Company Members

RESUMES

BLUE MOON DANCE COMPANY – Current Artist Profiles

PAT CONNELLY (Director) moved to Boulder in 1974 and attended CU for several years as a graduate student in dance. She worked for many years as a performer and choreographer in dance, theater and opera 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 another original piece was chosen for the Aspen Dance Festival, a juried concert. Her work was commissioned by Denver Contemporary Dance Theatre, Turning the Wheel Productions, Interweave Dance Theatre and many other organizations. She was board member for the Boulder County Arts Alliance for twelve years, serving as Treasurer and Board President. She has been a member of the Boulder County Arts Leadership Forum (BCALF) since 2012. She returns to the 2019 annual YWCA Benefit “Dancing with the Boulder Stars” for the thirteenth year; she won the YWCA choreography award in 2010 and 2012. She was a member of Nancy Cranbourne’s “40 Women Over 40”, Dance Forms and several other local dance companies. She teaches independently, specializing in partnering and social dance forms. In 2017, she received the Boulder County Arts Alliance Dance Fellowship.

NOEL BATERNA grew up in Aurora, Colorado, and studied biology at the University of Colorado Denver. He has trained in martial arts for over ten years and is an instructor at West Gate Kung Fu in Boulder. With his martial arts background he has done stunt choreography for three films and many live demonstration performances. He joined Blue Moon Dance Company in 2017.

HEATHER CINO was born to dance! Pretty much right out if the womb, she was movin’ and groovin’! With the support from her parents and self-curiosity, she leapt from dance to dance. Her exploration of dance was never capped and she always hungered for more (still till the present day). From the classics of Ballet and Tap to the venturing of Irish Step, Belly Dance, and African, she finds there is always more knowledge to gain and movement to experience. After finishing her college career she dove head first into a new style - ballroom dance. Here she fell in love with dance once again. Heather has traveled the world dancing, opening new doors of discovery and is now looking forward to where dance and her curiosity bring her. She joined the company in 2018.

COLLIN JOSTES joined the company this year! Collin first partnered with Blue Moon during the 2018 YWCA benefit “Dancing with the Boulder Stars” where he placed runner-up on the stage, but first in everyone’s hearts. Collin was born for the stage — he has experience in tap, ballet, hip hop, burlesque, and musical theater, as well as improv comedy during his years at CU Boulder. A graduate of the Leeds School of Business, Collin now works for SRG, an advertising and innovation agency in downtown Boulder. He hopes that joining Blue Moon will help him realize his eventual dream of being a Broadway star and playing every character in the revival of Cats.

AMANDA KEPUS joined the company in 2017. She was born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri. Amanda started dancing at age 3 and has been dancing ever since with an emphasis on ballet, jazz and modern dance. She danced competitively from ages 12 through17. She graduated in 2019 with a degree in International Affairs with minors in French and Dance from the University of Colorado at Boulder. She traveled to Dakar, Senegal in May 2018 to study the relationship between dance and public policy in Africa while also training alongside Senegalese dance companies.

BETH MOGER began her dancing career with Imagination Circus Arts, training in aerial acrobatics from age13 to 23, coaching for seven of those years and performing in dozens of circus shows and events all over Colorado. Shortly after, Beth performed in Supermassive with Katie Elliot’s 3rd Law Dance Theater at the Global Warming Expo, and the Denver Art Museum’s HEARD exhibit by Nick Cave. In her college years at CU Boulder, Beth continued to focus on performance with a double degree in theater and astronomy, and a minor in geology while working full time as the operations manager at Trep Café and a lecturer at Fiske Planetarium. This eclectic background in performance, science, education, and management serves Beth today as the head of Science Development at Sky-Skan Inc., where she works as an astronomer creating software visualizations of the universe as we know it for researchers, educators and planetariums in 32 countries around the world. Beth has been a member of the Blue Moon Dance Company since 2007, returning to Boulder this year from a three year travelling sabbatical to hike, camp, spend time with family, and continue her dancing career with the Blue Moon Dance Company .

KEVIN NADEAU grew up in Maine, training in wrestling and Karate. While deployed to Iraq for Operation Iraqi Freedom from 2007-2008, serving as a medevac helicopter mechanic, Kevin had the opportunity to study Tae Kwon Do. When Kevin returned home he decided to further develop his passion for creatively pushing his physical abilities by becoming a firefighter and learning to rock climb. He moved to Boulder to study astrophysics at CU and explore the mountains. Kevin was new to the art of dance performance when he joined Blue Moon Dance Company in 2013. He participated in the January 2015 YWCA benefit, “Dancing with the Boulder Stars”, which his partner won, raising the most amount of money for the event. He has completed his degree at CU and continues to study dance and Kung Fu.

MARYANN NASON, a California native, began her professional dance career with the Sierra Nevada Dance Company and Inner Rhythms Dance Company where she performed a number of roles in ballets and contemporary dance works. In 2009, a serious accident forced a break from performing, but her passion for movement and expression brought her back to the dance floor. She joined the company in 2014.

