Kara Brody (she/her) is a native of Detroit, Michigan and received her BFA in dance from Wayne State University. She relocated to Chicago working with companies Lucky Plush Productions, Khecari, and The Cambrians, and has worked with artists Erin Kilmurray, Amanda Maraist, Ayako Kato, Kevin Iega Jeff, Shannon Alvis, and Alice Klock. Brody guest teaches at University of Chicago frequently and has been on faculty at Virtual Dance Lab, Visceral Dance, The Cambrians’ Winter and Summer intensives, Lucky Plush Productions, Brighton Dance Festival, and The Actors Gymnasium. This past year, she has guest taught at Northwestern University & Rutgers University and performed with Danceable Projects | Erick Montes and Jodie Randolph Dance. Kara is also extensively involved with Lucky Plush's administrative team as the Virtual Dance Lab Program Head and Marketing Manager for current and upcoming projects. 

As a young dancer, Jessica apprenticed with NC Dance Theatre under the direction of former New York City Ballet principals Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux and Patricia McBride. Tomlinson graduated from the University of NC School of the Arts with a BFA in Contemporary Dance. Upon moving to Chicago she collaborated with Lauri Stallings (formerly of Hubbard Street and current Artistic Director of gloATL) and performed with her company NANDANSE. Jessica was a dancer, choreographer, assistant rehearsal director and teacher for Thodos Dance Chicago from 2005-2017, where she performed and toured both Nationally and Internationally. Jessica continued developing her own work through the Thodos New Dances Performance Series, with several works becoming part of the company’s repertoire. 

Jessica Miller Tomlinson’s Award Winning Choreography has been commissioned or produced by the Chautauqua Ballet Company, NC School of the Arts, Aerial Dance Chicago, Alluvion Dance Chicago, Hot Crowd, DanceWorks Chicago, Chicago Repertory Ballet,The Joyce Theater Foundation, The Inconvenience Performance Group,The Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Idaho Dance Theatre, Regional Dance America, Columbia College of Chicago, Washington and Lee University, The Edinburgh Fringe Festival , Forum Dance Theatre, Nomi Dance Company, Dance in the Parks, The Dance Gallery Festival, Visceral Dance Chicago, Nebraska Contemporary Dance Theatre, Eisenhower Dance Company, The Harvest Dance Festival, The HSDC Youth Ensemble, Northern Illinois University, SHIFT DANCE | FESTIVAL Albuquerque, Dance For Life, and Thodos Dance Chicago. She has collaborated with Dance For Life's Our Voices Dance, and Andy Warhol Silver Clouds Exhibit at the MCA. 

Jessica was most recently a Faculty member for the Hubbard Street Youth Dance Program, as well as The Joffrey Academy of Dance, where she taught Contemporary for the Joffrey Studio Company and Trainees. She was Adjunct Faculty at Northern Illinois University the past two years. Jessica currently serves as the Ballet Mistress for Cerqua Rivera Dance Theatre. This Fall she is excited to be joining the Faculty of Alma Dance School, Pure Vibe Dance Center, Christine Belpedio’s School of Dance and The Rooted Space. 

www.JessicaMillerTomlinson.com 

Christopher Courtney is an instructor, choreographer, and director that greatly enjoys sharing his passion for the arts with the world. He is a founding member of the “professional” beginnings of Chicago Dance Crash; and is currently the Artistic Director of Culture Shock Chicago. Throughout his dance career he has performed on the same stage with the likes of Kanye West, Busta Rhymes, Camron, Ludacris, Corpo Dance Company, Stick & Move Dance Crew, Five Star Boogie, and Common among others. He has choreographed various stage performances, for Lollapalooza, Coca Cola, Pillsbury, Adidas, OfficeMax, Nike, the McDonald’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and in 2019 he historically produced the first all hip hop concert dance show at Chicago’s prestigious “Harris Theater”. 

Christopher hopes to continue to share his love for the arts...ever growing, expressing, learning, and motivating others.

Amanda Maraist is a movement deviser, improviser and performer from the Texas Gulf Coast. She has most recently performed in Chicago with Khecari and Ayako Kato / Art Union Humanscape. She participates in several other collaborative processes with movers, musicians and artists; imagining the body as a sloppy archive and aiming to incite coincidence in performance. Through authentic movement practices and meticulously rendered improvisational scores, she welcomes unwieldy processes with a DIY demeanor. For more information, visit amandamaraist.com.

