Archives: Guest Artists

Founded in 2020 by Roberto Vega Ortiz and Theresa Knudson, Ballet22 exists to push the boundaries of what is possible in ballet by focusing on producing and presenting works, ranging from classical to contemporary ballet, that break gender normative traditions. The company is guided by values of inclusivity of body type, gender identity, and race.

Dancers top left to right: Daniel R. Durrett, Evan Ambrose, bottom left to right: Roberto Vega Ortiz, Carlos Hopuy, Lucas Ataide, Serafín Castro
Photo credit: Rob Suguitan

Ballez

Image from “Giselle of Loneliness” featuring MJ Markovitz
Photo credit: Christopher Duggan

Richmond Ballet dancers in Winter’s Angels by Ma Cong. Richmond Ballet. All Rights Reserved. Photo by Sarah Ferguson.

 

Richmond Ballet dancers in Glare by Ma Cong. Richmond Ballet. All Rights Reserved. Photo by Sarah Ferguson.

Elizabeth Yntema is the President & Founder of the Dance Data Project®. She is a member of the Board of Trustees for WTTW/WFMT and the Board of Directors of the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre. Liza was graduated from the University of Virginia in 1980 and is 1984 graduate of the University of Michigan Law School, where she was awarded the Jane L. Mixer Memorial Award for Outstanding Contribution to Social Justice. Ms. Yntema is a past member of numerous organizations in the Chicagoland area, including the Joffrey Ballet, Hubbard Street Dance Company, Women’s Bar Association, Trust for Public Land in Illinois, Winnetka Board of the Northwestern Settlement House, the Children’s Home and Aid Society, and the Junior League of Chicago, where she was named as Volunteer of the Year for her work advocating for homeless women and children.

Named to the final full year training cohort of The Philanthropy Workshop (TPW) in 2018, Liza spent a year honing her skills as part of “the next generation of strategic philanthropists.” TPW is a global network of over 450 selected philanthropists, from 26 countries.

Ms. Yntema has underwritten ballets for Sacramento and Pacific Northwest Ballets, the Joffrey Ballet, Hubbard Street Dance Company and BalletX, including world premieres by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa (Mammatus) and Stephanie Martinez (Bliss!). She has also supported works by Penny Saunders, Robyn Minenko Williams, Amy Seiwert and Eva Stone, as well as Nicolas Blanc and Christopher Wheeldon. Liza was Lead Sponsor of Crystal Pite’s work Solo Echo as part of the celebration of the 40th Anniversary of Hubbard Street Dance Company.

Most recently, Ms. Yntema is personally supporting Aszure Barton’s work for HSDC and her new work for Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, Penny Saunders’ new production with Ballet Idaho, the Eugene Ballet (in honor of Artistic Director Toni Pimble), Ballet Hispánico’s presentation of Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s Doña Perón at the Auditorium Theater, Amy Seiwart’s contemporary ballet company, Imagery, and Stephanie Martinez’s work All’s Well that Ends Well with the Chicago Shakespeare Theater.

In May 2018, American Ballet Theatre announced the launch of its ABT Women’s Movement, a multi-year initiative supporting the creation of new works by female choreographers for the company. Ms. Yntema, along with the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation and Rockefeller Brothers Fund, was an initial Principal Sponsor for this initiative and continues to support its development. Ms. Yntema recently joined the Boston Ballet’s multi-year initiative ChoreograpHER as a Lead Sponsor. Liza also actively supports the Pacific Northwest Ballet’s choreographic initiative for female students, New Voices.

Liza and Dance Data Project® have been featured in the book Women and Leadership: Journey Toward Equity by Lisa DeFrank-Cole, Professor and Director of Leadership Studies at West Virginia University and Sherylle J. Tan, Ph. D. a developmental psychologist and Director of Internships and KLI Research at the Kravis Leadership Institute at Claremont McKenna College. Ms. Yntema has also been awarded the inaugural Top Tier Feminist Giver Award by Philanthropy Women in March of 2021.

Ms. Yntema was recently selected for the first national cohort of Chief, a global network of women founders and C-Suite executives.

