THE BIG MUDDY DANCE COMPANY

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2 THE BIG MUDDY DANCE COMPANY Invigorating life through dance. OUR VISION The Big Muddy Dance Company, a St. Louis-based repertory dance company, seeks to build a love of dance by providing fun, experiential and highly entertaining performances. By engaging both emerging and established choreographers, collaborating across the community through senior outreach and training future performers through our school and trainee program, we constantly strive to invigorate life through dance.

3 BRIAN ENOS ARTISTIC DIRECTOR Mr. Enos, originally from San Francisco, CA, began studying ballet at the age of 16. After his training at the Maria Vegh Ballet Centre and The Houston Ballet Academy, he was invited to join Houston Ballet at the age of 18. After several years performing with Houston Ballet, Mr. Enos went on to dance for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago for eight years, before retiring from the stage in He s danced leading roles in works by some of the industry s most in demand choreographers including: Jiri Kylian, William Forsythe, Ohad Naharin, Ben Stevenson, Twyla Tharp, and Christopher Bruce, among others. Mr. Enos also has an impressive choreographic career spanning 16 years, with over 30 original works, and glowing reviews from both critics and audiences throughout the United States and abroad. Some of the companies on which he s created work include: Houston Ballet, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Ballet Met, Nashville Ballet, Oklahoma City Ballet, Grand Rapids Ballet, DanceWorks Chicago, Thodos Dance Chicago, and many more. Succeeding the company s founder, Paula Young David, as the artistic leadership behind The Big Muddy Dance Company, Mr. Enos is always seeking to push the artistic and technical level of the company, cultivate diverse and engaging repertoire, and invigorate life through dance.

4 TOUR OFFERINGS The Big Muddy Dance Company offers high quality PERFORMANCES to a wide variety of venues such as theaters, event spaces, and retirement homes. Technical requirements and pricing can be determined by contacting Erin Warner Prange at ewarner@thebigmuddydanceco.org. The Big Muddy Dance Company offers MASTER CLASSES in ballet, contemporary, and jazz to all ages and levels of technique. The Big Muddy Dance Company can expand its classes into week-long WORKSHOPS for aspiring dance students, which may include resumè building, improvisation, choreography, mental toughness, and arts administration seminars. The Big Muddy Dance Company offers IN-STUDIO SHOWINGS for students of the company s current repertoire, with question-and-answer sessions afterwards with the dancers and directors. OUR HISTORY St. Louis Dance Theatre, Inc. was founded in May of 2010 by Artistic Director Paula David. Beginning with 9 volunteer dancers and staff members, the company followed Paula David s vision of creating St. Louis first professional contemporary jazz dance company. The company premiered in June 2011 at the Blanche M. Touhill Performing Arts Center to a sold out house and standing ovation. Since that time, the company has presented over 100 performances and has commissioned over 28 works for its repertoire. Now under the artistic direction of Brian Enos, The Big Muddy employs full-time dancers and presents 3 full theater production runs each season to enthusiastic audiences. The Big Muddy Dance Company was named Best Local Dance Company by the St. Louis Post Dispatch and by the Riverfront Times in 2015.

5 SENIOR EMBRACE OUTREACH PROGRAM The company kicked off its Senior Embrace outreach program in In its conception, the program included performances for senior living facilities, later adding hands-on dance workshops for early-stage dementia patients and performances to help raise awareness for organizations such as the Alzheimer s Association. After what started as a few small ways to give back to the community, the company was staggered with the positive impact our performances were having on our audiences. This inspired the development of The Big Muddy Dance Company s Senior Embrace program with the mission to consistently bring high quality dance experiences to our senior community. Dementia and cognitive decline in our older adult population is a growing problem. Creative solutions and treatments are needed to delay clinical onset and to slow the progression of dementia and memory impairment in older adults, helping them to lead as fulfilling lives as possible. The Big Muddy Dance Company s Senior Embrace aims to play a small but important role in this creative intervention to invigorate lives of our senior community and their caregivers. Offerings for the Senior Embrace program include: minute performances with a meet & greet period with the dancers and residents Ongoing communication with Activities staff and family members if necessary to supply memory triggers for the patients such as music and video a hands-on workshop specifically for early-stage dementia patients to strengthen the mind-to-muscle connections with familiar movements and music.

