360 Workshops | Artist Faculty
Gianna Burright (she/her/hers) is a choreographer, dancer, and educator, who explores the juxtaposition and nuances of emotional extremes: happiness and sadness, grief and euphoria, rage and mindfulness, nightmares and dreams. A self proclaimed late bloomer, a 2024 Baryshnikov Arts Center Fall Artist in Residence, a 2024 Hubbard Street Dance Chicago Summer Program Create choreographer, 2023 Carmel Dance Festival Choreography Fellow, 2022 Jacob’s Pillow Ann and Weston Hicks Choreography Fellow, and 2022 Dance Gallery Festival Choreographer in Residence. Gianna has presented choreographic work in 15 countries including at iconic venues such as The Bonnie Byrd Theater, The Place, Turner Contemporary Gallery, Waterloo East Theatre, STEPS, Opendoors North America, the International Edinburgh Fringe Festival, The Odyssey Theater, LA Theatre Center, and LA Dance Project. She has been mentored by some of the most acclaimed figures in the world of dance including Jojo Alsberry, Lillian Barbeito, Peter Chu, Alex Ketley, Dianne McIntyre and Risa Steinberg.
Gianna is an educator who works with dancers and movers of all ages and abilities, including working in the K-12 school system, teaching dance at both public and private schools. She aims to create artistic understanding through sensory experiences, articulation & vocabulary (verbally and physically), awareness, pleasure, joy, sadness, happiness, connection, touch, listening and partnering. Burright holds a BFA in Dance from UCSB and an MFA in Choreography from Trinity Laban Conservatory of Music and Dance.
360 Workshops | Artist Faculty
Dolly Sfeir is a director and choreographer who grew up in Lebanon and moved to the States at the age of 19. She is a 2022 NYFA/NYSCA Artist Fellow in Choreography, the 2019 Grand Prize winner of the Palm Desert Choreography Competition, recipient of a 2023 NYSCA choreography grant, and a recipient of The Ann & Weston Hicks Choreography Fellowship at Jacob’s Pillow. She was awarded a residency with CUNY Dance Initiative to create an evening-length work which premiered at LPAC in Spring 2022, and was artist-in-residence for Abingdon Theatre Company. Her company commissions include Holstebro Dansekompagni in Denmark, WHIM W’HIM, Peridance Contemporary Dance Company, Battery Dance Company, Boca Tuya, and Litvak Dance. She has been a guest choreographer and creative practice teacher at universities such as Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University, Marymount Manhattan College, Chapman University, Montclair University, CSU Long Beach, Orange Coast College and CSU Fullerton.
She has developed a creative practice methodology, focused on unleashing creativity which she offers in universities, studios, and theaters nationally and internationally. She led a course in the methodology at Chapman University. New Dialect has offered her and collaborator James Barrett a research residency for a new duet. Her work has been performed in venues and festivals such Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Battery Dance Festival, Diavolo Dance Theatre, and Dance Gallery Festival. Her film “It Cries too Loudly” has been at dozens of festivals such as San Francisco Dance Film Festival and Portland Film Fest, and has received awards such as ‘best short film’ (Wild Dogs Festival) and ‘best cinematography’ (Eastern Europe film festival). She is movement director of the upcoming play “The Pride Before.” Her work “Everybody is happy these days” toured in Denmark. She graduated summa cum laude from CSU Long Beach with a Dance BFA. In Lebanon, Sfeir appeared in nationwide musicals by the Rahbani Brothers including work choreographed by Debbie Allen.
360 Workshops | Artist Faculty
Caleb Teicher is a New York City-based performer, choreographer, and director regarded widely in the performing arts as a leading voice in interdisciplinary collaboration.
Teicher began their career as a founding member of Michelle Dorrance’s critically acclaimed tap dance company, Dorrance Dance, while also freelancing as a contemporary dancer, musical theater performer, and swing dancer. In 2015, Caleb shifted their creative focus towards concert dance work through Caleb Teicher & Company which led to commissions and presentations at some of America’s most esteemed performing arts venues: Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center (D.C.), Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, The Music Center (L.A.), New York City Center, The Joyce Theater, and countless others.
Collaborations with celebrated musicians/composers followed, including: choreographing Regina Spektor’s Broadway residency, dancing and singing on television with Ben Folds, performing as a tap dance soloist with the National Symphony Orchestra and Philadelphia Orchestra, and choreographing AJR’s “Bang” music video. Caleb has also contributed choreography to film and theater projects (Sister Aimee, Sugar Hill Nutcracker, etc.).
