CURRENT PERFORMERS

Jenny Showalter, Co-Artistic Director of Treeline Dance Works, has recently presented work at Les 7ème Rencontres UPPAdanse (France), American Dance Guild (NYC), DUMBO Dance Festival (NYC), WAXworks (NYC), Heidelberg Music Festival (OH), Joy of Motion (Washington DC), Midwest RAD Festival (MI), Vision of Sound (NY), Dance Chicago (IL), Rebound Chicago (IL), Oklahoma Contemporary Festival (OK), and Cool NY Festival (NYC).

Showalter has served on the faculty at Ball State University, The College at Brockport and has been invited to teach technique and set repertory as a guest artist at Lincoln College, Western Illinois University, and Perpetual Motion Dance Company. She has performed extensively throughout western New York, New York City and Chicago with both established and emerging artists and is a member of the Anne Burnidge Dance Company and Bill Evans Dance Company. Showalter holds an MFA in Dance Choreography and Performance and a BS in P.E. Exercise Science. She is a certified personal trainer, Pilates instructor, and somatic practitioner.

Nancy Hughes (BA Dance, TWU) is currently a resident of Buffalo, NY.  Her training is influenced by a little ballet studio in Fort Worth, TX;  and Nancy's studies as an adult led her to perform modern and contemporary dance as well as improvisation.  Nancy’s choreography, performance and improvisation work has been performed across the United States as well as in Paris, France.  She was awarded a grant from the Northampton Arts Council and from Kelly and Mollye Maxner through East Street Ballet.  Nancy has directed and co-produced many shows in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Western New York and a concert in Portland, OR.  Nancy has performed work by Michael Foley, Lisa Race, Johannes Birringer and Claire Porter.  Since moving to Buffalo she has worked with Habit Dance Project, Nimbus Dance, Buffalo Improvisation Performance Group and in 2011 she began performing in Anne Burnidge Dance.

Elyssa Bourke graduated from Hofstra University with a BA in dance in 2001.  After graduation she became a scholarship student at the Merce Cunningham studio.  While living in New York she danced with Anita Cheng, Jeffery Bauer and Tysan Dance.  She moved back to Buffalo in 2005 to attend chiropractic school at D'Youville College.  She has worked with Buffalo Contemporary Dance, Nimbus Dance and was a founding participant in The Habit Dance Project.  She currently works as a chiropractor and teaches yoga at East Meets West Yoga and Healing Waters.  She has been happily working with Anne Burnidge since 2011.

Bonnie Jean Taylor burst into existence in the middle of a blizzard after bashing her bald head so hard against her mother’s tailbone, it broke. Literally born by being dramatic, she has loved live performance ever since and is grateful to have consistently been given the opportunity to do so via the following: Road Less Traveled Productions, Shakespeare in Delaware Park, the Kavinoky Theatre, the Jewish Repertory Theatre, Playback Theatre of Western NY, Buffalo Laboratory Theatre, TheatrePlus, Rare Bird Productions, Actors Anonymous, Theatre for Change, the Buffalo Infringement Festival, Greenspace: Take Root, NYC, the Digital Poetry Festival, the Elmwood Arts Festival, Music is Art, Artvoice’s Give 4 Greatness Campaign, the Alleyway Theatre, Pick of the Crop Dance, Buffalo Contemporary Dance, Configuration Dance Theatre, Nimbus Dance, the Buffalo Contact Improvisation Jam Performance Group, The Habit Dance Project and, of course, Anne Burnidge Dancers. Her favorite color is red.

Christina Walsh currently resides in Buffalo, NY and dances with Anne Burnidge Dance, Melanie Aceto Dance, and Buffalo Contemporary Dance.  She also works for a local homebirth midwife as well as a yoga studio.  She received a BFA in Performance and Choreography from SUNY Brockport in 2005. Walsh’s work has been shown at the ACDFA Northwestern regional gala and the National Conference for Undergraduate Research (NCUR) in Ashville North Carolina.  She has performed at the ACDFA National Gala in the Kennedy Performing Arts Center, the International Dance Festival and American Dance Guild in New York City, and Jacob’s Pillow’s Inside Out Festival.

Amy Taravella is the artistic director and founder of the ALT Theatre and The New Alt Performance Group.  As the founder of Buffalo Contemporary Dance she served for 11 years as a co-director, choreographer and teacher of this professional dance company.  Ms. Taravella has been a soloist with Sokolow Now!, the Anna Sokolow Archive Company under the direction of Lorry May in Boston, MA.   She has performed a full spectrum of contemporary dance theatre works throughout the last fifteen years taking her to Jacobs Pillow and Boston, MA;  Florence and Castilioncello, Italy;  Toronto and Montreal, Canada, New York City, Rochester, Brockport, Saratoga Springs, and Chautauqua,NY;  Tallahassee, Jacksonville and Orlando, FL;  Philadelphia and Slippery Rock, PA;   Virginia Beach, VA;  Hartford, CT and Nashville, TN.   Currently Ms. Taravella is one of four co-producers of an international collaboration creating a remotely connected four-city production of Gerry Trentham’s The Four Mad Humours.  She has taught modern dance and ballet at SUNY College Brockport, the University at Buffalo, Florida State University and the Buffalo Academy for the Visual and Performing Arts.  Ms. Taravella holds an MFA in dance from Florida State University.

