STUDIO STORIES: REMINISCING ON TWIN CITIES DANCE HISTORY

Kaitlyn trained with Loyce and Lise Houlton at Minnesota Dance Theatre and at the School of American Ballet (SAB) in New York City, where she earned the Mae L. Wien Award for Outstanding Promise in 2004. She danced with the New York City Ballet (NYCB) from 2006 to 2011 and was named the company’s 2010 Janice Levin Dancer. After leaving NYCB, Kaitlyn became a sought-after freelance artist and began working with Twyla Tharp in 2014. She has since created and performed leading roles in numerous Tharp works, appearing most recently in the 2022 Bessie Award-winning revival of In The Upper Room at New York City Center. After returning to Minneapolis, Kaitlyn founded A Dancer’s Place Productions in 2024 to create meaningful performing opportunities for local dancers. She also continues to stage Tharp repertory around the world and leads the ballet programming at Summit Dance Shoppe in Plymouth, MN. Kaitlyn has previously served on the faculty of the School of American Ballet and as New York City Ballet’s Assistant Children’s Rehearsal Director. She holds a BA from Columbia University and an MBA from the Yale School of Management.

A multifaceted dance artist and a practitioner of experiential mechanics, Joe Tennis is an improviser and moment maker based in New York City. Engined by discovery and play, he is viscerally drawn to movement through experiencing it. He is in perpetual research of improvisation in service to attunement, the mechanics of intuition through floorwork and the prolonged effects of subtle integration. Tennis dances to find, and to show. 

Betsy Schaefer Roob was born and raised in Elm Grove, WI. Now based in Minneapolis for over fifteen years, she has worked with Rhythmically Speaking, ARENA DANCES, Threads Dance Project, 43X94 Movement Research, Dance & Other Behaviors, faux pas, as well as nationally and internationally based choreographers Sasha Kleinplatz, Salia Sanou, and Pat Taylor among others. Her own choreography for Rhythmically Speaking premiered at the Ordway Concert Hall in February 2026. Prior to landing in Minnesota, Betsy lived and studied in Michigan, Oregon, and El Salvador. She graduated from the University of Minnesota with a self-designed Bachelor of Individualized Studies in English, Dance, and Sustainability Studies. Her career path has encompassed the arts, education, and healthcare, and she is mama to one.

Susan Chilcote-Wade Originally from Michigan, I received a BFA in Dance Performance from the University of Michigan, School of Music, Theater and Dance. In 1982 fresh from college, I was one of 7 original members of the New Dance Ensemble, a post-modern repertory dance company in Minneapolis, and in ’89 joined the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company in San Francisco. Those were amazing formative years and deep in my matrix.

Dovetailing dancing was my bodywork practice including Therapeutic and Deep Tissue Massage, Trager, Feldenkrais and Pilates. I loved these beautiful careers and feel they inform me to this day. Family life, with its magical worlds and learning adventures was packing creative energy for all of us. Over the course of our kids lives, I volunteered in the schools, doing arts and crafts and running events with other dedicated parents.

During that time I joined the team of amazing artisans at the Renaissance Institute, which runs the booth called Past Times Garden within the Northern California Renaissance Faire. It was there I created the Venetian Mask Painting Workshop, which became a popular activity during faire. I have always been interested in paper Mache, creating objects and creatures, so working faire was a perfect blend of teaching and creating.

A decade ago, through local workshops and online learning, I discovered a fresh love for painting with Beeswax! That was a life changer! Seeking a way to blend my new found visual art with my movement and bodywork background, meant a steep learning curve into visual art. While the language of art and performing arts is similar, they are very different and skills don’t exactly translate, so I steep myself in continual learning everyday.

I love working with Encaustic wax, the aroma alone is amazing. Using heat guns, irons and torches to move and fuse the layers, is part of the fun and interesting challenges that working with molten wax offers. It can take many different forms, layers, textures and luminocity. I’m able to integrate the life drawing I love, collage, photography, and the world of botanical arts of cyanotype and eco printing. It all works together so well and keeps me pushing forward.