Caleb’s work in 2025 centers around three projects: Counterpoint, a concert duo with composer and pianist, Conrad Tao; Bzzz, a comedic music-theater work for tap dancers and world-champion beatboxers; and curation/direction of projects in partnership with arts organizations including the National YoungArts Foundation, the 92NY, and Lincoln Center. Alongside New York City engagements, Caleb’s work will be presented in over a dozen North American cities this year.
Caleb Teicher is the recipient of two Bessie Awards, a 2019 New York City Center Choreographic Fellowship, the 2019 Harkness Promise Award, the 2020 Gross Family Prize, and a 2019 NEFA National Dance Project Production Grant. Their work has been featured on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert (with Conrad Tao), on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (alongside Regina Spektor), and on countless media sources including The New York Times, Forbes, Vogue, Interview Magazine, and on the cover of Dance Magazine in September 2019.
Recently, Caleb founded the SW!NG OUT Community Fund to uplift and sustain social swing dance culture in New York City. They also continue to teach at international Vernacular Jazz & Lindy Hop festivals. Caleb is a proud alum of The School at Jacob’s Pillow.
360 Workshops | Artist Faculty
Sterling Harris (he/him), a Chicago native now based in New York, fell in love with tap dance at the age of seven and hasn’t stopped dancing since. Since earning a B.A. in Neuroscience from Northwestern University, he has been devoted to pursuing his passion for tap dance as a performer, choreographer, and educator. Sterling is currently the Artistic Associate of Chicago Tap Theatre and also performs with MADD Rhythms, Dorrance Dance, and Music From The Sole. Recent credits include performances at Jacob’s Pillow, The Joyce Theater, the Kennedy Center, and the Auditorium Theater. In addition to performing, Sterling has had the honor of teaching various workshops and at festivals nationally and internationally including the Chicago Tap Summit, the STL Rhythm Tap Fest, and RIFF Dallas. Sterling is also a proud alumnus of the Tap Program at The School at Jacob’s Pillow and the recipient of the 2021 Lorna Strassler Award for Student Excellence.
360 Workshops | Artist Faculty
Kia S. Smith is a Chicago native and the Founder, Resident Choreographer, and Director of Vision and Strategy for South Chicago Dance Theatre. As a freelance choreographer, Kia’s recent and upcoming commissions include Scottish Ballet School at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (2024), Resilience Dance (2024), New Dance Partners (2024), James Madison University (2024), Columbia College Chicago (2024), Opera Laguna (2024), Houston Contemporary Dance Company (2023), Chicago Opera Theater (2023), Giordano Dance Chicago (2023) and others.
Kia’s first evening length work Memoirs of Jazz in the Alley for South Chicago Dance Theatre premiered at the Auditorium Theatre of Chicago in 2023. See Chicago Dance affirmed “Smith’s first evening length piece ‘Memoirs’ is a tour de force and a sensory immersion into this artist’s creative well springs”. Kia is a member of the International Association of Blacks in Dance where she received the Joan Myers Brown Artist Development Fund scholarship in 2018. In 2021, she was a 3Arts Make A Wave awardee and an Ann & Weston Hicks Choreographic Fellow at the renowned Jacob’s Pillow. In 2022, Kia received the prestigious Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artist award. Kia was named a Rising Star in 2023 by Chicago Magazine, Player of the Moment in the category of Dance for New City Magazines annual 50 Players List in 2023, and one of Dance Magazine’s 25 to Watch for 2024. WBEZ recently recognized Kia as a “breakout artist” for 2024!
360 Workshops | Artist Faculty
Shuaib Elhassan has been a company member of Alonzo King LINES Ballet since 2024. Originally from Manhattan’s Lower East Side, he began his formal dance training at The Ailey School under the co-direction of Tracy Inman and Melanie Person on full scholarship. Elhassan has also trained with Earl Mosley’s Institute of the Arts and Complexions Contemporary Ballet. Elhassan was also a member of Complexions Contemporary Ballet during their 2012-2013 season. Additionally, Elhassan has performed with Life Dance Company, Zest Collective, Dance Iquail, and the Von Howard Project. Elhassan is a proud alumni of The School at Jacob’s Pillow.
360 Workshops | Artist Faculty
Calvin Royal III began his formal dance training under the direction of Suzanne Pomerantzeff and Patricia L. Paige at the Pinellas County Center for the Arts at Gibbs High School in St. Petersburg, Florida. He was a finalist at the Youth America Grand Prix Scholarship Competition in New York City in April 2006 and joined the American Ballet Theatre Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School in September 2006. Royal was the recipient of the Ethan Stiefel Scholarship in 2006 and 2007. While at the ABT JKO School, Royal appeared in original works by Raymond Lukens and Jessica Lang.