DDP’s ground breaking work is featured in the book Turning Pointe: How A New Generation of Dancers is Saving Ballet From Itself, published in May 2021.

 

Photo credit: Kyle Flubacker

In December 2019, Richmond Ballet celebrated Stoner Winslett’s 40th anniversary as  artistic director with the successful completion of a $10 million capital campaign and a  surprise fundraising effort in her honor called the Ruby Slipper Project. She was  extremely touched and honored, and obviously felt at the time that the Ballet was  beginning a new chapter of soaring success. That turned out to be true, but not in the way that anyone pictured at that moment. 

Three months later the world closed down with the coronavirus pandemic and Richmond  Ballet, under Ms. Winslett’s leadership, resolved to keep fulfilling the mission of  awakening and uplifting the human spirit for both dancers and audiences in any possible  safe way during one of our planet’s darkest hours. Unlike most dance organizations,  Richmond Ballet opened its School on July 6, 2020 and its professional company  returned to work on August 17, 2020, all with the guidance of a superb medical task  force. During that time the organization served young dancers with training and  audiences with uplifting performances under extremely difficult circumstances to  maintain safety. Ms. Winslett now believes that this is Richmond Ballet‘s highest  achievement under her four decades of leadership, and she is eternally grateful for the  other artists, the administrators, and the community supporters that made it possible.  

During her first 40 years as artistic director, Winslett founded the professional company,  led the company through five seasons in New York City, its international debut in London  in 2012, and the company’s Asian debut in China in May 2015. She also founded the  Minds In Motion program in 1995 and was instrumental in moving the Ballet to 407 East  Canal Street in 2000.  

Ms. Winslett received her early training from Ann Brodie, Aldofina Suarez, and Michael Lland in Columbia, South Carolina, and later trained at the American Ballet Theatre  School and the North Carolina School of the Arts on scholarship. After knee injuries  curtailed her performing career, she pursued a course of independent study at Smith  College, where she graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. In 2005, she was awarded the Smith Medal, which is the highest honor the College can confer on an  alumna.  

Ms. Winslett is one of the longest tenured artistic directors of a major ballet company and  one of the few female artistic directors in the United States. She has received countless  awards and recognitions at local, state, and national levels, and remains an active leader in the country’s performing arts community that includes serving as a former Vice Chair of Dance/USA, as the President of the John Butler Foundation, and a U.S. delegate to the  2014 U.S.-China Consultation on People-to-People Exchange in Beijing. Recognized as a  decades-long leader in diversity and inclusion in the ballet field, in 2017 Ms. Winslett was  part of a small group of artistic directors invited by Dance Theatre of Harlem to begin  discussions addressing these issues throughout the field. This two-day exchange of  ideas launched The Equity Project, a 3-year cohort led by Dance Theatre of Harlem,  International Association of Blacks in Dance, and Dance/USA and funded by the Andrew  W. Mellon Foundation. The promotion of equitable representation throughout the ballet  industry remains ever-present at the heart of Richmond Ballet. Despite her many awards and distinctions, Ms. Winslett has often stated that her highest honor has been the  privilege to work with the talented professionals and dedicated community members  who have made a real difference in the world by building Richmond Ballet. Never has  that been more poignant than during the challenges of achieving the mission during the pandemic.

