STUDIO STORIES: REMINISCING ON TWIN CITIES DANCE HISTORY

Emily Michaels King is a performing artist based in St. Paul, Minnesota exploring authentic expression and human depth through movement, multimedia, and visual compositions for the stage. 

Emily is known for her fearless personal work, provocative compositions, and collaged evening-length solo performances, including: her award winning show MAGIC GIRL; multimedia online work DIGITAL; IN PERSON, a companion to DIGITAL; the raucous CHICKEN WING; and the harrowing STAR KEEPER. An in-progress version of her solo, ELECTRIC, was performed at Arena Dance’s 2022 CandyBox Festival. Additionally, her work has been presented at the Walker Art Center, the Guthrie Theater, and Movement Research, among others. Emily is also a 2025 McKnight Choreography Fellow. 

Pairing minimalism and subtlety with cacophony and bared irreverence, Emily’s works employ the lush landscape of the inner world and the power of unapologetic vulnerability. They combine movement with text, graphics, sound, and technology to focus on themes of self discovery and reclamation, womanhood, and bold expressions of personal truth. 

Malia Craft is from Hartwell, Georgia and began her training at Hot Shots Dance Company, where she trained in ballet, modern, contemporary, hip hop, and jazz and found her love for performing, as well as teaching. Malia attended the University of Georgia, where she received a Bachelor of Arts in Dance, with a minor in exercise and sports science, and a certificate in K-12 dance education. Malia was also a part of the Georgette’s Dance Team for three years. She is currently an artist with Threads Dance Project, Concerto Dance and Rhythmically Speaking Dance. In addition to training and performing, Malia is passionate about working with young artists. She has choreographed musicals and dance team routines, and has taught at numerous studios throughout Georgia and Minnesota.

Twin Cities–based dancer and choreographer Dominick Burkhardt discovered his passion for the arts early in life, growing up in his mother’s dance studio. Immersed in a creative environment from a young age, he trained extensively in all styles of dance—including ballet, jazz, hip hop, tap, contemporary, modern, and acro—building a versatile and dynamic foundation. He honed his technical and performance skills at both Larkin Dance Studio and the Saint Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists, graduating in 2018 with a strong focus on both commercial and concert dance. During his time at SPCPA, he also received training in musical theater, further enriching his performance range while maintaining a strong dance core. His diverse training has allowed him to move seamlessly across genres, whether on stage, on screen, or in the studio. Dominick has worked with top artists and global brands, performing and modeling for the NFL and several Fortune 500 companies in a range of commercial campaigns. He is a current company member with Black Label Movement, where he performed at the 2024 American Dance Festival, and has worked with companies and artists including Rachel Lieberman in the Red Eye's NW4W Festival, Cheng Xiong in the Candy Box Dance Festival presented by ARENA DANCES, and Eduardo Navarro in Cloud Museum, performed at the Walker Art Center. In 2025, he was selected as a choreographer for Black Label Movement’s Movers Make 2.0, a platform supporting emerging choreographic voices. In addition to performing and choreographing, Dominick is a dedicated educator who currently teaches all styles of dance at various Twin Cities dance schools. With a deep appreciation for both technique and artistry, he’s passionate about helping dancers of all levels grow in confidence, versatility, and discipline. Outside of the dance world, Dominick holds a Bachelor of Science in Information Technology from Upper Iowa University and works as a system administrator in Minneapolis. He also serves as a Staff Sergeant in the Iowa Air National Guard. Whether on stage, in the studio, or in uniform, Dominick is committed to excellence, mentorship, and empowering others through discipline, creativity, and purpose in every area of life.

Growing up, Rachel trained, performed, and taught primarily with Giordano Jazz Dance Chicago. She moved to the Twin Cities to attend Macalester College, graduating in 2018 with a BA in Geography. She has since performed in works by Contempo Physical, Leila Awadallah, Off-Leash Area, A Cripple’s Dance, Mathew Janczewski, Javan Mngrezzo, Annika Johansson, Analog Dance Works, Zoë Koenig, Xina, Black Label Movement, and Judith H Shuǐ Xiān. 

Rachel's choreography engages themes of home/place/violence/throughline from a queer, american, jewish, diasporist, and surrealist perspective. Her work has been presented by Alternative Motion Project, Franconia Sculpture Garden, Candy Box Dance Festival, Black Label Movement, Walker Art Center, Threads Dance Project, and Red Eye Theater. Primarily a movement artist, she also enjoys playing with sound, set, and costume design, and in textile and textual arts.

For Rachel, dance is a practice of home-making and care-taking. Off-stage, she works as a Program Director at Cow Tipping Press: teaching and publishing creative writing by adults with intellectual/developmental disabilities.

 Alex Arce is an Ecuadorian American artist born and raised in Minnesota has been dancing since the age of 5 culturally and socially as well as technically. He focuses his practice within hip hop and Latin diasporic dance forms as well as contemporary/Modern Dance. He is a graduate of Larkin Dance Studio and Saint Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists. Upon his high school training he has also been a part of a pre professional dance program known as the Cli Conservatory in Massachusetts where he got to learn from different choreographers all around the states and further pursue his career as a movement artist, choreographer, and educator. After graduating from this program, Alex was accepted as a member of the Cli Company, working as both a choreographer and instructor with Cli Studios. Most recently he has focused his career in collaboration with other companies such as Meridians movement company and Black Label Movement and now as a Company Member with ARENA DANCES Rep Co where he has been able to have the opportunity to further develop his training and dedication to the craft while pursuing his love for creation and performance art.

Doug Hooker graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in Dance. He has had a variety of professional performing opportunities, including with the Santa Clara Vanguard Drum & Bugle Corps, the Broadway show Blast! and the Dancing People Company, and locally with ARENA DANCES, Collide Theatrical Dance Company, Concerto Dance, José A. Louis, Paula Mann, Shapiro & Smith Dance, Rhythmically Speaking Dance, and Threads Dance Project.