6 THE BIG MUDDY DANCE COMPANY DANCERS GEOFFREY ALEXANDER earned his BA in dance at SIUE. In 2007 he joined Atrek Dance Collective and worked with artist such as Germaul Barnes, Jon Lehrer, Mathew Janczewski, and Alicia Graf. In 2011 he joined Big Muddy Dance Company, performing works by Lou Conte, Harrison McEldowney, Lauri Stallings, Katarzyna Skarpetowska, Robyn Mineko Williams, and Brian Enos. He is the contemporary and jazz instructor for the Big Muddy while also teaching master classes and choreographing at various Universities and studios. KELLY BITZER, born and raised in Collinsville, IL, studied the Cecchetti method of ballet as a young student and began training with the St. Louis Ballet in high school, where she had the opportunity to perform with the company as a trainee. She graduated cum laude with a BFA in dance from the University of Arizona. Upon graduation, she joined Charleston Ballet Theatre in South Carolina. She has spent summers with Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Kaatsbaan, Boston Ballet, ABT, and Ballet Met. This is her fourth season with the Big Muddy. EMILY BAKER was born and raised in San Dimas, CA. She trained primarily at Inland Pacific Ballet Academy, spending summers at schools such as School of American Ballet, San Francisco Ballet School, Boston Ballet School and Atlanta Ballet Centre for Dance Education. Since then, Emily has danced with many companies; Atlanta Ballet, Inland Pacific Ballet, Ballet Tucson, Canyon Concert Ballet, Impact Dance, Colorado Ballet and Missouri Contemporary Ballet. This is her first season with the Big Muddy Dance Company. DUSTIN CRUMBAUGH initially trained at Houston Metropolitan Dance Center s Houston Met Too before he spent two years as a dance major at Point Park University. He then completed his traineeship with Ballet Austin. Dustin joined Houston Metropolitan Dance Company in 2005, trained at Alonzo King s LINES Ballet School and in 2007 joined Luna Negra Dance Theater and continued training with Hubbard Street Dance Center. He joined The Big Muddy Dance Company in THOM DANCY studied at The University of Oklahoma and has danced for Milwaukee Ballet, Grand Rapids Ballet, and The Big Muddy. He has danced soloist roles in works by Kate Skarpetowska, Gerald Arpino, George Balanchine, and Brian Enos. Thom is also a member of Actors Equity and has worked for The Muny as a dancer and audition assistant. Thom has choreographed on Danceworks Chicago, Grand Rapids Ballet, Convergence Ballet, Ballet Nebraska, and Big Muddy.

7 MIRANDA PAYNE, a St Louis native, received her BFA in Dance from Webster University. Professional performance credits include The Music Man with Stages St Louis, The Ghosts of Versailles with Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, The Wonder of Christmas at The Shoji Tabuchi Theatre in Branson, MO, and several productions with Variety Children s Theatre. Miranda has been a dancer with The Big Muddy since the company was founded in ROBERT POE ((Aiken, SC) began dancing at Crosby s School of Dance and later on at the SC Governor s School for the Arts and Humanities. Professionally he has danced with classical companies (Columbia City Ballet, Nashville Ballet, and Missouri Ballet Theatre) as well as contemporary companies (Nashville In Motion, Cedar Lake II, The Big Muddy Dance Company) and has guested with the Nashville Opera. He serves on the Senior Outreach team and the Board Nominating Committee of The Big Muddy where he has been an artist for 4 seasons. ERIN PRANGE currently balances her time between dancing and serving as the company s Executive Director. She holds her B.A. in Dance and Spanish from Colorado State University, and her M.F.A. in Arts Management from Webster University. She has teaching experience with the Topf Center for Dance Education in Boston, Webster Groves High School, and Dance Center of Kirkwood. Erin danced with Fusionworks II in Providence, RI and the Slaughter Project before coming to The Big Muddy in ELLEN HINKEL REED joined The Big Muddy in its premiere season and received her doctorate in psychology the same year. When she s not dancing, Ellen is a Mental Training Consultant with Enhanced Performance, Inc. Her background in both academia and the performing arts allows Ellen to apply mental training techniques to the success of business individuals, athletes, artists, and academics. CHRISTINA SAHAIDA grew up in Pittsburgh, PA and began her dance training at Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre School. Following high school graduation, she attended Butler University in Indianapolis, IN, graduating in 2012 with honors, a BFA in Dance Performance and a Secondary Major in Spanish. She moved on to dance with Ballet Quad Cities and then joined Texture Contemporary Ballet as a resident dancer in She is very excited to join the Big Muddy Dance Company for her first season! MEREDITH WALLACE graduated from Webster University in St. Louis where she earned a BA in Dance and Marketing. During her time there, Meredith performed works by Antony Tudor, Maurya Kerr, Michael Uthoff, and Alicia Graf. She participated in summer programs with Kansas City Ballet, Ballet Magnificat!, and The Big Muddy Dance Company. Since joining the Big Muddy in 2014, Meredith has performed works by renowned choreographers Kate Skarpetowska, Harrison McEldowney, and Brian Enos.

8 BRIAN ENOS ARTISTIC DIRECTOR ERIN WARNER PRANGE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR DUSTIN CRUMBAUGH STUDIO MANAGER Photo Credits : Gerry Love