Enid Smith is a graduate of the North Carolina School of the Arts, earning her BFA in contemporary dance.  In New York City she performed with Ivy Baldwin Dance, The Merce Cunningham Repertory Understudy Group, Anita Cheng Dance, and MAC Cosmetics, among others.  Since moving to the Chicago area in 2007, Enid has presented her own work under the name enidsmithdance, collaborated with the musicians of Articular Facet, worked extensively with the Evanston Dance Ensemble and, most recently, performed with Julia Rae Antonick and Jonathon Meyer of Khecari.  In addition to teaching at Dovetail Studios she also teaches modern, ballet, and Cecchetti Method at Dance Center Evanston.

Joan Oberndorf’s (She/Her) early ballet training was with Bentley Stone and Walter Camryn. She has also studied ballet with Larry and Dolores Long, Orrin Kayan, and Birute Birodicaite, and jazz with Lou Conte and Claire Bataille. As a dancer she performed with Light Opera Works and Topeka Civic Theatre as well as doing industrial work for several corporations including Sperry-Rand and Carson Pirie Scott. Joan focuses on alignment, building strength and proper placement while also stressing musicality as she teaches. She works to enable students of any age or level to move and dance at their fullest potential. As a practicing massage therapist, Joan incorporates her training and experience with bodywork to help the dancers in her class stay injury free.

Oksana Kuzma is originally from Colorado Springs, Colorado but has since lived in Chicago having received her Bachelor’s in Fine Arts in Dance at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign with Highest Honors. Her time in Chicago has been peppered with many things that all promote dance as a place of inclusivity, curiosity, and creativity. Having danced professionally with Hedwig Dances for two years and taught many of their open company classes, Oksana has also continued to develop confident dancers within the Chicago-land area in her time teaching at Yvonne’s Dance Academy and Metro Achievement Center for Girls. Currently, Oksana is teaching art’s integrated classes that blend movement and instructional concepts at Alphonsus Academy and Center for the Arts. Oksana believes that dance enhances learning potential in all areas and is excited to be sharing this with the community at Dovetail!  

Jamy enjoyed a thirteen year career with Hubbard Street Dance Chicago – first with founder Lou Conte, then under the direction of Jim Vincent. He then joined Nederlands Dans Theater in The Hague for three years. Jamy became a member of The Cambrians, a global dance production network, for The Nexus Project: Autumn and Jamy. He has performed in several Lyric Opera Chicago productions as well as with The Goodman Theater. He has been teaching master classes in ballet, jazz and contemporary movement throughout the United States and has loved setting HSDC repertoire on universities in the US and Canada. Jamy holds a BFA in dance performance from Oklahoma City University.

Kaity Paschetto is a Chicago-based dance instructor and musical theatre performer. She earned her BFA from the University of Michigan’s School of Music, Theatre, and Dance. She has trained with the Louisville Ballet’s Dale Brannon and Kathy Sawyer; the University of Kentucky’s Teresa Bautista; and the University of Michigan’s faculty, including Ron De Jesus, Judy Rice, Sara Randazzo, and renowned musical theatre choreographer Linda Goodrich.

Her performance credits include: Crazy for You (original Broadway Choreography set by Shari Jordan), Fiona in Shrek, and Reno Sweeney in Metropolis’s recent production of Anything Goes.

Outside of the studio and stage, Kaity is a certified teacher of English as a Foreign Language, with a specialization in young learners. She believes that the best teachers remind themselves of what it is to be a student, and she strives to learn something new every day. She enjoys spending her free time in Horner Park with her husband and their dog, Sesame.

Mercedes Rohlfs has been movement-based performer, practitioner, and fitness enthusiast for much of her life. She's a Feldenkrais Method Practitioner, actor, choreographer for theatrical works, dancer with the Flaming Dames, and Werq instructor. For Mercedes, WERQ is one of the most fun ways to spend an hour and she's excited to share the good times with Dovetail.

Emily Stein began dancing as a child in Buffalo, New York. She holds BA in Dance from the University of Iowa, and an MFA in Performance and Choreography from Smith College. In 1993, she joined Chicago's Zephyr Dance, and choreographed and performed with the company for eighteen years. She served as Associate artistic Director from 1997 to 2011. Both with Zephyr and as an independent artist, her dancing and choreography have been seen throughout the US, from Florida to Texas to New York City and Toronto. Emily has produced her choreography independently in Chicago and her work has twice been nominated for Chicago Dance Achievement/Ruth Page Awards. Her current artistic work explores the intersections of ballet technique and improvisation as processes that live in the body.  In 2012, she began a series of works under the title Secret Experiments in Ballet as a platform to share these choreographic experiments.

While studying at the University of Iowa with Francoise Martinet, she began teaching in the university's Talented and Gifted children's program. Before joining the faculty of the Dance Center of Columbia College, she taught ballet and modern technique at Smith College, Hampshire College, the University of Massachusetts and Barat College, and at a wide variety of private studios in the Chicago area. Since 1995, she has been a teaching artist in the Chicago Public Schools, practicing Zephyr's collaborative model of Arts Integration. Her own dancing journey has taken her from Balanchine to Deborah Hay and everywhere in between, and she strives to use this breadth to train dancers with open minds and intelligent bodies.

