April Berry
Director of Education and Outreach
A former principal dancer with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, April Berry is the Director of Education and Outreach at North Carolina Dance Theatre. She is also on the faculty of the NC Dance Theatre School of Dance. For the past five years, Berry has served as the director of education and community programs for BalletMet in Columbus, Ohio.
In addition to serving as the director of education and community programs for BalletMet, Berry founded YouthMet!, a multicultural teen dance ensemble. Berry studied at the Dance Theatre of Harlem, the School of American Ballet, and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center. She has received a master certification in Katherine Dunham Technique. Berry performed as a principal dancer for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater for 11 years. She has also danced professionally with companies in Italy, Switzerland and throughout the United States.
Sabrina Berry
Sabrina Berry received her early training at Davidson Fine Arts School in Augusta, Georgia, and was a member of the Augusta Ballet Company from 1985 to 1989. In 1994 she received her BFA from The Julliard School in New York City where she studied and performed the work of Martha Graham, Paul Taylor, Jiri Kylian and José Limon.
While in New York, Berry was chosen among six students to have her choreography performed in the Alice Tully Theatre at Lincoln Center and among eight seniors to show original work in the Julliard Theatre. Berry was founder and artistic director of American Dance Arts from 1998-2003. The company performed annually at the Blumenthal Performing Arts Center and also at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2001.
She performed the work of Molissa Fenley and Laura Dean at Duke University in 1997. She has choreographed for the NC Dance Theatre Repertory Ensemble and has been a faculty member since 1997.
Tara Winston-Conrad
Tara Winston-Conrad’s dance training began as a young girl in Washington, D.C. She studied at The Bolshoi School of Ballet in Bethesda, MD. and then later at The Bethesda School of Ballet.
Conrad continued her dance education at he University of North Carolina-Greensboro where she worked towards a major in drama and a minor in dance. After two years she transferred to Catholic University in Washington, D.C. While studying drama and teaching dance she commuted to New York where she performed in an Off Broadway Showcase. Later that year she traveled to the Middle East and abroad as a featured dancer in the 1982 USO tour. Conrad graduated with a Bachelors of Fine Arts degree from the prestigious Drama program at Catholic University and moved to New York City.
While in New York, Conrad studied and later taught at many major dance studios, including Broadway Dance Center, Steps, and David Howard. She also performed as a Zigfield Folly dancer and was featured in several VH1 music videos.
Conrad’s dance training led her to the fitness industry where she became National Spokesperson for The Body Bar and presented at many national and international fitness expos. During this time she was a member of “Team Danskin” and appeared on several talk shows as a fitness expert. Conrad has worked extensively in television, appearing in TV films, soap operas and national commercials.
Mark Diamond
Mark Diamond became a full-time choreographer and teacher in 1983. He has taught in Europe, the United States and Japan including work with choreographer John Neumeier of Hamburg Staatsoper in Germany. He has danced with the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre and the Tamburitzans, Slavic folk ensemble, and was a principal dancer with the Milwaukee Ballet Company.
Diamond trained with Edward Caton and attended Duquesne University and Point Park College. He was a faculty member in Cincinnati at The School for Creative Performing Arts and at the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music.
He was choreographer for the Cincinnati Opera for five years, founded Ballet Artists Cincinnati, has received numerous choreography grants and has choreographed over thirty ballets for companies in America and Europe. North Carolina Dance Theatre has presented several of Diamond’s ballets. He currently serves as resident choreographer for Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux at The Chautauqua Institution in New York.
Katarina Dimitrijevic
Katarina M. Dimitrijevic is a graduate of The State Ballet Academy of Belgrade, Serbia. Dimitrijevic danced with the Simionov Ensemble and instructed classical ballet at three different ballet institutions in Belgrade. She then spent several years in Italy as a ballet instructor, choreographer and dancer at ballet schools in Ragusa, Comiso, Acate and Grammichele.
In 1997, Dimitrijevic opened her own dance school, KAYA, in Belgrade. She also completed a four-year course in Ballet Pedagogy at the University of High Culture and Arts in Rome, Italy, where she improved her knowledge in the Vaganova method. She served as assistant to Professor Ivan Goliandin in the Character Dance Department. While studying in Rome, Dimitrijevic taught classical and character dances at several dance studios and also worked as a dancer.
Dimitrijevic immigrated to the United States in 2003 and obtained a position as a classical ballet instructor with the Fort Wayne Ballet Academy. She and her family moved to Charlotte in July 2005.
