Resident Artists of the Sybil Shearer Studio at Ragdale

2025

JOANNA FURNANS

As a dance artist, writer, and administrator, Joanna Furnans has been supported by MANCC, the Yard, High Concept Labs, Chicago Dancemakers Forum, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Illinois Arts Council Agency, the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, the Chicago Dancers’ Fund, the Chicago Moving Company, Links Hall, and the Walker Art Center.

IEGA MOVES – KEVIN IEGA JEFF

Kevin Iega Jeff is a celebrated dancer, choreographer, artistic director, and innovative leader. Recognized by the Juilliard School as one of its 100 Outstanding Alumni. He’s danced on Broadway in The Wiz, on TV at the 1994 Academy Awards, and choreographed the film, Spike Lee’s “She’s Gotta Have It.” With over fifty choreographed pieces to his name, he has been commissioned by premier companies and theaters both nationally and internationally.

JARIUS KING

Performing artist and Black Arts instructor, Jarius “ManOfGod” King is primarily based in Chicago, but also Hong Kong. Career highlights include: 60+ competitive accomplishments (Breaking, House, Hip-Hop, Open Styles), judge committee member and co-author for HKDSF’s initial coaching curriculum for Breaking in the Olympics, co-director of “Breakin’ The Law” festival (2003-2014), University of Wisconsin-Madison “Forward Under 40” Award, and 2023 Dark Matter Resident Artist at Elastic Arts.

SHAWN LENT

Moving through the world as a social practice dance artist, program manager, writer, nonprofit arts consultant, dance educator, and facilitator, Shawn Renee Lent’s work spans diverse settings—from a field in Bosnia to a children’s cancer hospital in revolutionary Egypt—exploring embodied peace, diplomatic innovation, and the arts as a catalyst for social change.

AMANDA MARAIST

Amanda Maraist is a movement deviser + improviser from the Texas gulf coast, and co-directs bim bom studios. She works collaboratively with movers, musicians and artists in Chicago; most recently with Helen Lee, Irene Hsiao, Gina Hoch-Stall, Chrissy Martin, Freedom From and Freedom To, Khecari, Ayako Kato / Art Union Humanscape and independently.

MOMENTA

MOMENTA cultivates and presents repertory and contemporary dance works that strive to educate, innovate and amplify the artistry of students and professionals, inclusive of artists with disabilities. Founded in 1983, the company initially focused on modern dance and theater. In 2003 MOMENTA expanded its repertory to include physically integrated works for dancers with and without disabilities.

RITA MUSTAPHI

As a choreographer, dancer, educator and a disciple of the late Pandit Birju Maharaj in Kathak style of Indian classical dance, Rita Mustaphi is known for her visionary approach and innovations, multi-disciplinary productions incorporating spoken word, live and commissioned music, and varied production elements. Her choreography is distinguished by its impeccable technique and its capacity to expand the classical Kathak vocabulary. As Founder and Artistic Director of Katha Dance Theatre & School from 1987 to 2005, the company has become renowned for its dynamic productions, distinctive movement style and technical virtuosity.

LAURA OSTERHAUS ROSENSTONE

Laura Osterhaus Rosenstone is a movement artist, educator, and stylist born and raised in Maquoketa, Iowa. Across all modes of creating, she strives to slow down perception of time in order to provide spacious opportunities for human to human connection and expanding self-awareness. Her movement training includes Hip-Hop, House, Jazz, contemporary dance from numerous lineages, modern, ballet, ballroom styles, and tap. The expansiveness of her training influences her performance and choreographic aesthetics that heavily lean into musicality, rhythmicity, and sequential articulation of the body.

PHREE

Phillip Wood, also known as Phree, is a multidisciplinary visual and movement artist originally from Indianapolis. Now based in Chicago, he is a company member of Chicago Dance Crash and has collaborated with The Lyric Opera, Lollapalooza, and Marriott Theater, as well as numerous local artist groups and professionals. Committed to visibility and community engagement, Phill was named a 2024 Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artist. Being primarily self-trained, his main expression is through Breaking, Hip Hop, and House dance styles. Additionally, he has extensive training and performance experience in Modern, Tricking, and Contemporary dance.