Originally from Delaware, Ohio, Alicia Wilson began dancing at the age of three. Since then, she has trained in ballet, pointe, modern, jazz, hip-hop, tap, lyrical, and acrobatics. When she was sixteen she trained with Ballet Chicago at their 2009 Summer Intensive and fell in love with the city, so it was an easy choice to attend Columbia College Chicago, where she graduated in 2015 with a BA in Dance. She has spent time studying Urban styles of dance in London, England, where she helped to organize the 2014 Collide Dance Festival in Stratford. Alicia now lives, performs, choreographs, and teaches in Chicago.

Alana Deitch has been dancing almost since she could walk. Starting with classical training throughout her youth and teen years at Ballet Austin, she expanded her disciplines in college, graduating from the University of Texas at Austin in 2013 with a B.A. in Dance and a B.S. in Exercise Science. Since graduating, she has continued her training through involvement in local dance communities in Austin and now Chicago as well as briefly overseas. Throughout college and in the years since, she has worked with several differently abled populations in therapeutic settings as well as nannying and dance classes.  

Express Yourself was co-developed as a class to provide classic dance techniques as well as to foster an appreciation of the movement our bodies are capable of creating. Every class ends with a dance party because ultimately, dance is about celebration!

Jordan “J. Ro” Ordonez is a Chicago-based performance & street dancer, a teaching artist, a dance administrator, and an aspiring community leader. He has been a dancer, performer, and leader within the Hip Hop ConnXion family since 2008; and a current member of the Jus.Be House Collective (2017), the Chicago Urban Dance Collective (2018), and the BraveSoul Movement Company (2018). Jordan’s dancing has been featured in the Kiss FM Fanatabuloso Tour, World of Dance Chicago, Dance Chicago, Carnival Chicago, The One, RAW Artist Chicago, Adero, Dreams The Movie, Marie Poppins, and much more. He has been training in house dance and hip-hop freestyle movement, traveling throughout the country to programs like the “BoomCrack Dance Company Adult Intensive” in Chicago (IL), the Dance Fusion/EliteForce/Missfitss “36 Chambaz of Stylz” intensive in New York City (NY), and Street Style Lab in Los Angeles (CA).

As a youth instructor and teaching artist, Jordan acquired his passion for youth empowerment within the martial arts, when teaching for the Illinois Shotokan Karate Club (2007-2015), one of the biggest Shotokan karate clubs in the nation. He started teaching dance with Everybody Dance Now! (EDN) in 2015. Jordan is the former Assistant Director and current Chapter Director for EDN’s Chicago chapter, where he has pioneered and developed many organizational, dance program, and school enrichment initiatives within their mission to empower youth and build community through dance.

Jordan is an optimist and a young leader with passions for dancing, leading, learning, and impacting his community; he prides himself on his ambition and is excited to share his passions with the world.

Ryan is an actor originally hailing from North Carolina who found himself up North in the cold to complete his BFA in Acting at Boston University’s School of Theatre. Upon graduating Ryan realized that he wasn’t quite ready to join the real world yet, so instead he ran away to circus school…in an even colder place. While at BU he worked as a fight choreographer, movement director, and stage manager for several productions. Some of his favored roles during his tenure there include Joe (Angels in America Part II: Perestroika), Eiliff (Mother Courage) and Joe Ryan (When the Rain Stops Falling). While in school Ryan also developed an original one-man documentary theatre show, Flailing into Happiness, derived from interviews conducted throughout 15 different countries. His interest in circus arts stems largely from a desire to see the human body reach its maximum expressive potential for the purposes of storytelling whether that be through aerial apparatus work tumbling, stage combat, dance, clowning or—ideally—a combination of them all! ryanhuemmer.com

Wade Schaaf hails from the Chicago area and graduated Cum Laude from Northern Illinois University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in theater arts (emphasis dance performance). During his professional career Wade has danced for such companies as the Ohio Ballet, State Street Ballet Santa Barbara, The Omaha Theater Ballet, and Thodos Dance Chicago, and River North Chicago Dance Company. He has worked with choreographers Septime Weber, Stephen Mills, Kennet Oberly, Bill Soleau, Frank Chaves, Laurie Stallings, Ron DeJesus and the Tony Award winning choreographer Ann Reinking. After retiring from the stage, Mr. Schaaf went on to open Chicago Repertory Ballet in November of 2011. The company premiered to the headline review, “A Bright Debut for Chicago Repertory Ballet.” (Sid Smith, The Chicago Tribune). Since the debut of CRB Wade has gone on to create such exceptional works as Shostakovich Piano Concerto, The Four Seasons and William Shakespeare's MACBETH. Outside of the studio, Mr. Schaaf has a variety of interests ranging from visual art to health and wellness. Wade is a certified in both the Pilates method (Through Power Pilates) and RedCord, and is happy to enrich the lives of many through fitness.

