Katherine Acosta was born and raised in Sarasota, Florida. She began her classical training with The Sarasota Ballet School before attending Booker High School for the Visual and Performing Arts program. She graduated from Florida State University Spring of 2022 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Dance. While at Florida State, she had the honor of working with today’s leading choreographers; Jawole Willa Zollar, Gwen Welliver, Ilana Goldman, and Anjali Austin. In 2021, Katherine joined the Dance Theater of Harlem team where she was offered an internship position, there she was given the chance to meet art leaders, teachers, and gained work experience in the dance community. In addition, Katherine has trained with Alonzo King LINES Ballet, Jacob Jonas the Company, The Sarasota Contemporary Dance, & Ballet Hispanico ChoreoLab. Katherine joined the Sarasota Contemporary Dance company as an apprentice for the beginning of their 17th season. She is looking forward to continuing her dance career with ATLAS Modern Ballet.
Ethan Barbee began his theatrical and dance training at the Musical Theater Center and Act Two in Maryland and continued at Northwood High School, CityDance at Strathmore, and the Maryland Youth Ballet. While at the University of South Florida, he performed in works by artists such as Alonzo King and Maurice Causey and participated in the Beijing Normal University International Creative Dance Seminar in Beijing, China and Dance in Paris Semester program in France. He received a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts in Dance Performance and Choreography with a modern dance concentration in the spring of 2017.Since graduation, he has performed with the Collective Soles Dance Company, Tampa City Ballet, and Diavolo: Architecture in Motion and freelanced throughout Tampa Bay. Revolving around the intersection between the arts and the academics, his choreographic works have been presented at Midwest RADfest, the University of Tampa, Talking Bodies: Choreographer’s Fest by Collective Soles, and Eras by Tampa City Ballet. Most recently, he volunteered for seven and a half months in Israel and he is happy to be welcomed back into the Tampa Bay dance scene.
Ajani Brannum (they/them) does one thing at a time. They are an undisciplinary artist working between performance, writing, digital media, facilitation, and divination. Guided by a commitment to psychospiritual inquiry, Ajani examines the stories that structure our being-in-the-world. Ajani hails from Anchorage, Alaska, and is a graduate of the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities; they hold an AB in English and a Certificate in Dance from Princeton University, and a PhD in Culture and Performance from UCLA.
Heidi Brewer, originally from the Pacific Northwest and a proud University of Washington alum, has worked as a dance artist in Seattle, NYC and LA since 2001. Her own work has been shown at Pieter and Highways Performance Space in Los Angeles, and at The Studio at 620 and Sarasota Contemporary Dance in Florida. She founded the LAYERS platform in LA to produce 3 workshops between 2017-2018, and returns to LA periodically to work with Pennington Dance Group. Heidi teaches dance classes in St. Pete as well as for the Sarasota Ballet. She is working with ProjectALCHEMY and is building a non-stopping practice under the guidance of choreographer Jeanine Durning, She is a Certified Pilates teacher through the Kane School & kinected in NYC, where she also works as the Communications Director. She is a Pilates Instructor, Kane School teacher trainer and Education Director at Body Center St. Pete. She and her husband Will are proud cat parents to Penny.
Cynthia Clark began her dance training at age nine at Gulf Coast Dancenter in Clearwater, Florida. During her time there, she was a member of their resident dance company Gulf Coast Dance Theater, where she performed various principal roles in Alice in Wonderland and Cinderella. After moving to St. Petersburg, Florida, she continued her ballet training at St. Petersburg Ballet Conservatory and Guilfoil Dance Arts Center. She currently also attends classes at Tampa City Ballet. Cynthia has attended various professional training programs, including Atlanta Ballet Company, Complexions, Duncan Cooper, Alvin Ailey, and Peter Chu. Although her training had been primarily classical ballet, attending these intensives helped strengthen her love for contemporary and modern dance. She is currently attending school at St. Petersburg College and working toward a Chemistry degree.
Talia Demps, originally from Davenport, Florida, began her dance training in 6th grade at Davenport School of the Arts. She continued her training through high school, attending The Lois Cowles Harrison Center for the Visual and Performing Arts in Lakeland, Florida. In spring of 2022, Talia graduated from the University of South Florida, earning a BFA in Dance Performance. While attending USF Talia represented its dance program at the American College Dance Association, as a performer in a Michael Foley work. She also had the opportunity to perform in various guest choreographer works including Charles Anderson, Eric Wagner, Joshua Peugh, and Alex Jones; as well as the privilege of performing a solo work choreographed by the late Talley Beatty, under the direction of John Parks. She has made several of her own works exploring movement through the medium of film. Talia is excited to be working with Alex Jones again and is grateful for the opportunity to begin her professional career as a member of projectALCHEMY.
Baylie Dockins began her dance training and competitive career at Dance In Motion in Abilene, Kansas. At the age of thirteen Dockins switched her focus from competitive training to classical ballet under the direction of Mara Klenda. She has attended many prestigious summer intensives including Kansas City Ballet, Oklahoma City Ballet, Kaatsbaan Extreme Ballet, and Milwaukee Ballet. After graduating high school, Dockins relocated to Tampa, Florida where she joined Tampa Ballet Theatre. During her time there she danced multiple Principal roles including Tinkerbell in Tampa Ballet Theatre's world premiere of "Peter Pan" as well as, Odile/Black Swan in Tampa Ballet Theatre's first production of "Swan Lake". Dockins has also performed with Brandon Ballet of Brandon, Florida as a Principal Professional Artist in productions such as "Nutcracker" and "Giselle". Outside of performing professionally, Dockins serves as Lead Ballet Instructor, Assistant Competition Director, and Choreographer for Just Dance Academy - champions of multiple national awards, and travels with Prestige National Talent Competition as a judge and convention teacher. Most recently, Dockins has become adjunct faculty for the dance program at Pinellas County Center of the Arts at Gibbs High School, in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Sarah Emery is a freelance choreographer and performing artist based in St. Petersburg/Tampa, FL. She teaches ballet for the Patel Conservatory at Tampa’s Straz Performing Arts Center. She was recently a Creative Pinellas 2022 Professional Artist Grant recipient which was used to fund her newest film titled Time. She is a recipient of the Choreocollab Film Fest 2022 Certificate of Distinction, Top 3 Global Selections, for her film The Dinner Table; the 2020 Dance on Screen Alabama's (DOSABAMA) Viewer's Choice Award for her dance film, Trinity; and a recipient of the 2017 Choreography Connection Award through Regional Dance America. Sarah was founder and artistic director of Watershed Dance Theatre (2016-202), premiering works in Charlotte, NC and Atlanta, GA. She was a principal dancer with Moving Poets Charlotte for eight years under the direction of Till Schmidt-Rimpler and was later brought on as co-artistic director as the company expanded their reach with their sister company in Berlin, Germany. She danced for the Charlotte Ballet, Terpsicorps Theater of Dance (Asheville, NC), Tulsa Ballet Theatre, and Omaha Theater Ballet. Sarah also works as a freelance graphic designer and received her BFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design. She enjoys combining her love for design, film and dance and continues to push the boundaries, connecting dance with community. She is honored to have her film, The Dinner Table, screened at Beacon 2023.
Helen Hansen French received her BFA from The Juilliard School and her MFA from Hollins University. Helen joined Buglisi Dance Theatre (NYC) in 2001 where she rose to principal dancer and served as rehearsal director. She has toured nationally and internationally, and been instrumental in staging BDT’s works throughout the world including at The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and the Pieve International School in Italy. As a creative she focuses on collaborations and in support of her work has been awarded a 2015, 2016, and 2017 Individual Artist Grant from the City of St. Petersburg, she was also a 2016 and 2021 Creative Pinellas Artist Fellow and she was the 2021 Creative Pinellas Artist Laureate. In her work as an educator and arts advocate she has served on numerous dance faculties including George Mason University and The Juilliard School. Helen is currently adjunct faculty at the Pinellas County Center for the Arts at Gibbs High School. She is a founding member of the St. Petersburg Dance Alliance and the Board Chair of the St. Petersburg Arts Alliance.
Lilia Castillo Gomez is a native to the Tampa Bay area and growing up she danced with many studios in the Hillsborough county area including The Brandon Ballet and The Patel Conservatory. This past May, she completed her fourth and final year of training at the SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Dance. During her time there she was able to study choreography and perform works by Trisha Brown, Doug Varone, Annie Rigney, and Ana Maria Lucaciu, to name a few. She is so excited to be performing with ATLAS Modern Ballet for their upcoming performance, Ghost in the Black Jacket.
Andrés Castillo Gomez is originally from Mexico City but in 2014 came to the United States on scholarship for the Idyllwild Arts Academy high school to major in dance. After graduation, he was accepted on scholarship to attend the SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Dance where he trained with Stephanie Tooman, Kevin Wynn, and Joseph Marlborough to name a few. He has performed in works by Ana Maria Lucaciu, Annie Rigney, George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Johannes Weiland, Jose Limón, and more. Ruben Andrés Castillo Gomez joined Visceral Dance Company as an apprentice for the remainder of their 2021-2022 season.
Alexander Jones, founder and executive artistic director of the downtown St. Pete international non profit dance+ company projectALCHEMY, is a graduate of University of South Florida, recent MFA graduate Hollins University studying dance. Jones received training from the LINES Ballet BFA Program under direction of Marina Hotchkiss. He has had the opportunity to work with Alonzo King, Bill T. Jones in Serenade/The Proposition, and Doug Varone in The Rite of Spring. He has performed in Tunisia, Africa with the University of South Florida on behalf of the American Embassy and the Tunisian Dance Federation. A native Floridian, Jones is a proud member of the Actor’s Equity Association and current performer at Walt Disney World in stage shows such as Hocus Pocus Villain Spelltacular, A Totally Tomorrowland Christmas, Dream Along with Mickey, Beauty and the Beast Live On Stage . He is an alumnus of ArchCore40 in NYC and works closely with choreographer Jennifer Archibald as her choreographer assistant in the Florida Dance Festival. In 2012, he choreographed and directed his first evening length work entitled First You, Then The Rest at the Studio@620 in St. Petersburg, FL. In the Spring of 2013, Jones joined Yow Dance Company and had the honor of choreographing works for the company for both Spring Into Dance and the Orlando International Fringe Festival. Later that Fall, he returned to the Studio@620 to premiere his second evening-length work, Contact. Jones participated in Project GenYes! at the Studio@620 made possible by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation premiering his third evening-length work, Uncovered: Power of the Being at the Studio@620. In 2016, Jones became the Artistic Director of Collective Soles Dance making it his mission to connect the Tampa Bay area through collaboration. The following year Alex was one of the resident choreographers at the Florida Dance Festival where he premiered his latest work behind the Front. Jones is on faculty as an adjunct professor at the University of Tampa teaching techniques classes that help students prepare for both concert and commercial stages. Community and collaboration are at the forefront of Jones’s dance works with the company, as well as in and around St. Pete. He serves as the Dance Artists in Residence at the Studio@620, assisting in dance programming alongside Bob Devin Jones.
Troy Martin began his dance journey at only eight years old at his hometown studio, Centerstage Dance Academy. After years focusing in hip hop, his interests broadened to include ballet and contemporary. Naturally, these genres led him to competitive dancing, where he found new inspiration on the stage, translating the language of dance for diverse audiences. Troy attended and graduated from the dance program at Blake High School’s School of the Arts, where he first discovered and began to nurture a passion for modern dance. This passion sent him down to Miami, where he continued to train at the New World School of the Arts. Due to COVID-19, Troy was forced to cut his academic training short and return home to Tampa in 2020. Nonetheless, he has continued to engage in performance and teaching alongside many talented peers at Centerstage Dance Academy, Song and Dance Inc., and the Tampa City Ballet. Today, Troy practices as both a freelance dancer and Reiki Master, and looks forward to continuing to create, collaborate, and help others feel inspired and balanced through dance.
John C. O'Leary III is a Mexican American jazz pianist & neuroscientist from the Yucatan peninsula. Born to a Mexican concert pianist mother, John started piano lessons at age three and left everything behind to come to America in 1998, where he studied jazz piano performance and chemistry at the University of South Florida. There, he started the highly acclaimed jazz group La Lucha. John’s debut solo album for Arbors Records, The Sundering, features guests Shaun Martin & Dick Hyman. He takes inspiration from his experience as a Mexican American to write original compositions for the piano. The overall collection of songs creates an exploration of resilience, of putting oneself together after facing hardships, and of feeling like a stranger in an unfamiliar land. The uncertainty but also the grit from someone who leaves everything behind to start a new life somewhere else is felt throughout the music.
Raised in Largo, Florida, Drew Travis Robinson studied various genres with Tutterow Dance Academy throughout his youth. He was later accepted into the Dance program at the Pinellas County Center for the Arts (PCCA) at Gibbs High School where he received the Arete Award, honoring him as a rare force of creativity and vision throughout PCCA. On scholarship at the University of Arizona, Robinson performed and choreographed multiple works annually. During his time in Arizona he was welcomed as a frequent guest at Artifact Dance Project, provided instruction across multiple studios, was an Ambassador of Dance for African American Student Affairs receiving Chaka Khan, was selected by Colin Connor to perform at the Jose Limon International Dance Festival, and assisted in the research and development of various projects involving motion capture for dance preservation. While his competition years gave him versatility, Robinson is most at home with modern. He has taught this and more as a university employee, received the Gertrude Shurr Memorial Award for his exemplary abilities, and was invited by the Limon Dance Company to reprise an old role following graduation. After university, Robinson was honored to perform various leads as well as choreograph during his time at Florida Dance Theatre, and later performing with Tampa Ballet Theatre. Drew is currently part of Prestige National Talent Competition while also a permanent instructor with Just Dance Academy in Holiday, Florida. Additionally, Drew is an inaugural member of ATLAS Modern Ballet, adjunct faculty at his alma mater, PCCA, and a teaching artist with Sarasota Ballet's Dance The Next Generation program.