CHRISTOPHER WILLIAMS

Sybil Shearer Fellowship at Ragdale – 2025
A curious “alchemist of theatre” aiming to transcend boundaries between a variety of art forms, Christopher Williams continues to hone a distinctive personal style With each new project he assembles a wide variety of performers that juxtapose many body types, ethnicities, genders, and orientations as well as span many ages, in order to instill each of his works with a varied and inclusive corporeal counterpoint.

ROBBY LEE WILLIAMS

Robby Lee Williams is a Black, Latiné, disabled dancer in the Chicago area. His current focus is on works that foster and lift up other artists in disabled and unified spaces, in hopes to continue the momentum that his peers and predecessors have built up.  He dances with MOMENTA Dance Company and Tango 21 Dance Theatre, is a teaching artist with ReInventability, is a 3Arts|Bodies of Work fellow, and a member of Unfolding Disability Futures.

2024

LEILA AWADALLAH

CHIH-JOU CHENG

LUCAS GREEFF

Lucas Greeff (ze/he/they) is a choreographer, circus artist, and dancer whose work focuses on expanding the scope of queer & neurodivergent performance, engaging inherent energies, and challenging physical extremity through movement experiment.

JOEL HALL DANCERS – WILLIAM GILL

Joel Hall Dancers was founded to showcase and celebrate the artistry of Black and Brown LGBTQIIA+ performers. Joel Hall Dancers & Center stands as the embodiment of Joel’s life-long passion for creating, performing, and teaching dance artistry and technique.

HOUSE OF DOV

House of DOV is a movement-based performance ensemble led by Drew Lewis. Named after Benjamin Dov Lebowitz, Drew’s ancestor who immigrated from Russia in the early 1900s, the ensemble explores Drew’s own work and heritage while providing talented Chicago dancers with opportunities for paid work. Envisioning a dance field that celebrates diversity of genre, body-type, race and gender, their mission is to be a changemaker in the local dance conversation while engaging in global discourse through touring.

AYAKO KATO – ART UNION HUMANSCAPE

Sybil Shearer Fellowship at Ragdale – 2024
Through her creative nest, Ayako Kato/Art Union Humanscape, Ayako creates solos, ensemble pieces, and movement installations for traditional stages and site-specific locations in collaboration with live music, grounded on the principles of fūryū, Japanese for “wind flow,” cyclical transformation, and human motion in nature. Photo by Ricardo Adame

SHALAKA KULKARNI

Shalaka Kulkarni is an interdisciplinary dance artist. Trained in Indian Classical dances, she creates experiences that bridge the ancient and contemporary, uplifting marginalized voices.

GINGER KREBS

Ginger Krebs is a Chicago-based choreographer, performer, visual artist, and leader of collaborative ensemble performances, using precise, systematic choreography, dry humor, and perceptual disorientation to address forms of empire and colonization, surveillance technology and image-driven culture.

HELEN LEE

Helen Lee creates performances that weave movement, storytelling, video, plant medicine, taxidermy, installation and/or social practice that examine facets of trauma, racism, grief, joy, healing and meanings of home.  Photo by Kristie Kahns

COURTNEY MACKEDANZ

Courtney Mackedanz is a movement-based performance artist with a practice founded in conceptual dance, critical writing, and the creation of visual art objects.

JEAN WILDEST

Jean Wildest (they/he) straddles the lines between circus, dance, and burlesque in order to create heartfelt storytelling with engaging movement patterns. They come with a decade of experience, a global tour roster, and 4 full-length choreography credits to their name.

ROBYN MINEKO WILLIAMS

Robyn Mineko Williams is the founder and director of Robyn Mineko Williams and Artists which houses and shares a body of interdisciplinary performance created in collaboration with an evolving roster of dynamic artists and designers.

TRISHAWNA WOODS

Trishawna Woods is a dancer, event organizer, and emerging choreographer from southwest Detroit. From an early age, she felt a divine connection to music and her body, which sparked a purpose in her as a movement artist.