Jordan Beyeler is a Chicago based dancer, teacher and choreographer. Her professional performance credits include Graziella in West Side Story (South Bend Civic Theatre), Wife/Apache Dancer in Joseph and The Technicolor Dream Coat (Music Theater Works), Gypsy Soloist in La Traviata (Lyric Opera Chicago), Kristine in A Chorus Line (Metropolis PAC), Chastity in Anything Goes (Metropolis PAC), Norwegian Cruise Lines, Cerqua Rivera Dance Theatre, Deeply Rooted Dance Theater, and Visceral Dance Chicago. When she’s not in rehearsal, Jordan is a dance competition judge for Applause Talent Competition. She graduated from Columbia College Chicago with a BFA in dance. Connect with her at @jbeyeler or www.jordanbeyeler.com  

Damon D. Green was born in Champaign, and has been a Chicago resident for thirteen years. Greens dance education began at Christine Rich Studio, with training in classical ballet and jazz in 1996, and then at the Champaign Park District, under Kimberly Burson from 1997-2002. Green continued his studies at Columbia College Chicago in 2003, where he was introduced to modern/contemporary, African and Vogue. Vogueing is currently Damon's focus, working frequently with choreographer Darrell Jones, and keeps a foot in the contemporary dance world with The Seldoms. He operates his own studio called TextureDance, a home for the contemporary dancer, and offers training in Vogue, Modern, Street Jazz and Hip-Hop to youth, teen and adults. Damon joined The Seldoms in 2007. texturedance.com

McKena Silva is a native of Casper Wyoming. Growing up she trained at Rocky Mountain School of Dance and 307 Dance Academy for 17 years. For 13 of those years McKena was a competitive dancer performing with her dance team and placing at the national level. McKena attended Millikin University for Musical Theatre and dance, graduating in May of 2019 with her BFA. After graduation McKena performed with Cedar Point Live Entertainment in Beach Blanket Beagle and with the Cumberland County Playhouse in Young Frankenstein and Elf. McKena has been seen on stages all over the eastern United States and is excited to be making roots here in Chicago with her students and Dovetail Studios. 

Olivia Serrano is a Spanish and Flamenco dancer based in Chicago. She began her formal Spanish and Flamenco dance training with Ensemble Español Spanish Dance Theater in 2003 after taking ballet, modern and jazz classes at a local Chicago Park District. She continued her Spanish dance studies in Spain at the Amor de Dios Flamenco Dance Academy and with teachers Paloma Gomez, Carmela Greco and Juan Mata and Ana Gonzalez. Her choreographies have been performed in Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival Inside/Out dance series in 2015, Going Dutch Dance Festival in 2019 and WIM Dance Festival in 2020. She continues to perform regularly with Ensemble Español as a soloist and teaches community classes in Flamenco and Spanish dance styles.

Kristina Fluty has been dancing and teaching across Chicago for nearly two decades. Her main creative home since 2003 is Molly Shanahan/Mad Shak, and she has also enjoyed making work with many other choreographers and companies. She is an Assistant Professor of Movement for Actors at The Theatre School at DePaul University. Kristina holds a Masters in Dance/Movement Therapy and Counseling, a graduate certificate in Laban Movement Analysis, and is a registered Movement Pattern Analyst; she received her BA in Dance from Point Park University in the last century. Kristina's class is heavily influenced by her Laban/Bartenieff work, her extended time dancing with Molly Shanahan, Contact Improvisation, and her continued personal practice of Feldenkrais, Skinner Releasing, and Body-Mind Centering

Kara Hunsinger is from Modesto, California. She started her dance training at Steps Dance Arts

Center and then at a professional level with Juline’s School of Dance. Kara graduated Magna

Cum Laude from the University of Arizona in 2019. While attending college she had the honor of

performing works by Christopher Wheeldon, George Balanchine, Autumn Eckman, Nacho

Duato, Sam Watson, Tamara Dyke-Compton, and Alexei Ratmansky. During her senior year she

danced with Hawkin’s Dance Company under the direction of Shelly Hawkins. Post graduation,

Kara joined the DanceWorks Chicago family. Kara’s additional training includes Ballet West,

Alonzo King LINES Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, San Francisco Conservatory of Dance, and

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago.