Company Members

Bios

BLUE MOON DANCE COMPANY – Artist Profiles 2011

PAT CONNELLY (Director) moved to Boulder in 1974, and worked for many years as an individual performer and choreographer before founding Blue Moon Dance Company in 1995. Three consecutive entries, commissioned by three different dance companies, were awarded a place in the Colorado Choreographers Showcase and her work was chosen for the 2001 Aspen Dance Festival, a juried showcase. Denver Contemporary Dance Theatre, Turning the Wheel Productions, Interweave Dance Theatre and many other organizations commissioned her work. She was a board member for the Boulder County Arts Alliance for six years, serving as Treasurer from 2007 through June 2009. She returns to the annual YWCA Benefit “Dancing with the Boulder Stars” in October 2009 for the third year. She is a member of Nancy Cranbourne’s “40 Women Over 40”, whose next concert is in November 2009. Currently, her original choreography for “Nearly Invisible”, commissioned for Turning the Wheels Productions, is being produced in several cities throughout the United States. She teaches independently through Kakes Studio and has been working in the Boulder Valley School District LifeLong Learning program since 1999. She specializes in partnering, acrobatic lifts and social dance forms.

AMY BLAND Amy Bland grew up in Chehalis, Washington, and studied ballet and tap before graduating from high school. She holds a bachelor’s degree in piano and a master’s degree in music history from Washington State University, where she continued to pursue her love of dance by studying jazz and modern; she also wrote her master’s thesis on folk elements in Stravinsky’s early ballets. Currently, Amy practices yoga, hikes, and enjoys every minute dancing with Blue Moon. This is her first year with the company.

BETH MOGER, began her dancing career with Imagination Circus Arts. She began training at the age of 13 and was accepted into Imagination’s Circus Factory at 16, performing as an acrobat in her first show that year. Since then, she has worked on a number of Imagination shows throughout Colorado. She joined the Blue Moon Dance Company in 2007. Currently she works at the University of Colorado’s Fiske Planetarium and also studies with a double major in theatre and astrophysics.

COURTNEY MURRAY, a Colorado native, studied with Dance Dimensions in Longmont for twelve years before moving to Grand Junction. She continued her training in jazz, pointe, modern, tap & hip-hop with the Grand Junction Academy of Dance. Now back in Boulder, she takes class with the Schiff Collective, Boulder Ballet, Cleo Parker Robinson and Imagination Circus Art. This is her third year with the company and she is also a member of the Schiff Dance Collective Company and The Damsels Contemporary Dance Company in Denver. She recently interned with the Broadway Dance Center Summer Intern Program in NYC where she performed and choreographed for the final showcase. She has performed as a dead bride in Elitches Garden’s Fright Fest, as a construction worker in Extreme Home Makeover: Home Edition’s Broadway, and as a back up dancer in Telihana’s music video, "All Night". She teaches pre-school ballet and tap and beginning hip-hop, ballet, tap and jazz. Along with dance, Courtney is taking voice lessons, learning circus arts and attending Front Range Community College where she is a Student Ambassador and psychology major.;

CHRISTOPHER NUERNBERGER, an ardent salsa & Latin dancer, brings years of experience in dance partnering to the company. Originally trained as a gymnast, he also competes in soccer leagues and jujitsu. With Sol Benson, he is co-choreographing for the 2009 concert. He also teaches salsa at the O Studio in North Boulder. This is his third year with the company.
 

EMILY PLUMMER EMILY PLUMMER was raised in Estes Park, and grew up enjoying the great outdoors. She first fell in love with dance on the salsa floor while studying abroad during college. Upon return, she took every opportunity to partake and grow in Latin partner dancing. She began studying Russian Ballet and some aerial fabric in 2010. She performed with SalsaKo Dance Company before joining Blue Moon Dance Company. She is currently in school pursuing a second B.S. in Nursing.

ARTHUR SIEGLEdanced with Pat Connelly at the debut performance of Blue Moon Dance Company in 1995 at the Denver Art Museum in conjunction with the Hot Tomatoes Dance Orchestra. He specializes in swing dance styles and has won many dance contests during his career. A dedicated amateur dancer, he performs for charity events and community performances.

THOMAS WINGERD began studying dance with his parents who danced and performed traditional rounds and square dancing in the style of Lloyd Shaw. He toured with two internationally recognized folk dance groups, Calico & Boots and the Rocky Mountain Dancers. Natural curiosity for other dance forms led him to study and eventually teach swing dance, increasing his love for traditional waltz and vernacular dance forms. A senior CU film student with a minor in dance, he hopes to integrate the performance aspects of dance with the visual manipulation offered in film. As a member of Blue Moon Dance Company, he is in his second year of working in the YWCA benefit, "Dancing with the Boulder Stars".