Heather Ferranti Ferguson
Heather Ferranti Ferguson is a native of Rochester, NY, where she studied with Luba Gulaeva at the Botsford School of Dance, and later with Timothy Draper at the Rochester City Ballet.
She has danced professionally with the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, Colorado Ballet, and Chautauqua Ballet Company. While at Dance Theatre Heather has danced featured roles in ballets such as Alonzo King’s MAP, Alvin Ailey’s The River, Mark Diamond’s Cyrano de Bergerac, Salvatore Aiello’s The Nutcracker and many Balanchine ballets. Ferguson spent five seasons with North Carolina Dance Theatre.
Lauren Goodman
Lauren Goodman is a native of Charlotte, N.C. Goodman holds a B.F.A. in Dance from Belhaven College in Jackson, Miss. Her dance training includes Alvin Ailey American Dance Center, North Carolina School of the Arts and Charlotte City Ballet. During the 2006 USA International Ballet Competition, Goodman held the position of International Dance School Administrator. Currently, she is working towards her M.A. in Dance Education through UNC Greensboro. Goodman is the dance teacher for the Children’s Community School in Davidson.
Madeline Jazz Guerdat
Madeline Jazz Guerdat has studied at the North Carolina Dance Theatre
School of Dance since age 8. She has performed numerous roles with
both the Student Ensemble and the Company. She attended the Chautauqua
Institute dance program for three years and choreographed works for Chautauqua students in 2006 and 2007. She has also choreographed many pieces on the Student Ensemble and was awarded a fellowship from the New York Choreographic Institute for 2007-2008. In addition, Guerdat has trained in programs at The Juilliard School and Complexions Contemporary Ballet, both in New York City. She is currently pursuing her B.A. degree at the UNC Charlotte.
Alexis Ingram
Originally from Miami, Florida, Alexis Ingram began her dance training at Ballet Etudes of South Florida. She furthered her early training with Marielena Mencia, Rosario Suarez and New World School of the Arts. She has recently performed with Dance Kaleidoscope, The Indianapolis Opera, Moving Collective and Empujón. In 2003, Alexis graduated from Butler University (Indianapolis) with a degree in Dance Pedagogy and has since taught at Jordan College Academy of Dance and the Louisville Ballet School. Alexis is also a trained Pilates instructor and a Licensed Instructor of Nurturing Pathways® Early Childhood Creative Dance.
David Ingram
Originally from Kingsport, Tennessee, trained with Karen Gibbons Brown at the Kingsport Guild of Ballet. After graduating with honors from Butler University in Indiana, David joined the Louisville Ballet where he worked with such choreographers as Adam Hougland, Ben Stevenson, Robert North, Val Caniparoli, Twyla Tharp and Domy Reiter Soffer. David’s choreography has been performed at The Fort Wayne Ballet, The Yard in Massachusetts, The Kentucky Governor’s School of the Arts and Empujón.
Gretchen Jax
Gretchen began her studies in Greenville, South Carolina. She graduated magna cum laude from Winthrop University with a BA in Dance Performance. She performed in Meredith Monk’s Obie Award winning Quarry at the 2003 Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina. She has also studied and performed the works of Sandra Neels, David Parsons, Marjorie Palmer Perry and Mary Beth Thompson Duke Young. She was the recipient of the 2000, 2001 and 2002 Alpha Psi Omega Best Choreography Award from Winthrop University. In 2006 she was one of eight selected to study at the School of Jacob’s Pillow Choreographer’s Lab. Gretchen is the co-founder of Sinergismo, a group of dancers, artists, poets, and musicians using collaboration as a means to produce choreographic works. Sinergismo has performed at venues throughout the southeast including the Piccolo Spoleto Festival, Sumter Museum of Art, North Carolina Dance Festival Saturday Series, Friends of North Carolina Dance Theatre and the Charlotte Dance Festival. Gretchen has been a faculty member since 2003.
Susie Johnson
Susie Johnson's dance career began as a young child with The Calvert-Brodie Dance Studio in Columbia, S.C. Growing up in a family of dancers, she went on to complete her early dance training at her sisters’ studio, Carolina Dance Centre. Johnson trained in classical ballet with Stacie Calvert, Susan Anderson, William Starrett, Mariclare Miranda and Deborah Bricker. She has studied modern dance, voice and commercial acting, but her primary training was in jazz, tap and musical theater. Johnson's professional dance career began by age 16, and she collaborated with such celebrities as Gregory Hines, Danny Devito and Mark Wahlburg. She performed as a World Dancer at Disney World’s Epcot Center and was also a lead cast member in Dream Girls, A Chorus Line and Sea Legs at Sea, as well as other productions with Norwegian Cruise Lines.
Johnson studied dance and acting in Los Angeles and danced on Broadway in New York City at the New Victory Theater as the only female dancer in Jeff Amsden’s A Few Good Men Dancin’. She was a principal actress in commercials for Diechmann Shoes in Germany and was featured as a dancer on the hit show Baywatch. In 1998, Johnson and her business partner Tony Vitale formed Vitale Productions. Under their business, she trained dancers from all over the country, teaching master classes and setting award winning choreography. Vitale Productions also created, directed and produced a summer dance jazz intensive called Happiness, in Columbia, S.C. Her success with Vitale Productions led to a feature in Dance Spirit Magazine, which commemorated her unique teaching style and expertise in lyrical dance.
While in Columbia, she served as the director of jazz for the University of South Carolina Summer Dance Conservatory, under the direction of Susan Anderson. Johnson has traveled the United States and Canada with several national dance conventions and competitions, such as Hoctor's Dance Caravan, PDTA, Manhattan Dance Project and Dance Masters of America as a master teacher and judge.
Johnson is the proud mother of her 5 year old son Tag Vitale and the wife of Mr. Britt Johnson of Savannah, Ga.
Kati Hanlon Mayo
Kati Hanlon Mayo began her dance training at The Boston School of Ballet. She went on to study as a scholarship student at The School of American Ballet, Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet and Jose Mateo's Ballet Theatre. She was a member of Boston Ballet 2, performed with The Boston Ballet and danced soloist roles with Jose Mateo's Ballet Theatre before joining NC Dance Theatre as a principal dancer in 1991.
Kati performed principal roles in works choreographed by Balanchine, Alvin Ailey, Agnes DeMille, Jean Pierre Bonnefoux, Salvatore Aiello and Alonzo King during her tenure at Dance Theatre. She began teaching at the School of Dance upon its inception in 1996 and has also been a guest teacher for many studios across the Southeast.
Kate McDonald
Kate McDonaldis from the Pacific Northwest where she began her dance training at a young age with Anacortes Dance Center under the direction of Paula Clancey. She holds a B.F.A. in modern dance from Texas Christian University, where she was a recipient of the Fine Arts Guild Scholarship Award. She seeks to blend her training in ballet, modern, jazz and hip hop dance, in a way that shares her joy of dance with her students.
McDonald has had the privilege of working with such artists as Leah Cox, Christian von Howard, Jin-Wen Yu, Susan Douglas Roberts, Elizabeth Gillaspy and the late Fernando Bujones. Since moving to the Charlotte area she has taught at The Perfect Step (Gastonia), danced with Martha Connerton's Kinetic Works and performed with Opera Carolina. Currently she is the dance educator at East Gaston High School and is a professional dancer with Caroline Calouche & Co.
Kathryn Moriarty
Kathryn Moriarty was a principal dancer with Milwaukee Ballet, and danced solo repertoire with the Norwegian National Ballet, the Hamburg Staatsoper in Germany and the Cincinnati/New Orleans Ballet. She has made many guest appearances including performances with the Australian Dance Theatre.
Her training includes the Australian Ballet School, The Scully-Borovansky School of Australia and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Moriarty has also served as Artistic Associate of Dayton Ballet, Co-Director of Dayton Ballet II and faculty member of the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music. She has been a full-time faculty member of the NC Dance Theatre - School of Dance since 1998.
Jeanene Russell Perry
Jeanene Russell Perry trained at the Bolshoi Ballet Academy in Moscow, Russia, under the direction of Sofia Golovkina, Director of the Institute. She was the first American to receive a Diploma of Completion of Studies from the prestigious institution. She danced for two years with Ballet Arizona in Phoenix, Arizona, The Chautauqua Ballet Company in Chautauqua, New York for five seasons and with the North Carolina Dance Theatre in Charlotte for five seasons.
Perry has lived and toured all over the globe performing hundreds of ballets. She has had numerous roles created for her by well known choreographers including “The Soul” in Dreamer by Alonzo King. She has performed principal roles in Giselle, the Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty, In the Middle Somewhat Elevated, Tango and many others. She has choreographed several ballets and plans to continue developing this talent. She is now using her talents to nurture and train the next generation of dancers. She is on staff at NC Dance Theatre School of Dance. She has been both a guest instructor and speaker at UNC Charlotte. In addition to dance accomplishment, she is a certified Pilates Instructor and Master Teacher. Her home is Charlotte, North Carolina.