Royal joined ABT II (now ABT Studio Company) in December 2007 and danced leading roles including Prince Siegfried in the White Swan and Black Swan pas de deux from Swan Lake, George Balanchine’s Allegro Brillante, Jerome Robbins’ Interplay, Antony Tudor’s Continuo, and works by Edward Liaang, Aszure Barton, Jodie Gates, and Brian Reeder.
Royal joined the main Company as an apprentice in October 2010 and the corps de ballet in April 2011. He was appointed a Soloist in September 2017 and a Principal Dancer in September 2020. His repertoire with the Company includes the title role in Apollo, a Cavalier in Cinderella, Dorcon in Daphnis and Chloe, Espada in Don Quixote, the third sailor in Fancy Free, Albrecht in Giselle, Persian Man in The Golden Cockerel, the pas de deux from Great Galloping Gottschalk, Pierrot in Alexei Ratmansky’s Harlequinade, Reverend Brocklehurst in Jane Eyre, Dr. John Brown in Like Water for Chocolate, Lescaut in Manon, Nutcracker, the Prince, the Recruit, the Arabian Man, and the Spanish Dance in Ratmansky’s The Nutcracker, Chaereas in Of Love and Rage, Lensky in Onegin, a Carnival Dancer in Othello, Romeo and Benvolio in Romeo and Juliet, the Spanish Prince and Prince Fortune in The Sleeping Beauty, Prince Siegfried, von Rothbart, Benno, and the Spanish Dance in Swan Lake, Jaseion in Sylvia, Prince Coffee and Prince Cocoa in Whipped Cream, Septimus and “Becomings” in Woolf Works, leading roles in Bach Partita, Ballet Imperial, The Brahms-Haydn Variations, Her Notes, Piano Concerto No. 1, Seven Sonatas, Symphonic Variations, Thirteen Diversions, and ZigZag, and featured roles in AfterEffect, Black Tuesday, Clear, Company B, Deuce Coupe, Duets, In the Upper Room, Mercurial Son, Raymonda Divertissements and Sinfonietta.
He created Razumikhin in Crime and Punishment, North Wind in A Gathering of Ghosts, Bacchus in The Seasons, a Fairy Cavalier in Ratmansky’s The Sleeping Beauty, Adam in Touché, leading roles in AFTERITE, Lifted, Serenade after Plato’s Symposium, Single Eye, and Songs of Bukovina, and featured roles in After You, AfterEffect, Dream within a Dream (deferred), New American Romance, and Praedicere.
Royal was named a finalist at the 2013 Clive Barnes Awards and, in 2014, was awarded the Leonore Annenberg Fellowship to further his artistic development. Royal has been featured in global campaigns for GAP, Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein, Target, Ralph Lauren, and Canali. He was featured in the 2019 Pirelli Calendar alongside Misty Copeland, photographed by famed Scottish fashion, celebrity, and art photographer Albert Watson.
Royal was named the 2020-2021 Artist-in-Residence for the Vail Dance Festival in Vail, Colorado. He is a proud alumni of The School at Jacob’s Pillow.
360 Workshops | Artist Faculty
Sean J. Smith trained with Goh Ballet Academy, Ballet British Columbia’s Mentor Program and The Ailey School. He has performed with Ballet Creole (Toronto, Canada), Bruce Wood Dance Project (Dallas, Texas), Rhythmic Souls Tap Company, Dallas Opera, African American Repertory Theater and Dallas Black Dance Theatre where he danced for 14 seasons and also served as Rehearsal Director. Sean has performed with Dallas Theater Center in The Wiz (2011) and Hairspray (2018). Sean has choreographed three works for Dallas Black Dance Theatre: Monologues (2013), Interpretations (2017) and Swipe Left (2023) and one work for DBDT: Encore!, Dollhouse (2015). Sean also choreographed and conceptualized a modern-day interpretation of Petrushka in collaboration with Fort Worth Symphony in 2024. Sean has also choreographed for Boston Conservatory Summer Intensive, Joffrey Ballet School Texas and I.M. Terrell Academy. Sean is also a teacher for DASH Academy, Ambition Dance Productions and The Dallas Conservatory. Sean will be joining as Guest Faculty at Dupree Dance in 2025. Sean is also a Company Class Instructor at Ballet Papillon. Sean is a proud alum of The School at Jacob’s Pillow.
