perspective. Satin holds a PhD. in Performance Studies from NYU.
Dean Rainey is a long-time member of two NYC choral ensembles: The Art Mob (eclectic), which has performed many of his musical arrangements, and Cerddorion (classical and contemporary). Rainey has sung with several other choral groups in the city, including the Glass Menagerie Chorus and the Juilliard Choral Union. He has also appeared in public choral events including Lincoln Center’s “The Public Domain” (composed by David Lang); the High Line’s “Mile Long Opera” (Lang); the Prototype Festival’s “Here Lies Joy” (Daniel Bernard Roumain); and Lincoln Center’s “Search for Spring” (Jonathan Dove). Dean is the author of The Art Mob Tops 40, a history of the eponymous chorus, available on Blurb.com. He has previously appeared in several of Leslie Satin’s dance productions.
Anabella Lenzu/ DanceDrama
Originally from Argentina, Anabella Lenzu is a dancer, choreographer, scholar & educator with over 30 years of experience working in Argentina, Chile, Italy, and the USA. Lenzu directs her own company, Anabella Lenzu/DanceDrama , which since 2006, has presented 400 performances, created 15 choreographic works, and performed at 100 venues, presenting thought-provoking and historically conscious dance-theater in NYC. As a choreographer, she has been commissioned all over the world for opera, TV programs, theatre productions, and by many dance companies. She has produced and directed several award-winning short dance films and screened her work in over 200 festivals both nationally and internationally. www.AnabellaLenzu.com
Fiamma Lenzu-Carroll is 12 years old and currently attends Ballet Tech. She has been studying dance since she was 2 years old. She is also a student at the Atlantic Theatre Company and regularly trains with her mother, Anabella Lenzu. Fiamma has performed at LaMama, New York Arts Life (NYLA), and The Brick with her mother, and also dances with Ballet Tech at Playscape Performs and at The Joyce Theater.
Ara Fitzgerald.
Alison Hawthorne Deming
Alison Hawthorne Deming is author of six poetry collections and five nonfiction books. A Guggenheim Fellow, she published in 2025 the poetry collection Blue Flax & Yellow Mustard Flower and the anthology The Gift of Animals: Poems of Love, Loss, & Connection. She is Regents Professor Emerita at the University of Arizona.
https://alisonhawthornedeming.com
Peter Cunningham is a professional photographer. His teachers include Baptist fisherman Lester Tate, dancer Martha Myers, French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Zen Master Bernie Glassman. Peter has exhibited his work in New York, Krakow, London, Paris, Tokyo, Jerusalem, Kigali, Nanjing, Beijing, Berlin and Grand Manan, Canada. His clients include singers, teachers, chefs, playwrights, athletes, accountants, actors, fisherman and clowns. He has taught Photography as Zen Practice in the US and China. He is co-author with Peter Matthiessen of Are We There Yet? A Zen Journey Through Space and Time and is a founding member of The Order of DisOrder. www.petercunninghamphotography.com
Ara Fitzgerald is known for dance theater solos with original text. She revels in collaborations with photographer/filmmaker, Peter Cunningham, composer, Wall Matthews, Clare Byrne, Paris based choreographer, Martha Moore, and the honor to perform reconstructions of work by renowned dancer/clown, Lotte Goslar. A graduate of Connecticut College and Wesleyan University (MALS), she taught at Connecticut College, Trinity Square Conservatory, the National Theater Institute, and served as director of dance and theater at Manhattanville College.. Her book, Slow Dancing Is Easy, Scripts for Solo Performer, was published in 2024. When she told her grandmother, a retired vaudevillian, that she would pursue modern dance, her grandmother retorted, “A modern dancer is just a vaudevillian with an education. www.arafitzgerald.com
With continued gratitude to Marya and Dan for the spirit and support of the Dragon’s Egg.
The Haus of Glitter Dance Company
The Haus of Glitter is a Providence-based collective of artists, educators, and activists using dance, performance, and historical intervention to imagine liberation. Their projects combine multidisciplinary art with cultural preservation and community care, often transforming public and historic spaces into sites of reckoning and joy. Their work has been presented nationally and internationally, from Brown University and RISD to the Yeredon Centre for Malian Arts.