Thank you for your interest, I’m so happy to share my artwork with you. I’m on Instagram: @susanchilcotwade. Feel free to contact me here for purchases, questions, and comments. [email protected]; and you’ve found me on the web at www.susanchilcote-wade.com

Madeline’s life pursuit is the discovery of how the human body moves. Over 30 years in the field of movement, her curiosity explored all aspects of movement in dance, Pilates, yoga, Gyrotonic®, fitness training and from studies of human biomechanics, human cadaver dissection labs, osteopathic and manual therapies. Madeline is the author of “Centered: Organizing the body through movement theory, kinesiology and Pilates techniques” published by Handspring Publishing. Madeline developed the Madeline Black Method™, a method teaching movement teachers to use assessment skills, movement sequences and manual techniques to help people achieve their fullest movement potential. Her extensive study and widely respected accomplishments in the field of movement and fitness have fueled her rise as an international leader in movement and exercise education. What sets Madeline apart is her intuitive integrity, articulate awareness of the physical body and decades of expertise.

Madeline has filmed many workshops and movement classes for Pilates Anytime and Fusion Pilates EDU Online. She has a private practice in Sonoma, CA USA.

Catherine Jhung is a dancer, actor, teacher and school administrator. Raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and Denver, CO., she graduated with a B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College and holds a Master’s degree in early childhood education from Brooklyn College. 

Catherine appeared as a featured dancer and royal wife in The King and I on the First National Tour of the Tony Award-winning 1997 Broadway revival. Modern dance credits include Bill Young and Dancers (New York City), Silesian Dance Theatre (Bitom, Poland) and the New Dance Ensemble (Minneapolis, MN), where she performed in the works of many notable choreographers, including Bill T. Jones, Douglas Dunn, Bebe Miller, Doug Elkins and Ralph Lemon. In Minneapolis, Catherine also performed at the Minneapolis Children’s Theatre Company and Theatre Mu (Mu Productions). 

As an actor, Catherine appeared on television in ABC’s One Life To Live and All My Children. She was a member of the award-winning Rising Circle Theater Collective, originating roles in the plays Pulling the Lever and American Family Project. 

Catherine taught arts-in-education workshops in dance and drama to students of all ages in the New York City area for over ten years for American Ballet Theatre, Queens Theatre in the Park and New York City Center. She served as a Montessori preschool administrator for five years. And most recently taught at the Park Slope Schoolhouse and in NYC Dept of Ed PreK early learning centers. 

Catherine enjoys spending time with her family and in nature, swimming, cycling around her neighborhood, cooking and singing. She lives in Brooklyn, NY with her musical husband and daughter and the family’s two beloved cats, Fripp and Eno.

Ololade Gbadamosi, also known as O, is a Twin Cities native who is a dancing artist, an educator and administrator. Ololade specializes in the dance styles Krump, Hip Hop and Afro Social dances.

Krump is a street dance that stands for Kingdom Radically Uplifting Mighty Praise. Ololade is mostly self taught in this style and has traveled outside of Minnesota to participate in battles and also take classes from other proven krumpers including the creators of the dance style Chez "Tight Eyez" Willis and Jo'Artis "Mijo" Ratti. 

Ololade has been a big supporter in the MN Krump & dance community by teaching krump, hosting events such as The Uprizing and being involved in hip hop based performances such as I'm From Vol. 1; The Mixtape series at the Cowles Center; and Rooted Hip Hop Choreographers' Evening. 

He has also performed internationally in Montréal, Canada (Gutta Zone Krump event), Johannesburg, South Africa (One Kasi Arts Summit) and Dusseldorf, Germany (European Buck Session Krump event).

Vanessa Voskuil is a choreographer, director, performer, writer, designer, and teaching artist. Ranging from large community-inclusive performance works to ensemble and solo works for site-specific locations and theater settings, her work has been described as “visually arresting,” “boldly and uncompromisingly moving within its own time and its own logic,” and “interlaced with surrealist sensibility and bracing intelligence.”

Voskuil has received two Minnesota Sage Dance Awards for Outstanding Design and nominated twice for Outstanding Performance. She has been honored twice with a McKnight Fellowship for Choreography (2009, 2015) and awarded “Best Dancer 2015” by City Pages in addition to her cast for “en masse” in 2009. She has been honored by Minneapolis/St. Paul Magazine as "Best of the Year 2015." Voskuil has been named one of the “7 Artists to Watch” by Minnesota Monthly Magazine and recognized by the Star Tribune as one of “9 Minnesota Artists to Expect Great Things.” 