Contemporary | Choreographic Assistant to Aszure Barton
July 13 – July 20
Taylor LaBruzzo is a freelance dancer, teacher, rehearsal director, and rehearsal assistant based in New York City. Currently, Taylor works at The Juilliard School, where she is the Dance Division’s first ever Rehearsal Assistant, alongside teaching contemporary dance at the School of American Ballet and being a regular collaborator, assistant, and stager to Aszure Barton. Last summer, Taylor was part of the world premiere of A a | a B : B E N D, choreographed by Aszure Barton and Ambrose Akinmusire, taking place at the International Summer Festival Kampnagel in Hamburg, Germany.
A graduate of The Juilliard School, Taylor’s first experience working with Aszure Barton took place during her time as a student in 2015, and she would ironically return to restage that same work in 2022. Additionally, Taylor has staged Aszure Barton’s work at Houston Ballet, Arts Umbrella, and Canada’s National Ballet. And in Fall 2024, Taylor worked with Hamburg Ballett as Aszure Barton’s Collaborative Assistant.
Since 2018, Taylor has worked as the Rehearsal Assistant to Peter Chu across several projects, was commissioned to choreograph for The Juilliard School’s 2019 Summer Dance Intensive, and has performed across the country with Brian Brooks Moving Company. She is the Rehearsal Director for Madi Hicks’ Moving Forward Dance, is a Dance Consultant with Collegiate Arts Prep, and has taught for summer intensives at institutions including the Canyon Concert Ballet, Steps on Broadway, and Nevada Ballet Theatre.
Taylor grew up in Las Vegas, Nevada, where she graduated from the Las Vegas Academy of the Arts as Valedictorian in 2014. During her four years at The Juilliard School, she performed works by world-renowned choreographers including Crystal Pite, José Limón, Gustavo Ramirez Sansano, Pam Tanowitz, and Ohad Naharin. Upon graduation, Taylor was awarded the Juilliard Career Advancement Fellowship.
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Contemporary | Guest Choreographer
July 13 – July 20
Canadian-American Aszure Barton is a choreographer, director, and innovator whose work has been equated to “watching the physical unfurling of the human psyche” by the National Endowment for the Arts. Aszure started tap dancing at the age of three and has been creating dances since she was a teenager training with Canada’s National Ballet School where, together with classmate and choreographer Matjash Mrozewski, she helped originate the Stephen Godfrey Choreographic Showcase, which is still ongoing today. Through an international exchange platform, Aszure studied at the John Cranko Schule and since then, her works have been performed on countless stages throughout the world, including the Palais Garnier, Mariinsky Theater, The Kennedy Center, Studio 54, Teatro alla Scala, Lincoln Center, and Sadler’s Wells, as well as in museums and exhibits including the Smithsonian in Washington, DC. She has choreographed for theater, film, and opera, including the Broadway production of The Threepenny Opera directed by Scott Elliott and adapted by Wallace Shawn, starring Cyndi Lauper and Alan Cumming; a solo of Salome featuring Jessica Chastain in a theater production directed by Al Pacino; and LA Opera’s recent production of Tannhäuser. Aszure’s work has also been featured in television projects, such as on Sundance’s Iconoclasts TV Series alongside Alice Waters and Mikhail Baryshnikov.
Following her high school graduation, Aszure was invited to join the National Ballet of Canada, where she would work as an Apprentice for a season. Curious and driven, Aszure approached the company’s director, asking if he saw a future for her in his company, to which he replied, “I do, but you’re not a priority.” With these honest words spoken, she began carving her own path, going on to receive a Canada Council Grant to explore contemporary dance forms in Europe. This journey opened her eyes and fulfilled her unconventional itch for artistic freedom. Then, after exploring the dance and music scene in Montréal for three years, she moved to New York City as a freelance artist to pursue the making of her own work. In the early 2000s, Aszure danced with independent choreographers including Wendy Osserman, who further introduced her to authentic movement and improvisation, and encouraged her humor. Wanting her work to be seen, Aszure self-produced and presented her own choreography whenever and wherever she could, be it at studios, schools, in delis, clubs, or pubs, all while continuing to freelance and simultaneously work supplemental jobs. In these early years, the New York Times declared, “[Barton] likes to take risks.”
By 2002, she founded her own collective, Aszure Barton & Artists (AB&A), in order to create an autonomous, interdisciplinary, and collaborative platform for process-centered creation. That same year, AB&A made its official premiere at the Montréal Fringe Festival, followed by an inaugural season at New York City’s Joyce SoHo, a venue dedicated to showcasing work by emerging artists. Robin Staff, Executive Artistic Director of Dance Now (NYC), spoke highly of her early choreographies – “Ask people to describe Aszure Barton’s work, and the adjectives fly: dynamic, tribal, demanding, musical, authentic, risky. But ask them to place her in a tradition, and you’re likely to get silence. I don’t think you can categorize her.” Having developed dozens of works with her crew over the years, it was with her most trusted collaborators that the iconic BUSK was born; today, fifteen years later, the work continues to be performed and praised around the globe. A home built out of rebellion to support the ongoing practice of research, AB&A continues to be the space Aszure returns to to push her work further. Recently, this vision grew when she made her latest work for the company, this time in collaboration with her creative partner, acclaimed composer and trumpeter, Ambrose Akinmusire.