2023

KIMBERLY BARTOSIK – daela

New York City-based choreographer, performer, educator and writer Kimberly Bartosik creates viscerally provocative, ferociously intimate choreographic projects that illuminate the ephemeral nature of performance.  Photo by Maria Baranova

JAN BARTOSZEK – HEDWIG DANCES

As the founder and artistic director of Hedwig Dances, the Chicago-based contemporary dance company, Jan Bartoszek has choreographed over 70 dances that critics have described as “intelligent, accomplished, moving” — Chicago Tribune.  Photo by Eileen Ryan Photography

GOLDGRRL – CAROLYN CARNEY

CORINNE IMBERSKI

Corinne Imberski is a Chicago based dance performer, choreographer, improviser, and educator,  presenting solo and ensemble works for over thirty years at venues grand, small, and impromptu.

STEPHANIE MARTINEZ – PARA.MAR DANCE THEATRE

Sybil Shearer Fellowship at Ragdale – 2023
Chicago-based choreographer, Stephanie Martinez, moves her audiences along a journey guided by the kinetic momentum of her award-winning works with psychologically revelatory works that challenge the viewer’s notion of what’s possible.  Photo by Andrew Weeks Photography

MAYA ODIM

As a writer and dancer who choreographs from writing, the work Maya Odim shows is purposefully mounted in performance spaces that challenge occidental approaches to performance praxis.  Photo by Chris Elvira

GREER REED – CHICAGO HIGH SCHOOL FOR THE ARTS

As the head of the Dance Department of the Chicago High School for the Arts, Greer Reed’s dedication to young people is a driving force to enrich, empower and inspire.

2022

ASHWATY CHENNAT

DEEPLY ROOTED DANCE THEATER

Deeply Rooted Dance Theater reimagines and diversifies the aesthetics of contemporary dance by uniting modern, classical, American, and African-American traditions in dance and storytelling.

SILVITA DIAZ BROWN

Silvita Diaz Brown interlaces dance with acrobatics, sound, and spoken word and video to celebrate her Mexican heritage and to awaken insights about gender equality and female empowerment.

NON EDWARDS

Non Edwards dances to understand her body and what it represents, and as a skin for the audience to project onto. As a performer and a teacher, she explores the transmission of somatic experience between people.  Photo by Katie-Brennan

KHECARI – JULIE RAE ANTONICK, JONATHAN MEYER

IRENE HSIAO

Irene Hsiao is a dancer, writer, and multidisciplinary artist who creates performances in conversation with visual art in museums, galleries, and public spaces, including site-specific interaction with visual artworks and experimental engagement with arts institutions and the public.  Photo by Rachel Stor

CHRISTOPHER KNOWLTON

Christopher Knowlton is a transdisciplinary movement artist, scientist, dancemaker and engineer who uses emerging technologies to create augmented performance work that connects people to themselves, each other, and the world around them. Photo by William Frederking

MEIDA MCNEAL

Meida McNeal is Artistic and Managing Director of Honey Pot Performance, a woman-focused collaborative creative community committed to chronicling and interrogating Afro-diasporic feminist and unconventional subjectivities amidst the pressures of contemporary global life.

ZACHARY NICOL

Zachary Nicol is an artist and performer based in Chicago. Their performance and video work uses research in dance, movement, site, and image to unfold problems of representation and the performing body.

KINNARI VORA

Born and raised in India, Kinnari Vora shares stories of universal human conditions and emotions through movement, meditation, and theatrical practices rooted in Bharatanatyam (disciple of Sarmishtha Sarkar, India), various Indian folk dances and kalaripayattu martial arts.  Photo: www.jboehmphoto.com

TARA AISHA WILLIS

Working as a dancer, writer, and curator, Tara Willis holds a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from New York University and recently served as Lecturer in Theater and Performance Studies at University of Chicago (2022-24), and as Curator of Performance at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2017–2023).

NEJLA YATKIN

Sybil Shearer Fellowship at Ragdale – 2022
Chicago-based choreographer Nejla Yatkin travels around the globe inspiring empathic connection between people and their environments, creating solo and ensemble dances for stages and sites, collaborating on plays and film/video projects, and educating young artists.  Photo: Enki Andrews

2021

AYESHA JACO

Ayesha Jaco is a Chicago based Philanthropist, Educator and Choreographer. Ayesha is the founder and Artistic Director of Move Me Soul, an internationally traveled youth dance company headquartered on Chicago’s West Side.