Choreographers, Collaborators and Performers biographies

Choreographers/Performers Biographies

Alix Schillaci (she/they) is a choreographer, director, and producer loose in the city. Her recent work includes performances in Alex Grelle’s Lady Di and the burlesque parody Twilight: After Dark; production support for Erin Kilmurray’s Nightshade and The Function; the premiere of work-in-progress Trash Babylon at Epiphany Center for the Arts; and regular performances in Ordinary Peepholes. Schillaci is currently a performer, producer, and resident choreographer with LOUD BODIES, having previously performed with Project Bound Dance and for dancemakers Darling Shear, Erin Kilmurray, and Sarah Ellen Miller; as well as an ensemble member for The Fly Honey Show. She has been chosen as a 2024 New Dances Choreographer. Outside of dance, Schillaci does production design for theater, film, and commercials, and is the co-founder of Bloofer Girl Puppets. Keep up with Alix @onewomandisco.

Ashaand Simone (they/ he) dreams through movement. Originally from Seattle, where they were raised by Pacific Northwest Ballet School and Spectrum Dance Theater, he was thrilled to be adopted into Chicago’s Dance Scene in 2017. Ashaand can be seen regularly with Ishti Collective and Mandala South Asian Performing Arts. Other favorite credits include work with Nick Cave, Ashwaty Chennat, Yes Ma’am Circus, Joel Hall Dancers, The Laws Group, Two Penguins Productions, Abhijeet, Alix Schillaci, The Fly Honey Show, Haven Theatre, Jarrett Rashad, Kim Brandt, and Jess Martin. Ashaand was a cofounder of Such Creatures, and a proud scholarship recipient to Dance/USA’s 2023 Conference and BODYTRAFFIC’s 2024 Winter Intensive. You may recognize their name from features in Art Intercepts, Dance Business Weekly, or the finalist page of Chicago Reader’s Best of Chicago, where they were nominated for Best Dancer. For more, you can visit him on Instagram @ashaandti.

Blake Campbell (she/her) was born in Elkhart, Indiana. At age 16, Blake got her G.E.D. and moved to Chicago to pursue contemporary dance training with COMMON Conservatory. In the past 4 years, Blake has performed works by choreographers: Terence Marling, Katlin Michael Bourgeois, Alysia Johnson, Ethan Kirschbaum, Robyn Mineko Willams, Meredith Dincolo, Jackie Nowicki, and many more. Blake had the honor of being cast in New Dances 2023 in collaboration with DanceWorks Chicago. Along with dancing, Blake is passionate about writing poetry and has won a few poetry competitions.

Bran (they/them) is a multi-disciplinary artist in Chicago. They designed the original production of "Sunsets That Way" at Links Hall in 2022. Elsewhere, they have designed productions with Lingua Ignota, La Lom, Erin Kilmurray, John Cicora, Jackalope, El Bear, the Grant Park Music Festival, and more. More recently, they served as Sound Designer for the award-winning new play ‘The Wizards.’  They have served as Technical Director / Production Manager for The Fly Honeys, The Physical Festival, Chicago Int’l Puppet Fest, Destinos Fest, Davenport’s Piano Bar & Cabaret, Jackalope Theatre, and First Floor Theatre, to name a few. As a vocalist and performer, they have appeared in hundreds of productions in Chicagoland over the past decade, including shows with/at The Fly Honeys, The Chicago Int’l Puppet Fest, The Paramount Theatre in Aurora, Drury Lane Oakbrook, The Chopin Theatre, The Hideout, The Den, and The Inconvenience. They currently work as the Production Manager for Thalia Hall in Pilsen.

Emily Loar (she/they) is a dance artist and improviser living in Chicago, IL. A BFA graduate from Columbia College Chicago, Loar has presented original and commissioned dance work across the midwest, and has performed with dancemakers and choreographers including Peter Carpenter, Lydia Feuerhelm, Kasey Foster, Erin Kilmurray, Jonathan Meyer and Julia Rae Antonick of the dance company Khecari, and Kinnari Vora / Ishti Collective. Loar is among the first cohort of teachers certified as an Essential Level Teacher of Spiral Body Techniques™, the dance and movement framework developed by choreographer Molly Shanahan. Emily Loar is a founding member of Project Bound Dance and current Co-Artistic Director alongside collaborator Ashley Deran.