With a shared desire to bring more beauty into the world, the two birthed their first creation – A a | a B : B E N D – at Kampnagel’s International Summer Festival, where Falk Schreiber of Tanz Magazine described it as, “a game; a building up of constraints and an escape from these constraints, a celebration of choreographic precision and an undermining of this precision, in fact a collaborative work that also draws its appeal from the fact that two artists who are completely secure in their field playfully unsettle each other.”
Also in the early 2000s, Aszure developed an important working relationship with Mikhail Baryshnikov, who believes her to be “one of the most innovative choreographers of her generation.” She was the first Martha Duffy Resident Artist at Baryshnikov Arts in NYC, leading Baryshnikov to invite her to not only collaborate with him, but to join his project, Hell’s Kitchen Dance, as a dancer and choreographer along with Benjamin Millepied. The group went on to tour several of her works, (Over/Come, named “disturbing and delicious” by the San Francisco Chronicle), and this connection was the start of Aszure finding a longtime creative home at Baryshnikov Arts. Aszure has created with other renowned performers, as well, including Misty Copeland, Gillian Murphy, Isaac Hernandez, Paloma Herrera, Matthew Rushing, Ekaterina Shipulina, and Flamenco artist María Pagés. She has collaborated with celebrated clowns Claudio Carniero (Brazil), Patrick de Vallette and Fred Blin (France), and music artists, including Oscar-winning German composer and piano player Volker Bertelmann (also known as Hauschka).
With over 30+ years of making dances, Aszure continues to be an innovator of form, having contributed to an evolution of highly specialized dance and theater companies worldwide. She has worked with Hamburg Ballet, Bayerisches Staatsballett, Ballett am Rhein, Staatstheater Hannover, Gauthier Dance/Theaterhaus Stuttgart, Teatro alla Scala, Grand Thėǎtre de Genève, Nederlands Dans Theater, Ballet de l’Opéra national du Rhin, English National Ballet, Ballet Ireland, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, American Ballet Theatre, Martha Graham Dance Company, Limón Dance Company, Houston Ballet, Sydney Dance Company, National Ballet of Canada, Malpaso Dance Company, Ballet BC, and Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal, among others. In January 2024, Aszure premiered multidisciplinary work, Mere Mortals, at San Francisco
Ballet in collaboration with British electronic music producer/DJ Floating Points and mixed media artists Hamill Industries — the first evening-length work created by a female choreographer in SFB’s history, curated by Artistic Director Tamara Rojo. Aszure is currently Resident Artist at Hubbard Street Dance Chicago where her newest work, A Duo, was called “exquisite, subversive, exhilarating…and mildly offensive — as dance should be to move it somewhere new” by the Chicago Tribune.
As a creator, Aszure aims to cultivate a space where kind, conscious creativity meets regeneration, an inclusive environment where communal, cooperative energy can thrive. Through a rigorous and detailed collaborative process, she simultaneously respects and dismantles classical and contemporary forms; it is this practice that has propelled her into the field as an award-winning choreographer. Over the years, she has received accolades and honors, including a Bessie Award for her work BUSK, the Gross Prize for Awáa, and the Ken McCarter Award for Distinguished NBS Alumni. She is a grateful recipient of the prestigious Arts & Letters Award, joining the likes of Oscar Peterson, Eugene Levy, Karen Kain, Paul Shaffer, Alex Trebek, Christopher Plummer, and Margaret Atwood. She is also an official ambassador of contemporary dance in Canada. As an educator, Aszure is regularly invited to collaborate with private, public, and independent art institutions and forums around the globe. She served as Artist in Residence at The University of Southern California under the direction of William Forsythe and has developed a longtime working-relationship with The Juilliard School. Currently, Aszure is an artistic partner with Boston Conservatory at Berklee, and she maintains an ongoing presence at her alma mater, Canada’s National Ballet School.
Aszure is delighted to be returning to Jacob’s Pillow in the upcoming season due to her special connection to the organization. In the early years of AB&A, the company was repeatedly invited to create, perform, and teach at Jacob’s Pillow starting in 2004. Most recently, AB&A was meant to perform at the Pillow again in August 2020, but this was postponed due to the pandemic, making this opportunity to share the work again in 2024 a real treat.
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