Summer Institute : Dance : Faculty
Courses in the Dance program are taught by an eclectic group of choreographers, performers and educators from across the globe, many of them on the UArts undergraduate faculty. Our outstanding instructors are made up of seasoned educators and dedicated artists who enjoy the opportunity to share their expertise and collaborate with the next generation of dancers.
The program is overseen by Donna Faye Burchfield, director of the University of the Arts School of Dance. Burchfield has a BFA and MFA in Dance from Texas Christian University and most recently served as dean of the American Dance Festival (ADF). She has also served as artistic director of the Hollins University/ADF Master of Fine Arts in Dance program and chair of the school's Dance department. Burchfield has worked with dancers and dance programs in many capacities, including developing curriculum that is at the forefront of modern dance. She has traveled extensively throughout the world, visiting more than 150 colleges, universities, dance programs and dance companies, teaching master classes, auditioning students and giving lectures. She has received numerous awards and commissions for her choreographic work and research.
The program is co-coordinated by Jen McGinn and Ashley Anderson:
Jen McGinn received her BA from Hollins University in Dance and Arts Management and continued on to receive her MFA in Dance from Hollins in partnership with the American Dance Festival. She has been an artist-in-residence/teacher at Hollins University, Booker High School Visual and Performing Arts Center, the American Dance Festival, the West Coast Civic Ballet, the nEW Festival, the University of Maryland, and currently the Center for Family Life. She has shown her work along the east coast, primarily in New York (Movement Research at the Judson Church, Performance Mix at Joyce SoHo, Fresh Tracks at Dance Theater Workshop, AUNTS, Danspace Project’s Academy Dances at St. Marks Church, etc.) and Philadelphia (Paraphrase at Nexus, In-Flux at Mascher Space Co-op, Live Arts Festival A.W.A.R.D Show at the Arts Bank, nEW Festival at the Drake, Performance Mix at the CEC, etc.).
Ashley Anderson is from Salt Lake City, Utah. Her teaching includes the American Dance Festival Six-Week and Four-Week Schools, Hollins University, the University of Utah, Utah High School Dance Festival, Utah Dance Education Organization, the American College Dance Festival Association, the Virginia Tanner Dance Program, the YWCA of Salt Lake City, and high schools throughout Salt Lake City. She has presented her choreographic work throughout Utah, Virginia, Pennsylvania and New York. She holds Bas in Dance and English from Hollins University and an MFA in Dance from the Hollins/American Dance Festival program. For more information, visit ashleyandersondances.com.
Other members of the 2012 Pre-College Dance faculty and guest artists include:
Rufus Cottman (Costume Construction) holds a BA in Fashion Design from Massey College in Atlanta, Ga. He also holds an associate degree in Fashion Design from Tracy Warner school of Fashion Design. He has worked at the Arden Theater, Prince Theater, Three Little Bakers, the Rock School, Upper Darby Performing Arts Center and the University of the Arts as a cutter/draper and costumer. He is president and CEO of Designer Extraordinaire, a design company specializing in couture evening gowns, wedding dresses, costumes, personal styling and make up. He is currently employed at the University of the Arts Dance department as the head costume designer, cutter/draper and teaches costume design and construction pertaining to dance.
Lanette Costas-Stampley (Musical Theater Workshop) was born in the Bronx, N.Y., where she began her training at the Bronx Dance Theatre. She is a graduate of LaGuardia HS of Performing Arts and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts at SUNY Purchase as well as a MFA from Hollins University/the American Dance Festival. Costas-Stampley was a featured dancer with the first National Tour of The Lion King. Her regional credits include the "Tin Pan Alley Rag" for which she was the Dance Captain and "If This Hat Could Talk" where she was the choreography assistant to Tony Award winner George Faison. Costas-Stampley has toured South Korea as a soloist with the Spiritual Singers of Harlem under the direction of Linda Twine and has performed in Europe and South America with Elisa Monte Dance. Her professional concert dance credits also include Ailey II, Donald Byrd/The Group, Fred Benjamin Dance Company, and Earl Mosley’s diversity of Dance. Mrs. Costas danced for the NJ Nets Power n’ Motion Dance Team under the direction on Natasha Baron and choreographer Dominique DeFranco. Costas-Stampley has taught in various schools in the Bronx through City Center teach outreach program and as a representative of Ailey II and Elisa Monte has taught master classes in High Schools and Universities throughout the country.