Kyle Shawell
Kyle Garrison Shawell, studied dance under the direction of such renowned teachers such as Pat Thomas, Ruth Adrien, Ronen Koresh and Milton Myers. His education background includes The Philadelphia School of Dance Arts, the University of the Arts and Winthrop University. Shawell is a teaching artist with the North Carolina Blumenthal Performing Arts Center and a dance educator for the Governor Award winning Janice Wyatt Summer Arts Institute in Cleveland. His choreography has been seen at various Industrials, SCDA, SCPHERD, KAOS Dance Company, Winthrop Dance Theatre, Gaston Dance Theatre, Girl Talk Foundation of Charlotte, N.C., and Valley Forge Dance Theatre. Kyle’s performance career includes being a member of Philandanco II Dance Company, the Valley Forge Dance Theater, Theater West Virginia, KAOS dance company of Charlotte, and Martha Connerton/Kinetic Works. He has appeared in performances for Opera Carolina and in Musical Theatre productions of Bubbling Brown Sugar, Anything Goes, Bye Bye Birdie and West Side Story. Presently Kyle is a lecturer of dance at Winthrop University where he teaches dance in jazz, hip-hop and musical theatre. He recently was the choreographer for the summer production of Once on this Island at Delta State University and is creating new dance works for his company The Urban Dance Project.
Amy Price
Amy Price began her training in Canada, studying summers with the National Ballet of Canada and the Banff Center for the Performing Arts.
She later studied on full scholarship with the Joffrey Ballet School in New York, danced with the Joffrey II Concert Dancers and performed as a guest dancer with the Joffrey Midwest Workshop. Price danced with Ballet Memphis, until joining NC Dance Theatre for four seasons.
Price has taught for the Joffrey Ballet School, Ballet Memphis, and several public school systems in the country including Mecklenburg County Schools. Currently, she is teaching at the NC Dance Theatre School of Dance, while pursuing a dance education degree at UNC Charlotte.
Vivienne Ramsey
Vivienne Ramsey began her ballet training at an early age in Sydney, Australia. She completed her RAD syllabus with honors and was awarded the Solo Seal at age 16. A silver medal performance during the Peter Stuyvesant Competition at the famed Sydney Opera House let to a stipend to the John Cranko School in Stuttgart, West Germany.
It was in Stuttgart under the influence of Marcia Haydee that Vivienne learned the ultimate importance of integrating passion and dance. She went on to become a soloist with John Neumeier's Hamburg Ballet and traveled the world, dancing in such capitals as Paris, Berlin, Leningrad, New York, Montreal, Buenos Aires, and Salzburg.
Ramsey began her experience in "Exhibition Ballroom Dancing" in 1992. Very quickly she and her partner, David Howland, began to challenge the best couples in the word. Since 1995 they have dominated Exhibition Ballroom Dancing by repeatedly taking the World and British Exhibition titles as well as winning four United States Championships.
Jennifer Read
Jennifer Read has performed in numerous theatrical productions nationally and internationally including both the European Tour and the Broadway Revival first National Tour of 42nd Street. She has been in regional productions and tours of shows including The Music Man, Crazy for you (Patsy), No, No, Nannette (Nanette), Cabaret, Pippin, Evita, Will Rogers Follies (Indian Princess Soloist), West Side Story and Guys and Dolls. Jennifer has danced for the Los Angeles Opera under the artistic direction of Placido Domingo in Sampson and Dahlila, starring Placido Domingo and Denise Graves, and Bluebeard’s Castle, starring Samuel Ramey and Denise Graves. Read was also a Rockette in the Radio City Christmas Spectacular.
In addition to her performing credits, Read has directed and choreographed numerous productions for various regional and community theatres in the Los Angeles area and has taught dance and theatre classes for a variety of dance studios and theatres, working with students of all ages. Read has a B.F.A. in Dance and Theatre from Chapman University, where she graduated Magna Cum Laude with departmental and university honors.
Musicians
Kazako Adachi
Robert Beasley
Gene Bledsoe
Jeana Borman
Yulia Helm
Janice Herboth
Natasha Holler
Sue Kang
Gary Mumford
Guest Teachers
Each year the School of Dance invites a number of internationally recognized guest teachers to teach regular and master classes to our students.
Guest Teachers who have taught at the School of Dance include:
Gabrielle Brown
Connie Dinapoli
Judith Fugate
Martha Goodman
Katrina Killian
Alonzo King
Glenda Lucena
Armando Luna
Terrance Orr
Dwight Rhoden
Toni Sands
Jeff Shade
Marianna Tcherkassky
Violette Verdy
Julie Janus Walters
Tyler Walter |