Steven “Sen” Choummalaithong Steven “Sen” Choummalaithong (zem/xe) is a Lao American artist, writer, and performer from Providence. As a co-director and co-founder of The Haus of Glitter, Steven weaves photography, archival storytelling, poetry and performance to honor refugee histories and reclaim marginalized narratives. Their practice spans movement, poetry, and visual art, with recent work rooted in their family’s refugee journey from Laos and the ongoing struggle against war legacies and displacement. Please sign The Haus of Glitter’s petition to transform a racist national monument in Providence, RI at www.hausofglitter.org
TINATA dance collective
TINATA dance collective was formed during the COVID-19 lock-down when dancers Elizabeth Corbett, Penelope Freeh, and Brynne Billingsley, all recent Hollins University MFA graduates, gathered through Zoom, and eventually through residencies, to improvise, discuss, and create their seminal work Things That Aren’t There, presented through Dragon’s Egg two years ago. Monica Zesch has joined TINATA this year for their new work Talking Dances, which again speaks to TINATA’s mosaic-style creative process. Corbett, a Rosenberg Distinguished Artist, and Hollins University Fellowship recipient, is informed in her creative process, which she calls “scrapbooking and story boarding,” through her Joffrey and Milwaukee Ballet experiences as a young dancer, and more prominently through two decades of work with William Forsythe’s Frankfurt company, and teaching at Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s Brussels school, PARTS. Freeh brings to the table her decades-long collaboration with James Sewell Ballet, and her rich choreographic oeuvre, including two McKnight Fellowship choreographic awards, and Zesch, a Boston Conservatory graduate, joins TINATA directly from her recent choreographic workshop with Scott Jennings in Berlin. Together they curate a homegrown, cross-generational journey, mining lost histories and matriarchal knowledge sources, while creating new crossover. TINATA thanks Hollins University, Marya Ursin and Dragon’s Egg, and the University Settlement team for fueling and supporting their growth!
Program blurb:
TINATA dance collective investigates cross-generationally through improvisation and dialogue. Together in their creative process they weave and collage matrilineal knowledge sources and lost histories into connectivity.
Elizabeth Corbett dances, teaches, and choreographs out of Upstate NY, Memphis, TN, and Paris, France. A dual US-Belgium citizen, Elizabeth has been continuously inspired in dance across three continents and six decades. Her love for dance began as a child, dancing in the kitchen, and with training in Rochester NY, The National Academy of Dance in Champaign IL., and NYC. She had the opportunity to dance with the Milwaukee Ballet and the Joffrey Ballet for several formative years, followed by dancing ten years with Forsythe’s Ballett Frankfurt, and working in affiliation with P.A.R.T.S./Rosas as a teaching artist for another ten years. Her work with William Forsythe and Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Dir. of ROSAS and P.A.RT.S., set the stage for international teaching and choreographing as a freelance artist. Amazing opportunities and challenges were brought to light through her graduate degree at Hollins University. This experience led the way to forming the dance collective TINATA, with Brynne Billingsley, Penelope Freeh, Monica Zesch, and her introduction to Marya Ursin and the Dragon’s Egg! Dance artist and educator Penelope Freeh thoughtfully transforms how ballet is transmitted and embodied. Sitting in the question of how aesthetics shape content and meaning, she makes new dance performance, revealing deeply personal content. She is a two-time McKnight Fellow for Choreographers and Sage awardee for Outstanding Performer. Freeh danced with James Sewell Ballet for 17 years, serving as Artistic Associate from 2007-11. She is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Hollins University and Assistant Director of MFA Dance. She herself holds a master’s from Hollins, where she met her TINATA colleagues.
Her dance/theater solo White Zinnia, in which she explores her mother’s iconography and characteristics: dyslexia, left-handedness, non-linearity, and Alzheimer’s, was performed at Candybox Dance Festival (Minneapolis 2024) and RAD Fest 2025. An expanded version will be performed at Hollins’ Eleanor D. Wilson Museum this October. Her mother’s artworks will occupy the large gallery, framing the dance, which will occur five times over the course of the 18-day exhibition.
Monica Zesch (she/her) is a dance artist from St. Louis, MO, where she began her dance journey at Dance Incorporated under Shannon Lee West and later continued her training at the Center of Creative Arts (COCA). Learning the language and techniques at a young age, she’s trained extensively in classical, contemporary, and commercial dance genres. Monica earned her B.F.A. in Contemporary Dance and Choreography from the Boston Conservatory at Berklee, where she had the privilege of working closely in residency with artists such as Aszure Barton, Daniel Pelzig, Kurt Douglas, and many more. Monica also studied and performed repertoire by renowned choreographers including Ohad Naharin, Danielle Agami, Sharon Eyal, and José Limón. Her Journey with TINATA began after working with Elizabeth Corbett in St. Louis. Inspired by community, she thrives when working with other like-minded artists, fueled by a passion for the creative process.
