Guest Artists | Colorado Mesa University

Spring 2022 Guest Artist

Natalie Desch, a BFA graduate of the Juilliard School and an MFA graduate of the University of Washington, performed for five seasons with the Limón Dance Company and eleven seasons with Doug Varone and Dancers in NYC. During that time, she also danced in various productions at the Metropolitan Opera and other regional opera companies––Minnesota Opera, Opera Colorado, Palm Beach Opera, Longleaf Opera (NC), Lincoln Center Institute (NYC). From 2005-2012 she taught at Hunter College (City University of New York) and has also been a visiting faculty member at Weber State University (UT), the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, and the Beijing Dace Academy. She additionally has taught for the following summer residencies or festivals: Doug Varone and Dancers, the Limón Dance Company, Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, Utah Ballet Summer Intensive, UNCSA, Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet, the Bates Dance Festival, and the Canadian Contemporary Dance Theater, among others. Natalie has restaged the works of Daniel Charon, Jirí Kylián, José Limón, and Doug Varone on dance and opera companies around the world, and her choreography has been presented at venues throughout the US. From 2014-2019 Natalie was on faculty at Utah Valley University and Westminster College, and she continues to teach at Ballet West Academy in SLC. She joined the University of Utah’s School of Dance as an Assistant Professor in the fall of 2019.

Past Guest Artists Include…

Michelle Bernier, Katrina Michaels, Amanda Berg Wilson, Dustin Bronson, Rosely Conz, Courtney World, Danny Larsen and Michelle Elliott, Bailey Anderson, Teena Marie Custer, Daniel Charon, Peter DiMuro, Courtney Jones, Marilyn Sylla and Sekou Sylla, Christine Rohde, Beth Malone, David Taylor, Matthew Montenegro, Mike Esperanza, Jessica Taylor, Dante Lara, Suzanne Bronson.

Michelle Bernier

Fall 2021

Michelle Bernier holds an MFA in Dance from the University of Colorado Boulder. She has danced professionally with the Portland Symphony Orchestra, Collective Motion, Life/Art Dance Ensemble, Cindy Brandle Dance Company, and others. Her choreography has been seen at Denver Art Museum, Dairy Arts Center, Denver Museum of Nature and Science, and Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities, and venues in Maine, New York, and Florida. Her films have been screened in the U.S., Brazil, Trinidad & Tobago, and Sweden, and she now serves as the Executive Director and Artistic Co-Director of the Sans Souci Festival of Dance Cinema and Affiliate Faculty teaching Dance Film at Metro State University. Recently, Bernier has focused much of her creative energy toward teaching an inclusive, historically-informed, somatic approach to dance technique at universities, workshops, and private studios along the front range and beyond. Her dance filmmaking practice casts a new mold with every shoot, and balances careful crafting with spontaneity and opportunity. Michelle is a forward-thinking, twenty-first century mover whose research and choreographic interests encircle somatic-centered pedagogical methods, phenomenology, site-specific improvisation, and the malleability of space-time.

Rosely Conz

Spring 2021

Rosely Conz (MA, MFA) is a Brazilian dancer, choreographer, and dance teacher. Her work focuses on issues of immigration and identity, through media such as film, live choreography, and as a theme of her lectures. For the past 18 years, Rosely has been performing and choreographing professionally for dance companies both in Brazil and in the USA. She had her work funded by grants such as Pine River Arts in Michigan, FICC (Fund for Cultural Investments) and Capes (Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel) in Brazil, additionally to being a CHA (Center of Humanities and Arts) Fellow and recipient of the Gail Pokoik Scholarship in Boulder- Colorado. Her work has been presented at festivals and conferences nationally and internationally in Mexico, Brazil, Ireland, Canada, and Barbados. Invited residencies include LLEAP (Laboratory for Laptop and Electronic Audio Performance Practice) at Arizona State University, Merge Dance Company at TX State University, and Orchesis Dance Company at Michigan State University. Rosely is an Assistant Professor of Dance at Alma College in Michigan.