Crystal Frazier (Hip-Hop Repertory) is from New Jersey where she began her dance and gymnastics training at the age of 6. She received her Degree in Dance from the University of the Arts where she is currently on staff. She is currently performing with “Rennie Harris Puremovement” and has made appearances in “Rome and Jules”, Illadelph Legends, Dance Magaizine. Her performance credits include the VH1 Fashion awards with Macy Gray, BET’s Comicview, the BET Awards with Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, MTV’s Lip Service, and MTV’s Global Groove. She was the featured dancer and choreographer for Jill Scott’s “Big Beautiful Tour” and has had the opportunity to be in the swing cast for the Groovaloos Show in LA, a video with Mike Philips, the Italy Tour with Kathy Sledge, and make an appearance in the movie Beloved as well as the show Monk. Crystal’s choreography has been featured nationally and internationally for shows such as The Fringe Festival, The Garden State Dance Festival, The Philadelphia 76ers Dance Team, The Rock School, Earl Mosley Institute of the Arts, Hip Hop Extravaganza in Bermuda, Taipei University of the Arts in Taiwan, Cruzan Dance in St. Croix, Encore Danses En Tourneau and Dance Ability in Canada, August Wilson Dance Ensemble and many more. She is also an adjudicator for the Miss America Organization, DanceQuest in Canada and Assistant – Director for Dancers Inc. Competition and Convention She is the former Co-Founder of Montazh Performing Arts Company where in 2006 she received an “Art and Change” grant from the Leeway Foundation for “Ladies of Hip Hop”. Currently, Crystal is the Founder and Artistic Director of Slither Dance Project and can be found on staff at many prestigious schools throughout the Tri-State area teaching all styles of dance.
Erika Hand (Modern, Comp/Improv) is a Florida-born dancer, dance maker, and teacher. She formed The Labor Union with collaborator Isabel Lewis. Their work was described by the New York Times as “pinballing from R. Kelly to feminist theory.” She has also had the pleasure of performing with Nicholas Leichter Dance, Jen McGinn, Shani Collins/Eternal Works, Katie Workum Dance Theater, and others. Teaching includes ADF Shanghai and ADF 4 Week School for Young Dancers. When she is not in the studio or on the stage she enjoys spending time with her cat Cleo. Erika lives and works in New York City.
Rochelle Maria Haynes (Tap) is a native of Dallas, Texas, where she began her dance training at the age of three. She attended Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. She continued her dance training in Philadelphia while attending college at the University of the Arts, where she received her BFA in modern dance. While in college, she trained under Pat Thomas, Milton Meyers, Ruthie Andrien and Andrew Pap, just to name a few. Rochelle also studied at The Dance Theater of Harlem and Dallas Black Dance Theater. Miss Haynes performed at the Merriam Theater and The University of the Arts Dance Theater during her years of college. She also performed with Freedom Theater on many occasions. Such performances included, Black Nativity, Alkynza Dance, and The Barrymore Awards at the Annenburg Theater. Rochelle joined Tap Team Two and Company as a principal dancer in 1997 where she traveled throughout the United States teaching the history of tap and promoting tap dance as an American art form. She also has been teaching tap throughout the Philadelphia and New Jersey area for over 16 years. She is currently in her sixth year as the Guest Artist in Residence at Moravian College. Miss Haynes’ greatest teaching accomplishment is being one of the tap instructors at the University of the Arts. She also taught the tap classes at their Summer World of Dance for two years and at the High School Dance Festival that was held at the University of the Arts. Rochelle was the Tap choreographer for five years for the Garden State Dance Festival. Miss Haynes has taken classes from the Masters of tap for over 11 years. Her studies have taken her within the United States, Brazil and Prague, Czech Republic. She has been fortunate to perform in the Philadelphia area for over 16 years and has taken the stage with tap greats Van Porter, Nicole Hockenberry, and Germaine Ingram just to name a few. She performed in “Danceboom 2005”, Philadelphia Folklore Project’s “Dance Happens Here” 2006 and 2008, the “Tap Extravaganza” in New York City, which was a special tribute performance to the late great LaVaughn Robinson and the University of the Arts 2005 and 2008, which were also tributes to LaVaughn Robinson. One of her favorite performances was “Prague-DC-Philly” in Prague, Czech Republic. Rochelle’s studies have allowed her to teach Master classes throughout the Philadelphia, Easton, PA and New Jersey area as well as Atlanta, GA.
Nicholas Leichter (Modern, Jazz) has taught throughout the United States and at festivals in Africa, Asia, Canada, and Eastern and Western Europe, and he has been on faculty at Tisch School of the Arts and the American Dance Festival in Durham, New York, Russia, Korea, and Shanghai. Leichter has created over 25 works for his own company, including Carmina Burana and Rite of Spring commissioned by the Brooklyn Philharmonic, and Sweetwash with Eisa Davis for The Duncan Theatre at Palm Beach Community College. Recent commissions include Connecticut College, Wayne State University, The Barnard Project, University of North Carolina School of the Arts, and je danse donc je suis in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Leichter has been artist-in-residence and guest artist at many institutions including CSU Summer Arts, Sarah Lawrence College, Hollins University, George Washington University, University of Houston, Muhlenberg College, and Idaho State University. Leichter received the 2006 Mariam McGlone Emerging Choreographer Award from Wesleyan University. In 2008, he received a Choreographer Fellowship from NYFA and a National Performance Network/Network of Cultural Centers of Color Artist-of-Color Residency Award at Sacramento State. He received the 2009 Copperfoot Award for Choreography from Wayne State University. Leichter is on the artist board of Dance Theater Workshop.