Katie has been dancing and performing from the first moment she could move to music. Lighting up the stage with electric energy and grace, Katie will enchant you no matter what the act. She received her BA in Dance Performance from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and set out to make all her artistic and choreographic dreams come true. When she was introduced to the cyr wheel, she found a new joy in merging her passion in dance with the wheel. Katie plans on continuing this exploration and many others as she creates new work for the stage. Katie also loves to expand the reach and method of her art with videography. She has filmed and edited her own projects and celebrates what the camera brings to a corporeal art form such as dance. When not in the spotlight, Katie enjoys passing on the love of dance and circus to others by teaching.

Leana G. Welker (she/they) is a Druid and multidisciplinary artist from the small town of Perryville, MO. A force of nature raised in the Riverlands, where the currents hold secrets for all who wade the waters, earning a BFA in Dance in 2015 from Southeast Missouri State University before embarking on the next chapter of life. Dancing across Chicago and St. Louis, the country, and internationally in her time since graduating. She has danced for and worked with Chicago artists such as the Fly Honey Show, Giordano Dance Chicago, Alex Grelley, We Are Collective, the Wolf Pack, and Alix Schillaci. Her passion for learning, understanding, and incorporating ancient knowledge into modern day life has taken her far and wide and across many different landscapes. On the days you encounter this elusive figure, you can find her dancing, writing music for her upcoming music project, gardening, and practicing the art of tattooing, or you may run into her out on the hiking trails, singing with the birds and conversing with the wildlife. In all that she does, Leana works to build and foster community in ceremony with others and remind others that the community of nature is just as important and vital to our lives as our interpersonal communities. 

Maddy McCarthy (she/they) is a Chicago-based producer, choreographer, and dancer with a BFA in Contemporary Concert Dance from Indiana University, where she had the privilege of dancing for Twyla Tharp, Bill T. Jones, and Stefanie Batten-Bland, as well as producing and choreographing her own shows. Since graduating, she’s performed with many Chicago dance companies and independent artists throughout her career, including LOUDBODIES Dance, Peckish Rhodes Performing Arts Society, Alix Schillaci, Kaleigh Dent, and Jasmin Taylor. She's becoming increasingly interested in using movement to explore sensuality and build a stronger connection with the self, which has led her to finding her dance bliss in showgirl and burlesque projects. She currently has the pleasure and privilege of performing with, choreographing for, and serving on the board of LOUDBODIES Dance under artistic director Maria Blanco, performing with the Hail Marys showgirl group led by artistic director Rachael Leek, and co-producing/writing/performing for Twilight: After Dark - a Burlesque Parody alongside Virginia VanLieshout.

Madison Meade (she/her) is a modern/contemporary dancer with a BFA in dance and a minor in theatre from the University of Kansas. Her screen-dance Stasis was included in the digitally presented Kansas Screen-Dance Festival in 2021 and her most recent work Cascade Failure was shown in Echo's "Reverb III". She is currently dancing in Chicago, Illinois with Darvin Dances and Echo Modern Dance Collective. Recently, she has performed in the “Simantikos Choreo Kick Off 23”, Darvin Dances’ “Inclined to Decline”, Matter Dance Company’s “Aligned”, Echo Modern Dance Collective’s “Reverb III”, and “Common Ground” at the Rooted Space. In addition to performing and choreographing, she is a ballroom dance instructor at Duet Dance Studio.

Mandy Milligan (she/her) graduated from the University of Cincinnati Summa Cum Laude with a BFA in Ballet performance in 2014. She received additional training at the Graham School for Contemporary Dance, Beijing Dance Academy, Dance Works Chicago, Interlochen Center for the Arts, San Francisco Conservatory of Dance, and Perry-Mansfield. She has danced with Winifred Haun and Dancers since 2017 and was recently promoted to Assistant Choreographer in 2020. She has worked with companies from all over the midwest such as Mamluft & Co., Dance Kaleidoscope, Simantikos Dance, Cocodaco Dance Company, and Kanopy Dance Company. Mandy specializes in Contemporary Graham technique and has been mentored and trained by Deb Goodman, Winifred Haun, David Hochoy, Lone Kjear Larson, Virginie Mecine, Liberty Harris, and Lisa Thurell. She is also the rehearsal director for Darvin Dances

