Dance Alumni

Pamela Levy-Arauz (BFA) has performed with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet, the Claudia Gitelman Dance Theater, the Don Redlich Dance Company, and the Murray Louis and Nikolais Dance Company, in addition to various solo performances at international venues. She is a faculty member at Marymount Manhattan College in New York.

Gillian Beauchamp (BA) toured internationally as a company dancer and teacher for the Dance Theatre of Ireland. In her seven years as a member of Dance Alloy, Pittsburgh's professional modern dance company, she toured nationally and internationally and was a guest lecturer/artist in residence at several universities. She is currently pursuing premedical studies at the University of Pittsburgh.

Megan Byrne (BFA) is the lighting director for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company in New York. Other design credits include lighting for choreographer Paul Matteson at the American Dance Festival and various fashion show projects. Through the lighting design company jkld inc., she has worked on productions for Donna Karan, Ralph Lauren, and Giorgio Armani.

Trista (Redavid) Defilippis (BFA) traveled internationally with the Murray Louis and Nikolais Dance Company for seven years and served as rehearsal director in the artistic director's absence. She has performed original works by Claudia Gitelman, Don Redlich, Ronald K. Brown, Amy Pivar, Bill T. Jones, and Beverly Blossom. She recently began a company, R-2 Dance, with colleague Sarah Geroulo Rutledge.

Bethany Formica (BFA)
has performed with over 30 dance and theater companies. Currently she dances for Philadelphia’s Melanie Stewart Dance Theatre and co-directs the REACTIONARIES. She is an adjunct faculty member at Rowan University and teaches for the Philadelphia Dance Projects. Her work, New Slang— Everything Looks Perfect From Far Away, was just presented by the 2005 Philadelphia Live Arts Festival.

Kimberly Gibilisco (BFA) spent more than five years performing throughout the United States and Western Europe as a soloist in the work of Murray Louis and Nikolais Dance. While a member of the company, she performed reconstructed, seminal works of Nikolais and originated leading roles in Louis' new choreography. She is an assistant professor of dance at Shenandoah University in Winchester, Virginia.

Elizabeth Higgins (BFA) has toured and performed extensively. Several companies have commissioned her choreography, and she has performed with Murray Louis and Nikolais Dance Company, Don Redlich Dance Company, Dance Compass, Pick of the Crop Dance, Mark Jarecke Dance, Ramos Dance, and Soundance Repertory Company. She has her own company, Elizabeth Higgins Dance Theater, and is assistant professor of dance at Marymount Manhattan College in New York City.

Raquel Horsford (BA)
has performed in the internationally touring Off-Broadway show STOMP and HBO's Stomp Out Loud. She has also performed The Beat by Fractured Atlas with Alpha Omega Theatrical Dance Co. She has danced in many television, film, and stage productions and continues to perform, teach, and choreograph in Los Angeles.

Cleo Mack (BFA)
was selected by Dance Magazine as one of "25 to watch in 2002". As artistic director of Cleo Mack Dance Project, she has been granted by the New Jersey State Council for the Arts in 2003 and 2004 in continuing support and recognition of the high artistic merit of her work. She is currently a faculty member at the Purnell School in Pottersville, New Jersey.

Tamieca McCloud (BA)
has performed with several companies, including Pilobolus Dance Theater, Acrodanse Theatre, Terry Hollis, and Charles O. Anderson. She has also been choreographing and performing her own work, primarily in New York City, for more than a decade. Her company, Restless.Native.Dance, has had two seasons at the Joyce SoHo in New York City, with a third upcoming in spring 2006.

Lisa Race (BA) has directed her own touring company (Race Dance) in New York and has collaborated on duets with Ginger Gillespie, Tom Thayer, and Sondra Loring. While a member of New York's David Dorfman Dance, she received a Bessie Award. She has been involved in teaching and choreographing residencies at universities and professional companies all over the world.

Julia Ritter (BFA) is an associate professor of dance at Mason Gross. She has received a choreographic fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts as well as two prestigious Fulbright Awards. She is the founder and artistic director of Julia Ritter Performance Group, a nonprofit organization that performs nationally and internationally.

Dale Thompson (BA) has worked in modern dance for the past 30 years. She has been a featured member of the Nikolais Dance Theatre, touring extensively in North and South America, Europe, and the Far East. Since moving to the UK, she has taught at a variety of universities: Laban, Roehampton Institute, and University College Chichester. She was also on the faculty of the American Dance Festival, through which she was sponsored to teach in Quito, Ecuador.

 

We'd like to hear from you as well.  Please contact Renita Reichard at alumni@masongross.rutgers.edu with any request or question.  Due to staffing and website transitions, there will be a hiatus on alumni credit updates until fall 2008.