Her work has been commissioned by the American Dance Festival (NC), Walker Art Center, The Southern Theater, Stuart Pimsler Dance & Theater, Minnesota Visible Fringe, Red Eye Theater, Off-Leash Area, and Flaneur Productions, and supported by the Jerome Foundation, McKnight Foundation, Minnesota State Arts Board, Sewell Family Foundation, American Composers Forum, Moore Family Fund for the Arts of the Minneapolis Foundation, Forecast Public Art, Northern Lights.mn, and Dakota West Arts Council. In 2017, she was awarded a 3-month artist residency and travel fellowship to Japan provided through the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts.

From 2003-09, Voskuil served as co-founding, artistic director of award-winning, ensemble-based performance company, Live Action Set. In 2010, Voskuil co-founded the Minnesota Dance Film Festival and served as the festival director until 2013.

As a teaching artist, Voskuil has taught through Zenon Dance school, University of MInnesota, and Live Action Set. She has held choreographic residencies at the American Dance Festival (NC), Carleton College, Macalester College, University of Wisconsin-River Falls, Zenon Dance School, International Music Camp, and Guild Incorporated.

As a performer, Voskuil has performed with Emily Johnson’s Catalyst Dances (1998-2005), Stuart Pimsler Dance & Theater (2001-2009), Skewed Visions, Theatre Novi Most, and Off-Leash Area.

Voskuil holds a BFA in Dance and a BA in Theater from the University of Minnesota.

Cecil Neal, also known as Virgo and The Final Warning, is an artist born in Winnipeg, Manitoba and based in Minneapolis. His training began in his high school dance program and at SPCPA (St. Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists), and was refined under the mentorship of Herb Johnson from the age of 16.

Cecil’s artistry has carried him to stages such as the Ordway, the Super Bowl, Walker Art Center, and Orchestra Hall with the Minnesota Orchestra ensemble. Internationally, he has represented with companies like BRKFST and FWKD in Vancouver and Montreal—bringing the spirit of Krump to audiences across borders.

In 2025, Cecil was awarded the McKnight Fellowship for Dancers, marking a milestone in his pursuit of growth and artistic freedom. That same spirit of trust and expression pushed him to victory at the 10-Year Anniversary of House of Dance Twin Cities (All Styles Battle) and continues to guide his leadership as he prepares to judge the 11-Year Anniversary this year. His teaching has also expanded beyond Minnesota, impacting communities in San Diego and Oceanside through classes with Culture Shock San Diego—reaching new levels of connection and inspiring dancers to find their own voice.

At home, Cecil is building new programming for both youth and adults, while continuing to share his artistry at Hot House Studios, Young Dance, and through the YMCA Beacons Program.

At the heart of Cecil’s work is a belief in consistency, hard work, and giving back. Through every performance, battle, and classroom, he strives to create moments of trust, freedom, and transformation for himself and the communities he serves.

Kayla Schiltgen is an interdisciplinary artist based in rural Two Harbors, Minnesota, blending dance and film to cope with and communicate her existence. Guided by her belief that subjectivity and vulnerability serve as an echo palette for others, Kayla creates screen dance, installation, and performance to facilitate exchange that affirms, affects, and inspires both artist and audience. She takes a multidimensional approach rooted in the Rural—working as choreographer/editor, dancer, cinematographer, and sound designer, with place as her collaborator.

Kayla is a 2025 McKnight Choreographer Fellow, 2022 Upstream Artist Fellow, the recipient of multiple Minnesota State Arts Board and Arrowhead Regional Arts Council awards, and recognized as a creative rural leader in the Upper Midwest by Springboard for the Arts.

Her work has been presented at the Walker Art Center, the International Meeting on Video-Dance and Video-Performance (Spain & France), North Dakota Environmental Rights Film Festival, InShadow Screendance Festival (Portugal), Duluth Superior Film Festival, DanceBARN Screendance Festival, Wolf Tree Film Festival (MI), Arena Dance’s CandyBox Festival, RAD Fest, The Lab at NorShor Theatre, and the Minnesota Fringe Festival, among others.

Kayla’s practice centers the Rural as a site of resilience and creativity. She is currently touring rural Minnesota with performances, workshops, and artist chats of her evening-length work is this magic?.  She holds a B.A. in Dance from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities and continues her studies with screendance artist Katrina McPherson, and courses in filmmaking and improvisational movement.

Learn more about Kayla’s work @kaylaschiltgen or at kaylaschiltgen.com.