Courtney World

Fall 2020

Courtney World is an associate professor and the director of dance at The University of the South (Sewanee, TN), where she developed a minor in dance and was named the 2015-2017 recipient of the James D. Kennedy III Endowed Faculty Fellowship. She performed for many years with BIODANCE, Bill Evans Dance Company/Bill Evans Rhythm Tap Ensemble, and continues to perform tap and modern dance with companies and independent artists on a project basis. As a tap dancer, Courtney has most recently shared the stage with Bill Evans, Cheryl Johnson, Kristen Socci, Adrienne Wilson, and Mark Yonally (Chicago Tap Theatre). Highlights of her performance career include performances at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival on two occasions. She has studied RumbaTap with Max Pollak in Austria, and learned from many of the greats at tap festivals throughout the United States. She has performed works by Eddie Brown, Buster Brown, Honi Coles, Leon Collins, Louis DaPron, Bill Evans, Santo Giglio, Derek Grant, Josh Hilberman, The Nicholas Brothers (Harold and Fayard), Leonard Reed, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, Dorothy Wasserman, and Adrienne Wilson. Her choreography has been commissioned by BIODANCE, The Society for New Music, and has been presented nationally at art galleries, theatres, festivals, and universities. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in dance from The University at Buffalo, a Master of Fine Arts in choreography and performance from SUNY College at Brockport, and is a Certified Evans Teacher. She has taught dance in higher education at The College at Brockport, The University of Rochester, Nazareth College, Hobart and William Smith Colleges. Courtney is Assistant Director of Faithful Rhythm Productions based in Nashville, TN, is a representative of Tennessee for the Southern Open Rhythm Collective (SORC) as well as a member of the SORC leadership group, and serves on the board of directors for Tennessee Association of Dance.

Danny Larsen and Michelle Elliott

Winter 2020

Danny Haengil Larsen (composer & co-lyricist) and Michelle Elliott (bookwriter & co-lyricist) graduated from New York University’s Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program. Their first musical, The Yellow Wood, was awarded a Richard Rodgers Development Award and the Daryl Roth Award. In 2007, The Yellow Wood was presented in the New York Musical Theatre Festival, where Danny received the award for Best Music. The show was also part of the Village Originals and the National Alliance of Musical Theatre Festival. Cloaked, their second show, received workshop productions at CAP 21 and Village Theatre. Cloaked received a Jonathan Larson Grant and Michelle was the recipient of the Kleban Prize for Most Promising Librettist for the show.

Danny and Michelle wrote, filmed and produced a seven-part musical for teens entitled The Hinterlands in a response to the spate of suicides by gay youth. The show can be viewed at HinterlandsTheMusical.com and via YouTube. Michelle and Danny’s musical for young people, Zombie in Love, premiered at the Oregon Children’s Theatre, where it received multiple Drammy Awards, including Best Original Score and Best Original Script, as well as the Portland Area Musical Theatre Award for Outstanding Original Musical. Their new show, Hart Island, is about New York City’s public burial ground and was shortlisted for the Kevin Spacey Foundation Artists of Choice award. Danny holds Bachelors of Arts degrees in Music and Theatre Education from Brigham Young University, and has orchestrated several musicals, including Wind in the Willows and The Ballad of Little Jo. Michelle’s first play, Promising, was produced off-off Broadway in 2015.

Bailey Anderson

Fall 2019

Bailey Anderson is an activist, artist, scholar and teacher who has explored disability and choreography as a part of her work. Her choreography has been presented at the Canadian Society for Dance Studies, Sans Souci Dance Film Festival, in London at the Society for Dance Research and at the Body-Mind Centering Association Conference. Anderson is currently working on a project funded through the New York Public Library's Short-Term Research Fellowship entitled "Disability Aesthetics in Early Modern Dance." She received degrees in both dance and history from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities and an MFA in Dance from the University of Colorado Boulder. Bailey is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at Ursinus College outside Philadelphia, PA.

Teena Marie Custer

Spring 2019

Teena Marie is an urban dance artist based in Pittsburgh, Pa/Ontario,Canada. She has battled and performed nationally and internationally with her crews, Venus Fly, as well as her local Pittsburgh crew, Get Down Gang. She has won b-girl battles such as Enter the Cypha and UnderGround Movement, and won the “House Cypher” award at Chicago’s Slick City event. Her hip hop dance theater work has been presented at the Breakin’ Convention in London, The American Dance Festival, Kelly-Strayhorn Theater, Ford Amphitheater in LA, and the American College Dance Festival Gala Concert. She has created hip hop dance theater works for over 30 university dance departments around the U.S., and in addition to touring her solo show, “My Good Side,” she also dances with Bessie award winning Ephrat Asherie Dance in NYC and Bill “Crutchmaster” Shannon. Teena was on faculty at Slippery Rock University for 14 years, as well as the American Dance Festival, and has an M.F.A. in Contemporary Dance Performance from The Ohio State University.

Daniel Charon

Fall 2018

Artistic Director of Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company since 2013, Daniel Charon has been active as a choreographer, teacher, and performer for over twenty-five years. While based in New York City, Daniel maintained a project-based company and danced with Doug Varone and Dancers and the Limón Dance Company. He is a BFA graduate of the North Carolina School of the Arts and an MFA graduate of the California Institute of the Arts in Choreography and Integrated Media. As Ririe-Woodbury’s Artistic Director, Daniel has created original works for the stage, gallery installations (Utah Museum of Contemporary Art), and had designed video for his and other choreographers’ works. Daniel is the recipient of City Weekly's Best of Utah 2016 Award in Choreography for his Together Alone Trilogy. A nationally known and respected educator, Charon regularly teaches master classes and workshops nationally and internationally and has taught at the Metropolitan Opera, the Bates Dance Festival, Salt Dance Fest, North Carolina School of the Arts Summer Comprehensive, Varone Summer Dance Workshops, and Limón Summer Workshops. He has been a guest artist at numerous universities and was an adjunct faculty member at Hunter College (NYC) and the California Institute of the Arts. Daniel has staged the works of José Limón, Jirí Kylián, and Doug Varone at schools and companies around the world.