Jamie Graham
Jamie Graham is a dancer, improvisor and physical comedienne based in Brooklyn, NY. She is thrilled to present an excerpt from a new evening length piece that combines eccentric dance and physical comedy, Tippy Topwell Dances Around the Subject, created in collaboration with Virginia Scott through a residency at The Visionary in Mt Vision, NY. Other current projects include dance comedy improv duo The Raving Jaynes with Amy Larimer, Jenny Rocha’s Painted Ladies and Rocha Dance Theater, and Virginia Scott’s company Some Clowns. Past work includes Third Rail Project’s Then She Fell and project-based work with Barbara Mahler. She has completed a M.A. in Applied Physiology at Columbia University, a year of postgraduate study at CODARTS / Rotterdam Dance Academy and a B.F.A. in Dance and B.A. in English Literature at Webster University.
Alison Cook Beatty Dance/Dancers
Ioanna Ioannides hails from Port Washington, NY, where she began her dance training at Berest Dance Center. She graduated Summa Cum Laude with a B.F.A. in Dance from Adelphi University. Ioanna has performed works by various renowned choreographers and joined Alison Cook Beatty Dance as a guest artist in 2021, becoming a full Company member in 2022.
Madelaine Burnett, originally from BC, Canada, studied at the Ailey School’s Scholarship Program before joining Graham2 in 2018, performing principal roles in notable productions. Currently in her fourth season with Alison Cook Beatty Dance, she has appeared across NY, CT, MA, and NJ, and has been featured in Dance International Magazine. Madelaine is a certified ballet teacher and is involved in various projects, including being featured in “BC to NYC.”
Ava Trochiano is from New Jersey and began her training at The Academy of Dance Arts. She has a diverse training background, including prestigious institutions like Juilliard and ABT. Ava graduated summa cum laude from the Ailey/Fordham BFA program in 2024 and has performed in significant events, including the Ailey Spirit Gala. This is her second season with Alison Cook Beatty Dance.
Alison Cook-Beatty, Artistic Director of Alison Cook Beatty Dance, a nonprofit in NYC for 13 years, she has created a 5-minute classical modern dance adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s “Pygmalion” for three female dancers, capturing Eliza Doolittle’s transformative journey while highlighting themes of identity and societal expectation. Alison attended the Boston Conservatory of Music at Berklee, earning a BFA in Dance with high honors and receiving the Ruth Sandholm Ambrose Scholarship Award and the Jan Veen Scholarship. She danced with the Paul Taylor Dance Company and Taylor 2 before founding her company in 2012, with a mission to create and share accessible and emotionally engaging dance for all.
Adams Company Dance
Lila Kusher (performer):
Lila Kushner is a freelance contemporary dance artist, choreographer and teacher based in Philadelphia PA. She is a graduate of Boston Conservatory at Berklee, where she received her BFA in contemporary dance performance, with a composition emphasis. At the conservatory she performed works by notable artists including T. Lang, Victor Quijada, Brian Brooks, Bradley Shelver and Aszure Barton. She has supplemented her training with classes with Mark Morris Dance Group, Jose Limón Dance Company, Vim Vigor Dance Company and David Dorfman Dance. Lila is passionate about choreography and making her own work. Kushner has choreographed works at Philadelphia Dance Theatre, Boston Conservatory and Greenwich Academy, and in 2024 produced her own full length performance work. Her work has received the National Choreography award and Emerging Choreography award from Regional Dance America North East. Lila danced for Hybrid Motion Dance Theatre in Boston, and is a current Teaching. Artist for Pilobolus. This is Lila’s second performance with Adams Company Dance.
Founded by Mitzi Adams, the seeds of Adams Company Dance began in the desert heat of
Arizona in 1988. Upon Adams’ move to Connecticut in 1991, ACD was re-formed and officially
launched in New York City. Now in their 34th year, they have performed in Connecticut,
Arizona, Pennsylvania, California, Michigan, and throughout NYC in acclaimed dance venues.