JUNG-EUN KIM aka je (Digital Media) is a choreographer, dancer and media designer. She holds a MFA in Dance from ADF/Hollins University and MALS in Visual and Performing Arts from Hollins University. As a media designer, she has worked with Lisa Race, Sarah Skaggs, Jane Comfort & Co., Yin Mei, Thomas F. DeFrantz/SLIPPAGE, Mary Seidman and the American Dance Festival. As a dancer, she has worked with Amanda K. Miller, Shani Nwando Ikerioha Collins, Yvonne Meier, Antonietta Vicario, Jennie Mary TaiLiu, Ashley Anderson and Jen McGinn. Venues where her works have been shown include: Race and New Media Conference at SUPERFRONT (New York); Current Gallery (Baltimore); paraphrase/NEXUS at CRANE ARTS, Current at Mascher Space Cooperative and Studio 34 (Philadelphia); Taubman Museum of Art (Roanoke). Je was a guest artist in residence at Dickinson College in 2008, at Open Space residence at Hollins University in 2009 and taught Movement Studio 2 as an adjunct faculty at Hollins University in the fall of 2009. Je hails from Seoul, South Korea.
Anna Rubio (Flamenco) has been dancing since the age of four, training in ballet at the Pennsylvania Academy of Ballet, modern dance with Joan Kerr and Susan Hess in Philadelphia, then Lucas Hoving and Ed Mock (among others) in San Francisco. Her flamenco studies began with Rosa Montoya and with the late Maestro Cruz Luna. She was a member of Theatre Flamenco of San Francisco, performing flamenco, Classical and Regional Spanish dance throughout the Bay Area. She returned to Philadelphia and became a member of the Flamenco Ole Company under the direction of Julia Lopez. After living a few years in Spain, she returned to Philadelphia with her Spanish-born flamenco guitarist husband (2004 Pew Fellow Tito Rubio) to form their own flamenco dance and music company Flamenco del Encuentro. They can be seen performing throughout the area, teaching at University of the Arts, and teaching children about Spanish dance and music through the Musicopia organization. Anna returns to Spain at least once a year to study with great masters such as La Chiqui de Jerez, Javier Latorre, Juan Polvillo, Inmaculada Ortega and others.
Dawn Springer (Modern, Repertory) is an independent choreographer and dancer based primarily in the New York City area. Recent performances include the 2011 Performance Mix Festival at Dixon Place in NYC, the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage, the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, Aunts, the Venice Biennnale Danza with Dahlia Nayar, Fresh Tracks at Dance Theater Workshop with Jen McGinn, Danspace Project Out of Space, Movement Research at the Judson Church, and the Mt Tremper Arts Festival. She was an Artist-in Residence for two years at the University of Maryland College Park, and is currently in residence at Dickinson College. She was a guest choreographer in 2010 at Hollins University. Other teaching includes in the Six Week School at the American Dance Festival, Dance History at The Ailey School, as an Artist-in-Residence at MIT, the Modern Guest Artist Series at Dance New Amsterdam, the University of the North Carolina School of the Arts, and annually for the ADF Young Artist Tuition Scholarship audition tours.www.dawnspringer.com
Wayne St. David (Jazz) is the head of the Jazz/Theatre Dance department at the University of The Arts. St. David has been an ambassador for arts and culture for over 30 years. Wayne has interjected his vigorous and dynamic Jazz technique into musical theatre and concert dance productions throughout the nation and internationally wide. He has received numerous honors for his efforts, including the Cultures Build Communities Ground Award; Independence Foundation Cross-Cultural Movements and Ground Arts Fellowship Award; the Pew Charitable Trusts Dance Advance Program Fellowship Award; the Pennsylvania Humanities Council Fellowship Award; Faculty Award for Unwavering Commitment to Dance Education and the Mary Louise Beitzel Award for Distinguished Teaching, Wayne has a BFA in Dance form the University of the Arts.
Nathaniel Stampley (Musical Theater Workshop) has performed on Broadway with credits including The Lion King and The Color Purple. He also played Mufasa in The Lion King in the West End and on the national tour. He was in the national tour of Ragtime and has regionally performed in Abysinnia, Pacific Overtures, Strike Up the Band, One Touch of Venus, Show Boat, Violet, Once on This Island and Big River. He received a Joseph Jefferson Award nomination for his part in Big River.