Frances Machala Cerro Grew up in Cumberland, Wisconsin, graduated from St. Catherine’s College in 1965. She met Loyce Houlton there in 1963 when Mrs.
Houlton began teaching at St. Catherine’s.

Loyce Houton had started the Contemporary Dance Playhouse in
Dinkytown by the U of M campus. It was an old Masonic Temple above
a Cleaners that later burnt down. Mrs. Houlton took Frances under her
wing and studied, taught and performed with the Contemporary Dance
Playhouse, later the Minnesota Dance Theater until 1972. Some of the
choreographies she was principal dancer in were: Chronicles, Audition,
Bone Lonely, and Troth. She was in the 1 st Nutcracker Fantasy done at
the Moppet Theater and later at Northrup auditorium in many roles.
Mrs. Houlton brought in many teachers at that time, she took classes
from Graham teachers, Francois Martinet and Madame
Pereyaslavec.She performed twice at Jacob’s Pillow and in Spoleto, Italy
where the company went to learn Glenn Tetley’s “Mythical Hunters”.

In 1972 She married Ramon Cerro and lived in Santa Fe, Argentina for
14 years. There she started a school and company called” La Escuela de
Danza Contemporanea”. They performed in Santa Fe, Argentina and in
many small towns in the area. She had the privilege of working with the
“Orquesta de Provincia de Santa Fe” many times, including
choreographing “Peter and The Wolf” and Vivaldi’s “Gloria” with 3
choirs.

The family returned to the United State in 1986 and moved to Tulsa
Oklahoma. There, with other dancers started the Local Motion Foundation to bring in Modern Teachers and choreographers. She worked in the Lincoln Center Institute program for Art in to the Schools.

Kaleena Miller makes sound-focused dance and installation work, rooted in tap dance technique and deep listening modalities. Named one of DANCE Magazine’s 25 to Watch, she has received a McKnight Fellowship for Dance and a Sage People’s Choice Award, and has presented work at the Walker Art Center, Icehouse, First Avenue, Jazz Central and the Southern Theater in Minneapolis, as well as at Arts on Site, Center for Performance Research and Symphony Space in New York. Previously, she co-founded and co-directed Twin Cities Tap with Brenna Brelie, which produced the acclaimed Twin Cities Tap Festival from 2015-2021, and an additional project in partnership with the McKnight International Choreographer Fellowship in 2023. She also directed KMD2, a making-driven pre-professional ensemble for high school and college-aged dancers, from 2018-2023.  Kaleena has a BFA in Dance from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, a Deep Listening certification from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and will graduate this summer with an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Dancer and Choreographer Aneka McMullen is an independent performing and teaching artist who lives to dance through life, inspire & connect with all people through her passion for movement of all types.  She hails from Minneapolis and holds a BFA in dance from The Ohio State University.  Her extensive dance experience spans more than two decades and includes dynamic skills in performance and instruction in the genres of West African, Afro Modern, Modern, Ballet, Jazz, Hip Hop, Lyrical & Liturgical.

Aneka is a co- founder and artistic director of Epitome-No Question, an open Old Skool Hip Hop dance ensemble dedicated to celebrating the community conscious roots of Hip Hop culture through dance theater. 

Jennifer Hart - Hailed as a choreographer “with an imagination so exuberant that one could not be sure how one movement led to the next” and “not only inventive but heart-rending,” Jennifer Hart has been commissioned by Ballet Austin, Ballet Austin ll, Ballet Nouveau Colorado (now Wonderbound), James Sewell Ballet, Minnesota Dance Theater, The Walker Art Center’s Momentum Series, The McKnight Fellowship for Dancers, Metropolitan Ballet Project, University of Kansas, University of Massachusetts, Lawrence Ballet Theatre, Halcyon Dance Project in San Francisco, and Merick Strategies for its production of Leonard Bernstein's “Mass” and “Icons of Broadway Holiday Spectacular.” In July, 2022, Hart was one of four choreographers selected for National Choreographers Initiative.

In 2011, Hart was awarded a New York City Ballet Fellowship and won third place at the Saint-Sauveur International Choreography Competition. She received second place at Ballet Nouveau Colorado’s choreography competition, and was one of three winners of the University of Kansas’ competitive choreography competition. She was chosen three times to present work at Ballet Builders, New Choreographer’s on Point in NYC. She was commissioned by University of Massachusetts in the fall of 2013; the work was chosen for the National College Dance Festival at the Kennedy Center, June 2014. In 2024, she was a finalist in the Palm Desert Choreography Festival.

In 2014, she formed Performa/Dance with Ballet Austin dancer Edward Carr. Performa/Dance launched its inaugural show. Ignite: Three Works, in June, 2014. Her work for Performa/Dance was awarded four Austin Critic’s Table awards for Best Short Work (“On Truth and Love”and "Camille: A Story of Art and Love"), Best Choreographer  ("Fellow Travelers" and “Murmuration"), and Best Dance Concert (Ignite: Three Works). Along with her work in concert dance, she has choreographed and performed cabaret shorts for nightclubs and television, and has begun working in video. She recently choreographed and co-directed the epic Bernstein's Mass, a work involving 300 performers.

She trained at Minnesota Dance Theatre, Pacific Northwest Ballet and San Francisco Ballet. Her performing career includes Minnesota Dance Theater, Ballet of the Dolls, and L.A Chamber Ballet, as well as independent choreographers. She choreographs for Ballet Austin’s apprentices and Fellowship recipients, teaches full-time in the academy and apprentice program, and serves as Curriculum Supervisor of the school where she sets syllabus and leads training for academy teachers.