Drawing upon intuition and serendipity, Ms. Adams creates works rich with imagery that
concern deep matters of the heart. The benchmarks of her work are portrayed through pieces that
are athletically charged, dramatically sensitive, and comedically absurd. Without compromising
high artistic standards, Adams Company Dance is a smaller company with a flexible, innovative
approach, and features world-class dancers that have worked, or who are still working with the
nation’s most esteemed companies and/or on Broadway. Alongside concert dance, ACD has been
creating dance films shorts for the past 15 years. As an added bonus to her company, Ms. Adams
instructs her dancers in the ancient art of Jin Shin Jyutsu®, providing for a more harmonious
process and performance. She has taught at numerous colleges and universities throughout the
USA, where she has shared this art, as well as dance.
ACD has been the recipient of several honors including: The Juror’s Choice Award for her
choreography, adjudicated by Gus Solomons, in the NewDance New Haven ’93 competition; a
2006 finalist for Dance Under the Stars Festival at the McCallum Theater in Palm Desert,
California; a winner in 2010 for the Mystic Independent Theater Film Festival in Mystic, CT, for
their documentary, Except At Night: A Making of a Dance; an accepted filmmaker for the 2015
Triskelion Arts Theater Lab Festival in Brooklyn, NYC, for their film, A Dress in the Stream.
Furthermore, in 2016, as part of their events celebrating ACD’s 25th anniversary, they were
honored to have acclaimed dance critic, Debra Levine, moderate their film screening of Behind
the Lens: Adams Company Dance (a 90-minute compendium of their dance film shorts), which
also honored author and theater/dance critic, Glenn Loney — a personal friend of Ms. Adams.
ACD has also been an invited guest for the 2002 Kansas Dance Festival for her piece,
Unthinkable Equation, during a residency at Wichita State University in Wichita, Kansas; Yale
New Haven Children’s Hospital, as part of their Evening of Remembrance event, in 2009; and
the American Dance Guild’s Festival at the Ailey Citigroup Theater, performing their duet, I Will
Show You An Ocean in 2022.
In addition to concert dance and filmmaking, ACD has contributed in community service
missions for the homeless, in alliance with Peace Community Chapel — a multi-denominational
community based in CT, run by her husband, Don Adams.
Emma Rivera – Lighting and University Settlement liaison par excellence!
LD Kelley – stage manager
L.D. Kelley is a multidisciplinary theatre artist based in Brooklyn. They’re best known for their work as a director and actor, creating and encouraging experimental new plays. This is their fourth year in a row stage managing Dragon’s Egg Presents! Special thanks to Marya and the whole Dragon’s Egg Family! @l.d.kelley
Dan Potter – videographer
Dan Potter trained at Harvard/GSD as an architect, and is the co Artistic Director for the Mystic Paper Beasts (of which he was co-founder), and the co creator of the Dragon’s Egg Studio. (He trained as an architect at the HGSD) He is a widely talented artist: sculptor – welded, plasma cut, and, since covid, the vastly popular small cultures from trash, painter, potter, mask maker, poet, and is mounting a show, with the help of his daughters and marya, of his father’s work at the Hoxie Gallery in Westerly, RI, this November. He has a solo show at the same venue in July, 2026. He will be the filmmaker for the day, recording the concert.
Marya Ursin Producer/Director etc
Marya Ursin is a dancer/mime/yogi/writer, is Artistic Director for the Mystic Paper Beasts, for which she has written some 60 plays, and is the Executive Director for the Dragon’s Egg. She trained mostly with Merce Cunningham in dance, though there is a constellation of teachers in dance, theatre, mime, yoga, massage, meditation who have helped shape her. She has performed as a dancer, as a mime, and as a Mystic Paper Beast in about 1000 venues. She has an RYT 500 designation in yoga (teaching since 1982), has an MA in Integrative Health and Healing, is a massage therapist. She teaches at the National Theatre Institute at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center, Conn. College, the Egg, and out and about. She produces a dance/theatre concert most fall/winters in NYC – this year’s was be at University Settlement on September 20th, and “assembles/directs” several narrative theatrical extravaganzas yearly, at the Egg, and locally in Ct. She runs a monthly living room play reading project. She danced with various choreographers, was a member of the Laura Dean Co, and danced for years and with great joy with Situ in NYC. She is working on a third story book, to be illustrated by Dan Potter. She is the proud mother of Ana, Nani to Aarya, the fortunate partner to amazing Dan Potter, and has an array of wonderful step children and grands, an unruly garden, and two kitties.
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