Christine Rohde

Spring 2018

Christine Marie Rohde graduated from the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point with a BA in Dance and also completed a clinical massage therapy program. Ms. Rohde graduated from the Theatre and Dance Program with a MFA in Dance from the University of Colorado at Boulder in May 2012 with a secondary emphasis in the Alexander Technique. Ms. Rohde's extensive professional background with nationally recognized jazz dance and contemporary dance companies brings further insight to her teaching. She trained and performed in 2002-2003 with the contemporary dance company Juan Carlos Rincones Dance Theatre in Washington D.C., performing at the Kennedy Center among other national venues. Additionally, her have professional experience with Giordano Jazz Dance Chicago, as a performing apprentice in 2004-2005. Christine has performed with the company at the Harris Theatre in Chicago and at the Jazz Dance World Congress in San Jose, Costa Rica. From 2005-2009, Ms. Rohde worked professionally with Thodos Dance Chicago, a contemporary dance company, performing nationally and internationally. In 2009 she toured with the company to South Korea, representing the United States, for the Busan International Dance Festival. Additionally, she taught, choreographed, and performed for the Boulder Jazz Dance Workshop with the resident jazz dance company Interweave Dance Theatre from 2010-2012. Most recently Christine dances professionally for 3rd Law Dance Theater, in their multi-media, collaborative dance theater productions from 2014 to today. She has performed the repertory of such well know dance choreographers as Lar Lubovitch, Gus Giordano, Mia Michaels, Eddy Ocampo, Sam Watson, Rennie Harris, Jon Lehrer, Billy Siegenfeld, Ann Reinking, Katie Elliot, Melissa Thodos and Tony Powell among others.

Suzanne Bronson

January 2018

CMU grad Suzanne Bronson was in residence at CMU during the month of January 2018 to premiere her original play, Mothafckers - Tales of Modern Greek, for the theatre department's inaugural Mesa Lab performance. Mesa Lab is dedicated to original work and is CMU’s foray into the cutting edge of contemporary theatre making. A Master of Fine Arts graduate from the Dramatic Writing program at New York University, Tisch School of the Arts, Suzanne Bronson’s full length plays A Reasonable Expectation of Privacy, The Nail Sings, and Spill the Beans have been performed at several staged and unstaged readings in New York and Colorado. The ten minute play, Fool's Mate, was the November 2016 first round winner in Torrent Theatre's The Play Off!. Another ten minute play, Father, Son, and Coffee was a winner in the Clarke Hall PAUMC, Thematic Thursdays in June 2017. Suzanne holds a Bachelors in English Writing from Colorado Mesa University and an Associates in Liberal Arts from the State University of New York. She is a member of the Theatre Communications Group and Dramatist Guild of America.

Beth Malone

Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Broadway star and Tony Award-nominated actress Beth Malone was the guest of honor at the Moss Performing Arts Center on Jan. 30. She spent the afternoon speaking with Colorado Mesa University theatre majors about her experiences onstage and answering their questions about careers in the field.

Malone is currently starring on Broadway as Big Alison in the musical Fun Home, a new show based on the best-selling graphic memoir by Alison Bechdel. Malone was nominated for a Tony Award in 2015 for her role in the musical.

A Colorado native, she was in town visiting her parents and had just finished a day of skiing when she stopped by to chat with the students about her intimate involvement with the development of Fun Home from the ground up. She also talked about her experiences as a Broadway actress who is also working to get her foot in the door of TV and film.

Much of Malone’s time at CMU was spent taking student questions and advising them on their careers as well as on how to stay motivated and inspired as an artist. She stressed that everyone is on their own journey and has a valuable story to tell.

She was realistic but encouraging about the struggle ahead for the young artists. “You’re going to get discouraged,” Malone said, but emphasized that it’s what you do about that discouragement that counts.

She noted that finding work as an older actress is sometimes a struggle, as she feels she is beginning to “age out of what society finds interesting,” but that this situation is beginning to change.

Malone also recently played Molly Brown in The Unsinkable Molly Brown at the Denver Center, a role she described as joyful, in contrast to her role in Fun Home which is fulfilling in a different way — more “intrinsically satisfying and … pure,” she said. For her, comparing the two roles is like “comparing apples to semi trucks.”

She took time after her talk to meet students personally, to sign autographs and to take lots of pictures before heading back to Fruita for her favorite pizza at The Hot Tomato.