We are actively seeking new Board members and volunteers. If you believe in what we do, and can dedicate some volunteer time to our numerous activities, please contact us!
Jen Graham
President
Jen Graham is a movement analyst, dance artist, and educator with a commitment to creating inclusive spaces through innovative and sometimes unconventional approaches. Believing that movement experience and conscious embodiment is the key to developing a strong sense of personal identity, connection with others, and holistic world-view, she embraces experimentation, investigation, and collaboration to cultivate personal agency, creative choice-making, expression, and depth of theoretical understanding. Her dances play in the space that lives between narrative and abstraction – deeply rooted in the intersection of Improvisational, Modern, and Rhythm Jazz Dance Techniques, guided by the clarity and sensibility of the Laban/Bartenieff Movement System – stirring the inner impulses of the human experience.
Brienne Garland
Vice President
Growing up in the world of dance, Brienne was privileged to receive many scholarships for the gifted and talented to the Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts in Annapolis. At MD Hall she was able to study under the direction of Barbara Easter, Bobbie Smith, and the Ballet Theatre of Annapolis (Currently the BTM). As the years have gone by, she has enjoyed learning from dance greats such as Joe Tremaine, Rhee & Rennie Gold, Frank Hatchett, Mandy Moore, Greg Russell, Bob Rizzo, Doug Caldwell, and Denise Wall. Inspired by the passion of some of her own teachers, she knew she wanted to also teach dance.
Barclay Gibbs
Secretary
Barclay Gibbs is the Artistic Director of Ballet Chesapeake and the Owner and Artistic Director of the Dance Conservatory of Maryland (DCM). Barclay received her early dance training at the Peabody Preparatory, Towson University’s Children’s Dance Division, and the Baltimore School for the Arts. As part of her training in the Royal Academy of Dance syllabus, Barclay completed both the Advanced Ballet and Solo Seal RAD examinations. Click for full bio
Reggie Cole
Reggie Cole has been active in the D.C. dance community for 20 years. He has danced locally and internationally with CityDance Ensemble, Company E, Contradiction Dance and the Metro DC Dance Award-winning Edgeworks Dance Theater. He is trained in Modern technique, Jazz, West African dance, and Ballet. In 1996, he became a founding member of CityDance Ensemble. With CityDance, he choreographed and performed for the Early Arts Outreach program in Nebraska, Philadelphia and all over the Washington, DC area. As a company member, he toured Russia, Lithuania, Poland and performed several times at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Click for full bio
Shari Smigo
Executive Director
Shari Smigo has been owner/director of The Mid Shore Dance Academy in Easton, MD since 1996 and is thrilled to have expanded to an additional studio location in Centreville, MD in 2013. She began her dance training with local eastern shore dance studios and continued her training through summer intensive programs in the RAD (Royal Academy of Dance) ballet exam syllabus at the School of the Baltimore Ballet and Peabody. Double majoring in Psychology and Dance, she attended Jacksonville University and completed her studies at Ohio University, graduating Summa Cum Laude. Click for full bio