Deborah Vinton (Ballet, Pointe, Repertory) is a Fellow of the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing (ISTD), London, England, and Fellow of the Cecchetti United States of America (CUSA). The Maestro Cecchetti Final Diploma was awarded to Ms. Vinton in 1995, in London, England. She became a Cecchetti Examiner in 1986 and has served on the CUSA Board of Directors for the past twenty-five years. Ms. Vinton has presented students and teachers for Cecchetti Examinations consecutively for the past thirty-five years. Many of Ms. Vinton’s students have received scholarships to universities, and have become professional dancers, teachers, and choreographers in the U.S.A. and abroad. Deborah Vinton received her early Cecchetti training with the Florida Ballet in Sarasota under Jean Spear, Fellow, Examiner, ISTD. She attended pre-professional dance programs at the National Ballet of Washington under Frederick Franklin, at Jacobs Pillow with Margaret Craske, and the National Ballet of Canada with Carol Chadwick. Ms. Vinton received four years of intensive professional Cecchetti training in London, under the tutelage of two former students of Enrico Cecchetti, Nesta Brooking, and Laura Wilson. The rare opportunity of learning from instructors, who worked directly with Enrico Cecchetti, is considered a milestone in the history of classical ballet. Subsequently, mentors Shiela Darby, Mavis Hoffman, and Richard Glasstone further helped develop and enhance Ms. Vinton’s Cecchetti teacher training. Ms. Vinton performed with the Royal Ballet Choreographic Group, and Maryland Ballet, where she performed respectively in London and in the Baltimore/Washington, D.C. area. During her professional career, Ms. Vinton worked with Danny Diamond, Anton Dolin, Edward Villella, and Violette Verdy among others.Deborah Vinton has taught ballet and choreographed for dance companies and schools for more than thirty-five years, including the Deborah Vinton Dance Ensemble in New Paltz, New York; the State University of New York at New Paltz; and the Venice Ballet in Venice, Florida. Ms. Vinton has been on staff for twenty years and continues teaching at the Visual and Performing Arts Center at Booker High School in Sarasota. She served as principal of the School of the Sarasota Ballet for four years, director of the Dance Center in Sarasota, and artistic director of the Deborah Vinton School of Ballet in Sarasota. Ms. Vinton was a founding member of the Arts Community of New Paltz, New York. In 2003, Ms. Vinton founded the West Coast Civic Ballet (WCCB) in Sarasota, Florida, a community-based, not-for-profit dance organization. As Executive and Artistic Director, Ms. Vinton continues her mission to positively enhance and influence the lives of others through her commitment and involvement with the performing arts.
Emily Wexler (Comp/Improv) is an independent choreographer, dancer and writer. She has been honored for her choreography through various awards and support from academic, public, and private funding. She is very grateful. Her works have been seen internationally in Paris and Vienna, and in local venues such as the American Dance Festival, Movement Research at the Judson Church, The Knitting Factory, Center for Performance Research, Draftworks at Danspace Project/St. Mark’s Church, Joyce SoHo, The Flea, Chez Bushwick, Dixon Place, Galapagos, AUNTS, and The Paul Robeson House, among others. As a performer she has worked with Asubtout, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Kim Brandt, Lyndsey Karr, Sam Kim, Karinne Keithley, Jen McGinn, Ryan McNamara, Yvonne Meier, Katy Pyle, and Ann Liv Young. She is also a member of the Get Up and Go Collective with artists Lizzy Sise and Aimee Burg. By honoring the mprovetive relationships with the artists involved, significance is revealed through a continual and ever-shifting investigation of space, time, and imagination (dance, duh). This intention creates an opening for the audience to be able to relate to the work in an active and engaged manner. She is committed to dance as an art form that seeks to work towards social justice. She was raised in Southern New Jersey. She has a fraternal twin sister, older sister and phenomenal parents. She earned a BA and MFA in Dance from Hollins University.
Jess Zaritt (Modern, Comp/Improv) completed a Master of Fine Arts in Dance through Hollins University/the American Dance Festival (2008) and holds a Bachelor of Arts Cum Laude in Visual Art and Dance from Pomona College (2000). He was a Dorot Fellow (Israel, 2006-2007) and has danced with Shen Wei Dance Arts (New York, 2001-2006) and the Inbal Pinto Dance Company (Israel, 2008). Jesse has been on the faculty of the American Dance Festival for the past three summers and has taught at universities and festivals in Russia, Korea, Japan, Mexico, Israel, and throughout the United States of America. His solo work ‘Binding’ is the recipient of three 2010 New York Innovative Theater Awards: Outstanding Choreography, Outstanding Solo Performance, and Outstanding Performance Art Production.
List of faculty is subject to change each summer