SKY SHAVER joined the company in 2015. She is originally from Little Rock, Arkansas where she danced competitively from the age of 3 through 18 and also taught dance with the Dance Dynamics Company. She moved to Boston where she continued to dance with the Boston College Dance Ensemble and community organizations, such as Boston Ballet. She has performed in the YWCA benefit “Dancing with the Boulder Stars”, won the choreography award in 2016 and was runner-up in 2018. After receiving a degree in Astrophysics from CU Boulder, she moved to Washington, D.C. to work for NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Now residing in Longmont, she is preparing for graduate school while researching black holes with the Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy. She currently teaches tap and jazz dance to the amazing students at Tara Performing Arts High School in Boulder and also taught dance at Manhattan Middle School.

THOMAS WINGERD is an independent producer and choreographer. With 23 years of experience as a dancer, he focuses on lyrical choreography pairing hip hop with ballroom and contemporary dance. As a film industry professional, he has worked as a producer, production manager, videographer, editor, and director on projects spanning commercial, feature, music video, and documentary. He has been in Blue Moon Dance Company since 2010.

Choreographers
(1995 to present)

• Adjei Abankwah – 2007 to 2010
• Michelle Badgeley - 2007
• Michelle Bernier - 2012 to present
• Amy Bland - 2012
• Sol Benson - present
• Ying Chang - 2002/2004/present
• Pat Connelly - 1995 to present
• Thomas Dixon (posthumously) - 1996
• Mora Gluskin
• Rachel Grote - 2005
• Landon Gustafson – 2004 to 2007
• Seth Gustafson – 2003/2004
• Elena Marie Hofer – 2013 to present
• Karen Howard – 1996 to 2000
• Tobi Johnson-Compton – 1997 to 2002
• Meghan Larsen – 2012 to present
• Sarah Leversee – 2003/2004
• Ariel Manzanares-Scisney – 2015/2016
• Debra Mercer - 1995
• Beth Moger – 2007 to present
• Courtney Murray – 2008 to present
• Chris Nuernberger – 2008 to present
• Yuki Ojika – 2003 to 2005
• Dreah Pentell – 2005
• Emily Plummer – 2011 to 2012
• Julius Reinante – 2004 to present
• Lisa Adeva Samoy
• Stephen Schroeder – 1997 to 2001
• Sky Shaver
• Ben Schultz – 1997
• Jessica Simpson - 2005
• G. Webster Smith – 1996 to 1999
• Larry Southall – 1999
• Franca Telesia – 1995 to 1997
• Tomas Waples-Trefil - 2012 to present
• Thomas Wingerd- 2010 to present
• Alison Yoder - 2004
• Colleen Noelani 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

Concerts
(1996 to present)

• 1996 Break A Leg
• 1997 Mood Indigo
• 1998 Serious Fun
• 1999 Dreaming on Time
• 2000 Boundaries
• 2001 Continuum
• 2002 Light & Dark
• 2003 Mood Swings
• 2004 Elasticity
• 2005 Torque
• 2006 Moving On
• 2007 Love is Strange
• 2008 Dancing the Blues Away
• 2009 Ephemera
• 2010 Something Blue
• 2011 Lovers and Other Strangers
• 2012 Serious Fun 2012 (dedicated to the memory of G. Webster Smith)
• 2013 Moving Parts
• 2014 Body & Sole
• 2015 Don’t Forget to Breathe!
• 2016 Collide
• 2017 Off Balance
• 2018 Asymmetry
• 2019 Counterpoint

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

Adjei Abankwah, Tyffanie Ammeter, Gemma Asir, Michelle Badgley, Noel Baterna, Michelle Bernier, Danielle Bernier, Sol Benson, Michelle Ballard, Andrew Berry, Amy Bland, Jeni-Sue Briggs, Ying Chang, Heather Cino, Marty Connell, Pat Connelly, Laurie Coulis, Cindy Davis, Heather Davis, Eric Donovan, Keats Dormont, SueYoonFarabaugh, Bruce Feistner, Mora Gluskin, Rachel Grote, Landon Gustafson, Seth Gustafson, Lisa Harris, Camille Hensley, Elena Hofer, Karen Howard, Rita Jenkins-Gaynes, Tobi Johnson-Compton, Collin Jostes, Joel Kelly, Amanda Kepus, Kit Kyle, Desiree Lanz-Ewertz, Meghan Larson, John LeRoux, Sarah Leversee, Abe Levine, Ariel Manzanares-Scisney, Allen McCowan, Kara McRae, Scott McLane, Debra Mercer, Hope Welles Meyer, Beth Moger, Courtney Murray, Kevin Nadeau, Mary Ann Nason, Carrie Noel, ChristopherNuernberger, Yuki Ojika, Karen Panasewicz, Dreah Pentell, Emily Plummer, Laura Rains, Willow Reed, Julius Reinante, Michael Rudeseal, Lisa Adeva Samoy, Stephen Schroeder, Ben Schultz, Arielle Schwartz, Sky Shaver, Arthur Siegle, Jessica Simpson, G. Webster Smith, Jason Smith, Larry Southall, Tiffany Stone, Sara Stranovsky, Justin Taggart, Franca Telesia, Gustavo Vargas, Cheryl Vick, Tomas Waples, Thomas Wingerd, Rebecca Wright, Alison Yoder, Colleen Noelani Young, Alexandra Zelinskaya

Members in the News

IN MEMORIAM

Webster Smith passed away in 2012. He was an original member of the company, a wonderful dancer and choreographer. He will be greatly missed.

Allen McCowan passed away in 2015. As an actor, he gave us great performances. As a unique individual, his laughter brightened the world.