Photo Credit: Todd Wright 

Michael J. Morris is an artist, astrologer, tarot reader, writer, educator, and facilitator. They hold a PhD in Dance Studies from The Ohio State University, and they were a Visiting Assistant Professor at Denison University from 2015-2021 where they taught in Dance, Women’s and Gender Studies, Queer Studies, and Environmental Studies. They were also visiting faculty at SNDO—the School for New Dance Development—at the Academy of Theatre and Dance in Amsterdam in 2020 and 2021, teaching the gender theory workshop for choreographers. Michael’s choreographic and performance work has been presented at universities, galleries, community spaces, theaters, bars and nightclubs, films, and domestic spaces. Their writing appears in The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Theater, TDR: The Drama Review, Choreographic Practices, Dance Chronicle, and the European Journal of Ecopsychology. They have been an adjudicator for the American College Dance Association in the Mid-Atlantic South Region (2018), the Northeast Region (2019), and the Baja Region (2020). In 2019, Michael founded Co Witchcraft Offerings through which they offer astrology and tarot readings, movement-based rituals, and workshops to support people in cultivating more meaningful living while pursuing personal and collective healing and liberation. Along with their consultation practice, they are currently a contributing artist with Livable Futures, a contributing writer for the CHANI App, and a teaching assistant with astrologer Kelly Surtees. Michael is based in Columbus, Ohio—the ancestral and contemporary territories of the Shawnee, Potawatomi, Delaware, Miami, Peoria, Seneca, Wyandotte, Ojibwe, and Cherokee peoples.

https://michaeljmorris.weebly.com/

https://www.michaeljmorris.co/

 

Photo credit: Megan Leigh Barnard

Roberto Vega Ortiz is a native of Vega Baja, Puerto Rico. He began his training in hip hop, jazz and ballet at Taller de Bailes LeDaph in Manatí, PR at age 14. He then continued his pre-professional ballet training with Marie Carmen Márquez, Ana María Castañón, Orlando Carreras and Victor Gilí, and also studied at Escuela de Ballets de San Juan, Conservatorio de Ballet Concierto de Puerto Rico and Escuela Especializada en Ballet Julián E. Blanco, where he graduated from Level 8. He attended summer courses at Joffrey Ballet School, The Washington School of Ballet, The School of Nashville Ballet and San Francisco Ballet School. After a season as an apprentice with Ballet Concierto de Puerto Rico, Mr. Vega Ortiz decided to expand his studies at Miami City Ballet School in the fall of 2015 with teachers including Geta Constantinescu, María Torija and Olivier Pardina. In 2016 he joined the second company of Nashville Ballet where he danced leading roles with the main company. He later joined Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo in 2017, where he toured extensively in countries such as Japan, Italy, Portugal, France, Mexico, United Kingdom, Ireland, Serbia, Germany and the US, performing female soloist and principal roles en pointe. Throughout his career, Mr. Vega Ortiz, has guested with different companies such as Brandon Ballet, Northeast Youth Ballet and Menlowe Ballet and was also a cast member of The Phantom of the Opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber in San Juan, PR. Mr. Vega Ortiz joined Diablo Ballet in 2019, where he had the opportunity to perform and originate various roles since joining the company. Mr. Vega Ortiz is the Co-Director of The School at BlackBox Studios as well as the Co-Founder Artistic Director and Artist of Ballet22.

Photo credit: Genevieve Parker

Click here to learn more about Katy Pyle.

Photo Credit: Collier Schorr

Theresa Knudson, from Orange County, CA, received her ballet training from Lois Ellyn and attended summer programs at American Ballet Theatre NYC, Boston Ballet, Jose Límon West, and Ballet Austin. She began her professional career with Nouveau Chamber Ballet where she performed principal roles in Lois Ellyn’s The Nutcracker, Appalachian Spring, Cigale, among many others. Ms. Knudson has since performed with Wonderbound, Diablo Ballet, ARC Dance, Raiford Rogers Modern Ballet, Oakland Ballet, Menlowe Ballet, Mark Foehringer Dance Project, and Marika Brussel. She teaches at several schools in the Bay Area including Van der Zwaan Dance Studio, Moving Arts Studio, and American Academy of Dance. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration from California State University, Fullerton, and is the founder of Halcyon Dance Project. Ms. Knudson is the Co-Founder Executive Director and Ballet Mistress of Ballet22.

Photo credit: Duy Ho

Credentials: M.ED and M.S. 

DeHaven (they/them) is a non-binary educator who has lived in RVA for the past 11 years. They have graduate degrees in sociology and one in education specializing in human sexuality. The past five years, DeHaven has worked with LGBTQ-identified youth to find affirming, supportive spaces so they can be their full, authentic selves. DeHaven continues this mission by working with K-12 schools and community partners across Virginia to provide vibrant, authentic training experiences.