Lauren Slone is an internationally recognized leader in grant making, cultural equity strategy, and programmatic innovation. To date at the MAP Fund, she has overseen the distribution of $13M+ dollars to 678 multidisciplinary performance projects. Most recently, she served on teams that operationalized Artist Relief, was appointed Co-Chair of Grantmakers in the Arts Individual Artists Support Committee, and was invited to join a global funder forum on philanthropic innovation. She’s served as a nominator and panelist for major funding opportunities, like the United States Artists Fellowship, and regularly consults with public and private institutions to design effective resource distribution processes. She’s received residencies through PS122, the Lillian E. Smith Center, and most recently, Slone was an Embedded Writer in Residence at Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography and Movement Research in collaboration with choreographer Joanna Kotze. Her performance work has been presented at Wassaic Project, Ailey Citigroup Theater, Church of Saint Paul the Apostle in New York City, Movement Research at the Judson Church, Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, The Palladium Theater, and Wexner Center for the Arts, among others. She has lectured at CalArts School of Theater, Parsons’ School of Fashion/Design Sustainability, Florida State University, American University, The Ohio State University, Carnegie Mellon University, Brown University, and Sarah Lawrence College among others. Her research has been published and/or presented through DanceNYC, New York Grantmakers in the Arts, PEAK Grantmaking, National Assembly of State Arts Agencies’ Leadership Institute, Grantmakers in the Arts, Gibney Dance, and Americans for the Arts. As a lifelong student of dance, she has created education curricula, youth mentorship programs, presentation platforms, and performance projects that democratize access to arts and culture. She holds a B.A. in Religious Studies with a minor in Philosophy from WVU, and an M.F.A. in Dance Performance and Choreography from FSU School of Dance where she was a ballet pedagogy fellow and the first Mellon Foundation Arts Administration Fellow at MANCC.
Born and raised in Florida, Evan Smith has been dancing his whole life. Being an old competition member of Leonard’s Academy of Dance, he is able to apply what he’s learned as a competition member to being a studio and competition instructor. Graduating from Howard W. Blake, Evan went on to study at the University of South Florida as a Dance major. As well as being an alumni of The Chocolate Nutcracker, Evan is also a member of the United Nations of Dance Musical Performance Troupe. As of 2021 Evan became an apprentice of projectALCHEMY where he is developing his artistic and creative identity.
Originally from Lakeland, Florida, Kirsten Standridge’s training began at the age of six at a local studio called Highlands School for Dance under the instruction of Hayley Amis Stewart. On top of taking classes at the studio, she had also been accepted to dance at a local arts High School named Harrison School for The Arts where she had the opportunity to learn from Susan Olsen, Gloria Haigler, and Shelley Bourgeois. After graduating from Harrison, she was accepted to the dance program at The University of South Florida. While attending USF, she had been given the privilege to perform in the works of many professors and guest choreographers such as Bliss Kholmyer, Paula Nunez, Michael Foley, Yaniv Abraham with Batsheva dance company, and Alonzo King with Lines Ballet. She went on to begin her professional career with Collective Soles Dance Company in Tampa and is now a company member with projectALCHEMY working with founder/artistic director Alex Jones. Kirsten is excited to have the opportunity to continue working with Alex and looks forward to continuing her training with the company.
Sarah Walston is a professional dancer and choreographer currently based out of Tampa, FL. Sarah is the Artistic Director and Founder of ATLAS Modern Ballet, a new professional performance company serving the Tampa community.Sarah graduated with a BFA in Dance Performance from the University of South Florida in 2015. At the University of South Florida, she had the privilege of working with and performing works by choreographers such as Alonzo King, Maurice Causey, Robert Moses and Jennifer Archibald among many other guests and faculty members. In addition to her USF training, she has participated in many professional training programs across the country including, the Ailey School, Complexions Contemporary Ballet, ArchCore40 and BalletX, as well as studying abroad in Paris. After graduating from USF, she spent five seasons as a company member at Florida Dance Theatre where she performed and created new repertory presented by the company in Lakeland and on tour. At Florida Dance Theater she performed principal roles in original narrative ballets and The Nutcracker, as well as in contemporary works by company directors and guests such as Jerry Opdenaker and Gregory Dolbashian. Following her time at FDT, Sarah was a member of Tampa City Ballet for two seasons as a performer, guest choreographer, and company class instructor. Over the past few years her choreography has been presented in multiple festivals both across the United States, and internationally. She has choreographed for Florida Southern College and Hillsborough Community College's Dance Departments, where she is Adjunct Ballet and Modern Faculty. Sarah graduated Summa Cum Laude in the Spring of 2022 from Jacksonville University with her MFA in Choreography.