Maria Blanco is a dancer, choreographer, and educator from Bloomfield Hills, MI. She enjoys combining social dance with her modern/contemporary training to push the boundaries of dance, what it means to be a dancer, and who can dance. She is on a constant journey to explore how improvisation can be used as a tool for both dancers and non-movers, changing the narrative of where dance is accessible, and who it is accessible to. She finds herself inspired and driven by pop culture, multi-generational, varying genres of music and collaboration with others. Maria received her B.A. in dance and sociology from Loyola University Chicago in May of 2018. Following college, she founded LOUD BODIES Dance, a non-profit dance organization that combines dance, activism, and unapologetic self-expression, in addition to collaboration with local mutual aid + non-profit organizations and local, multi-media artists. Maria presented her works at the American College Dance Association, Loyola University Chicago, The Greenhouse Theatre, Links Hall, The Athenaeum Theatre, The Hamlin Park Fieldhouse in collaboration with Synapse Arts, and Momenta Dance Company. She performed with Erin Kilmurray’s cast of “Search Party” at the 2019 Pivot Arts Festival, as Graffiti Pete in Visión Latino Theatre’s production of “In The Heights”, “Hatorade Retrograde”, a musical by Lise Haller Baggeson, and danced in the Fly Honey Show since 2018. Additionally, Maria worked as a teaching artist with Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble, Chicago Public Schools and The Old Town School of Folk Music. In 2023, Maria associate choreographed “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” at the Paramount Theatre and produced a sustainable, dance fashion show at the Epiphany Center for the Arts. Maria currently teaches DanceChurch classes at the Color Club Chicago.

Mariah Eastman (she/her) holds a BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in Dance and Choreography. In 2021 she created Café Cortado which explored caffeination culture and highlighted two local Chicago coffee shops through prerecorded interviews, dance film and livestream dance. She is the creator of the Holiday Dance Carol, an annual Chicago holiday tradition. In 2022 she presented Navigating the After, a performance exploring recovery after sexual assault using live dance and audio interviews from survivors. She started her own company “Darvin Dances” in 2023. Since January 2023 Darvin Dances has performed in multiple productions including the following; First Draft produced by Winifred Haun & Dancers, Breaking the Silence Café produced by Resilience Chicago, Common Ground produced by The Rooted Space, On the Move produced by See Chicago Dance as well as their inaugural production of “Inclined to Decline”. Eastman has also toured her work in New York City, Baltimore, Marthas Vineyard and Richmond (VA). She is the creator of the Chicago Dancer Pay Transparency Project under the Darvin Dances umbrella.

Peyton Jones (she/her) is a dance artist and teacher in Chicago. She earned her BFA from Cornish College of the Arts in 2020, with a focus on choreography and composition. She teaches early childhood and elementary level dance classes across Chicago. She is a dancer with Darvin Dances and Fever Dream Dance Collective. Her own choreographic works have been presented in Seattle and Chicago, holding intentionality and abstractions of her experiences. Peyton strives to place humanity and empathy at the forefront of her teaching, performance, and choreography.

Sarah Ellen Miller (she/they) is a choreographer, performer, writer, and bartender based in Chicago. Short list of performance credits with local choreographers include Erin Kilmurray, Joanna Furnans, Alix Schillaci, and Zac Whittenberg, but she’s been honored to work with many others. Her career in Chicago can be highlighted by contributions to variety/bar shows such as Ordinary Peepholes and Grelley Duvall with Alex Grelle and community, participation in The Fly Honey Show, multiple personally produced dance films, and her directorial debut for Prop Thtr’s Rhinoceros Theater Festival. In 2023, Sarah performed in Floor Show directed by Jesse Morgan Young and Kilmurray’s Nightshade, worked with Remy Bumppo as a movement designer, and produced/choreographed for the most recent Loud Bodies Dance show LBxEndurance. Most recently, Sarah worked as a choreographer, performer and captain for Grelley Duvall 4, and  as a performer/thought partner for Alix Schillaci’s Trash Babylon. If you want to see Sarah kick-ass at her other career, visit her at Logan 11 Bar & Kitchen. Follow her on social: @sarahellenmiller

Reign Drop is a trans dancer, choreographer, and Co-Founder of We Are Collective. Over the last seven years, they have grown roots in the Chicago dance community focusing on creating sustainable and accessible dance spaces for all ages. They research contemporary movements that demonstrate autonomy, liberation, and connection. In the community, they have led an Improvisers’ Jam for Chicago Dancemakers Forum, performed for Alix Schillaci and Erin Kilmurray, presented work at j e l l o dances, created work for Synapse Arts New Works, and have choreographed for New Dances and the iconic Chicago drag queen Shea Coulee’s "Rewind" music video. Their newest role includes being Dance Captain for Queer Dance Freakout, the largest trans dance organization in Chicago which aids them in their mission to be heard—to share their story—to honor the stories of all magical trans people.