PAST PERFORMERS and COLLABORATORS

Kathy Diehl is a dance educator, performer and choreographer from Rochester, NY.  She is currently a faculty member at the Timothy M. Draper Center for Dance Education and has taught at SUNY Brockport, Nazareth Academy, and various dance studios in the Rochester area. Diehl is currently pursuing an MFA in Dance at SUNY Brockport and was selected by the faculty to be one of three recipients of the prestigious graduate teaching assistantship. She is a founding company member of Draper Dance Theatre, currently known as the Rochester City Ballet. She has also performed with Present Tense Dance and Burnidge Clark Dance in various venues throughout New York State. Diehl completed a Masters degree in Social Work and worked as a psychiatric social worker for ten years. Her professional experiences in the field influenced her current commitment to furthering research in the areas of pedagogy and dancer wellness.

Stephanie Mellinger received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in choreography and performance from the State University of New York-College at Brockport in 2007. She has performed at the International Dance Festival in New York City under the direction of James Hansen and at the Toronto Fringe Festival under the direction of Anne Burnidge and Elisha Clark. Stephanie was selected to present her choreography at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research in San Francisco in 2007. Most recently Stephanie has performed at the Rebound Festival in New Jersey and in Vision of Sound in Rochester, NY. Stephanie is currently working for the Timothy M. Draper Center for Dance Education as the School Administrator and Coordinator of Summer Programs and for the Rochester City Ballet as Production Assistant.

Rebecca Sproul is a native of New Gloucester, Maine. Sproul has performed in works by David Dorfman, Anne Burnidge and Amanda Thom Woodson, she has studied under noted dance historian Ann Hutchinson Guest and Mino Nicolas in restaging both Nijinsky's L'Après-midi d'un Faune and Doris Humphrey's Libation Bearers. Sproul has performed throughout New York State, Maryland, Virginia and had the privilege of attending intensive dance courses in both London and Brazil. In 2007, Sproul produced No More the Lowing, a dance concert event exploring Irish American cultural identities and representation.  She recently earned her B.A. in Dance from Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland. Currently, Sproul is working towards her Master’s of Fine Arts in performance and choreography at SUNY Brockport.

Lyndsey Vader moved her creative juices to NYC in August 2009 after receiving an MFA in choreography/performance from The College at Brockport (SUNY). Vader has worked as a summer intern with Doug Varone and Dancers, and has danced in choreography by David Dorfman, Larry Keigwin, and Mariah Maloney. Currently she maintains a long distance creative relationship as a freelance dancer for Pamela Vail, James Hansen, and Anne Burnidge Dance, performing along the East Coast in the Philly Fringe Festival, Goose Route Dance Festival, Yes! Virginia Festival, Rebound Dance Festival and more. Vader thrives on the creative process, most recently taking part in a DanceNow sponsored creative residency at Silo Farm with Lisa Niedermeyer. Her choreography has been set on Perpetual Motion/ Modern Dance Oklahoma, INC and presented at Dance Theater Workshop NY, NY and Dance Under Construction in Davis, CA. While attending SUNY Brockport Vader was awarded one of three competitive teaching assistantships and was named Outstanding Graduate Student in the College of Arts and Performance. She additionally holds a BA in dance and sociology from Franklin & Marshall College. 

Janet Werther

recently graduated from Sarah Lawrence College with her MFA in Dance.  Her work has been presented in Manhattan at DTW’s College Partnership Program, Movement Research Open Perform, Dance/NOW RAW, and p.art.ies @ the Tank as well as locally at Buffalo Infringement (2007).   Her full length Senior Thesis Thrive! was presented at the University at Buffalo’s Katharine Cornell Theater.  She has performed in work by Susan Rethorst, Donna Uchizono, Trisha Brown, Robert Battle, Paul Sanasardo, Kara Tattlebaum, Adam Houghland and Meghan McCoy.  Werther has attended various festivals and workshops including the American Dance Festival (on scholarship), Doug Varone and Dancers Summer Intensive, and Movement Research MELT where she attended as the guest of faculty member Vicky Schick.   Her early training included the New York Summer School of Dance directed by Carolyn Adams where she had the opportunity to work with the American Dance Legacy Institute and was filmed for the large group version of the Rooms Etude.  Werther has also performed locally with Buffalo Contemporary Dance in Blue Ash by Kerry Ann Ring.   She is resident lighting designer at the ALT Theater and has previously designed lights for work at Sarah Lawrence College and the American Dance Festival.