Choreographers
(1995 to present)

1. Adjei Abankwah – 2007 to 2010
2. Michelle Badgeley - 2007
3. Sol Benson - present
4. Ying Chang - 2002/2004/present
5. Pat Connelly - 1995 to present
6. Thomas Dixon (posthumously) - 1996
7. Rachel Grote - 2005
8. Landon Gustafson – 2004 to 2007
9. Seth Gustafson – 2003/2004
10. Karen Howard – 1996 to 2000
11. Tobi Johnson-Compton – 1997 to 2002
12. Sarah Leversee – 2003/2004
13. Debra Mercer - 1995
14. Beth Moger
15. Courtney Murray
16. Chris Nuernberger – 2008 to present
17. Yuki Ojika – 2003 to 2005
18. Dreah Pentell - 2005
19. Julius Reinante – 2004 to present
20. Stephen Schroeder – 1997 to 2001
21. Ben Schultz – 1997
22. Jessica Simpson - 2005
23. G. Webster Smith – 1996 to 1999
24. Larry Southall – 1999
25. Tiffany Stone – 2009 to 2010
26. Franca Telesia – 1995 to 1997
27. Thomas Wingerd- 2010 to present
28. Alison Yoder - 2004
29. Colleen Young – 1997 to 2001

"You have to love dance to stick to it. It gives nothing back, no manuscripts to store away, no paintings to show on the walls and maybe hang in museums, no poems to be printed and sold, nothing but that single fleeting moment when you feel alive." Merce Cunningham

Company Members/Guest Appearances:
(current members in bold face type)

Adjei Abankwah, Tyffanie Ammeter, Gemma Asir, Sol Benson, Michelle Ballard, Andrew Berry, Amy Bland,Jeni-Sue Briggs, Ying Chang, Marty Connell, Pat Connelly, Laurie Coulis, Cindy Davis, Heather Davis, Eric Donovan, Sue Yoon Farabaugh, Bruce Feistner, Rachel Grote, Landon Gustafson, Seth Gustafson, Lisa Harris, Camille Hensley, Karen Howard, Rita Jenkins-Gaynes, Tobi Johnson-Compton, Joel Kelly, Kit Kyle, Desiree Lanz-Ewertz, John LeRoux, Sarah Leversee, Allen McCowan, Kara McRae, Scott McLane. Debra Mercer, Hope Welles Meyer, Beth Moger, Courtney Murray, Carrie Noel, Christopher Nuernberger, Yuki Ojika, Karen Panasewicz, Dreah Pentell, Emily Plummer,,Laura Rains, Julius Reinante, Stephen Schroeder, Ben Schultz, Arielle Schwartz, Arthur Siegle, Jessica Simpson, G. Webster Smith, Jason Smith, Larry Southall, Tiffany Stone, Sara Stranovsky, Justin Taggart, Franca Telesia, Gustavo Vargas, Cheryl Vick, Thomas Wingerd, Alison Yoder, Colleen Noelani Young.

Members in the News

Former company member Marty Connell is now Dr. Marty Connell Ingram. She and her husband, Dr. Glenn Ingram, are moving to North Carolina to set up a naturopathic clinic.

Julius Reinante and Eva Kovacs were married in April 2008 in the Philippines and are now living in Firestone, Colorado.

Rachel Grote has returned from France and is now living in Oregon. Jessica Simpson has moved back to Boulder from New York and is teaching at Dance Dimensions in Longmont. Tyffanie Ammeter is married and living in Chile.

Landon Gustafson graduated from UNC and moved to Redding, CA to join her brother and former company member, Seth and his wife.

Sarah Leversee has returned to Boulder from Seattle and reactivated her multi-media company, Art as Action.

Tobi Johnson-Compton, Ben Schultz and Colleen Noelani Young are all dancing in Denver, separately and sometimes together.  Colleen & Tobi founded a dance company "Legacy" and all three performed in the 2007 "Dance is for Every Body" in Boulder.

For the 2007 concert, "Love is Strange," local musicians Mike Valenti and Matt Davis performed with the company in "Wegobe" choreographed by Adjei Abankwah.

Stephen Schroeder is currently located in Minneapolis, MN where he dances with Zenon Dance Company. His choreographic works have been performed in Colorado, Minnesota and Illinois and he has toured Russia several times with Zenon to teach and perform.

Kara McRae & Eric Donovan are married and have become avid tango dancers/performers in the Denver metro-area.

Yuki Ojika is back in Japan and has set up her Rolfing practice in the beach community of Kamakura. She welcomes visitors.

G. Webster Smith was back in Colorado in August 2006 to teach at the Boulder Jazz Dance Workshop and choreograph for Interweave Dance Theatre.

Debra Mercer is teaching ballet at Colorado College in Colorado Springs and also in Boulder for Ballet Arts.

Ying Chang and his wife Agnieszka are the proud parents of a baby girl, Alexandra, who was born in February 2006.

Joel Kelly in associate vice president (development) of the Hale Center Theatre in Utah. He continues to act and direct in theater productions.