CONTEMPORARY; 9 AM - 11 AM

BIO:

Alexis Diggs is a 25-year-old independent artist based in Brooklyn, New York. She is a 2025 Wasatch Contemporary Dance Company Movers & Makers Fellow Jacob’s Pillow Ann & Weston Hicks Choreographic Fellow, Royal Conservatoire, The Hague, ChoreoComp choreographer, Eisenhower Dance Detroit NewDANCEfest Emerging Choreographer, Black Midwest Initiative fellow, Culture Works Artist Opportunity Grantee, and an Allegro Grant recipient. A former Doug Varone Devices choreographer and Sarasota Contemporary Dance Company Rising Choreographer.

Diggs has created and presented works in The Netherlands, Cleveland, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Detroit, New York City, Florida, and the greater Dayton area. Alexis’s commissions include works on Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Dancing Wheels Company, and Sarasota Contemporary Dance Company; her independent work has been presented at Culture Lab LIC’s ARISE Spring Dance Festival, Dance Bloc NYC at Dixon Place, Black Is.... Choreographer’s showcase, and is featured in Culture Lab LIC’s exhibit “Bodies in Motion”.

She is a Jacob’s Pillow 2023-2024 Curriculum In Motion Institute Cohort graduate, and has been featured on the teaching faculty for Brooklyn Ballet’s Elevate education and outreach program, Forza Dance, 6 Degrees Dance, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company II, International Association of Blacks in Dance on the 1 dance series, Ohio University Summer Dance, Ohio Dance Festival, Miami Valley Ballet Theater, Jeraldyne’s School of Dance, and others.

CLASS DESCRIPTION:

Contemporary Fusion focuses on blending technical and musical elements to promote dancers' adaptability, control, musicality, and artistry when approaching rigorous, rhythmic contemporary phrasework. It emphasizes an understanding that every body, mind, and spirit is unique and maintains the goal of nurturing a healthy, growing relationship between each artist and their craft.

GRAHAM; 11 AM - 1 PM

BIO:

Lili Tewes is a dancer based in New York and works as a performer, model, teacher, choreographer, and rehearsal director nationally and internationally. Originally from Hamburg, Germany, she graduated from the Martha Graham School under the artistic direction of Janet Eilber, where she danced principal roles in several of Graham's ballets, including "Woman in White" in Diversion of Angels and "Pioneer Woman" in Appalachian Spring. She danced for RIOULT Dance NY, Sensedance, CES Danceworks, CRDance Company, has performed works by Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, Pascal Rioult, Jacqulyn Buglisi, Virginie Mécène, Henning Rübsam, Caterina Rago, and collaborated on projects with Alastair Macaulay (former New York Times Chief Dance Critic), New York Theatre Ballet, Lydia Johnson Dance, and Buglisi Dance Theatre at Lincoln Center. Most recently, she performed at Carnegie Hall. Lili was the director of the modern dance department at TANZWERK School for Ballet and Movement, served as the rehearsal director for Sensedance, Finleigh Zack Dance, CES Danceworks, and vildwerk. where she worked with Christopher Wheeldon and Joshua Beamish among others.

Her work as a choreographer was featured at Tanztheater Wuppertal create, presented at the Martha Graham Studio Theater, and she was awarded a residency at K3 Center for Choreography at Kampnagel. In the USA, Lili taught at Peridance, 92Y Harkness Dance Center, New York Theatre Ballet School, Western Connecticut State University, was a teaching artist with the DanceREACH program, and has taught workshops and masterclasses across the globe. From the age of ten, she studied Hula under Kumu Hula Kalei'ulaokala Makekau to later join her company in Hawai'i and toured Europe and the USA. Lili was one of the dancers featured in the December Issue 2024 of US Vogue edited by Anna Wintour and Marc Jacobs, which was shot by Inez + Vinoodh.

CLASS DESCRIPTION:

Graham-based class with expressive, dynamic movement material to build strength, balance, stamina, focus, and work on technique, movement skills, and self-awareness as a performer. With a strong emphasis on movement from the core, connecting physicality and emotionality, allowing dancers to explore and own their individual voice, take chances, and work on exposing the depths of human emotion through movements.

JAZZ; 1 PM - 3 PM

BIO:

Cam Loeser is the Artistic Director of COLE JAZZ and its dance company The NEW Jack Cole Dancers, through which he has taught the Jack Cole Technique and led training programs across the world in New York, California, Tokyo, London, and Mexico. Cam is the Director and Choreographer for The NEW Jack Cole Dancers' CLUB ACT, and continues to create new work through his company in the style of Jack Cole.

Cam has served as Resident Director/Assistant Choreographer for the National Tour of CHICAGO, and the Associate Choreographer for the Broadway Revival of PIPPIN, which he re-constructed in Japan and Australia. Cam also served as Tour Choreographer for the National Tour of FINDING NEVERLAND in 2018/2019. Cam had the privilege of acting as the late Chet Walker’s Associate, working closely alongside Chet teaching and creating work across the globe up until his passing. Cam can be seen dancing for Chet in a Jack Cole segment for the HBO jazz documentary UPROOTED.

CLASS DESCRIPTION:

A Cole Jazz class offers a training space for dancers to explore the historic style of Jazz dance pioneer Jack Cole, as well as hone their artistry and develop a more mindful relationship with their body and technique. The class begins with an aerobic warmup that drops the dancer into their breath and sensations from the inside, charging and stretching the body for the work ahead. The class then moves into a center practice that enlist principals from Jack Cole’s Pilates informed floor progression, as well as dynamic standing technique and isolation exercises that challenge the dancer to access deeper functionality, mind-body connection, and expansion. We will then move into across the floor exercises and phrase work in the style of Jack Cole that explores dynamic musicality and rhythm, expression, motor skills, and the cultural styles and principles (African, Indian, Ballet, and Modern) that defined Cole’s idiom and American Jazz Dance.

The emphasis of this class is to offer the opportunity for dancers to build a foundational practice and a personal relationship with their craft. It is a space dedicated to helping artists broaden their knowledge and create a deeper understanding of their own bodies. Commitment to consistent training stretches our capacity to take on new, virtuosic work, and opens us up to endless possibilities and discoveries. Most importantly, this is a community space devoted to sharing in the joy of what we do as artists. Come dance!

IMPROVISATION; 3PM - 5PM

BIO:

From Los Angeles, Chloe Crenshaw is a choreographer based in New York. Upcoming commissions include new creations for Whim W’Him and BalletCollective, each set to premiere in the fall of 2025. In 2024, she was named a finalist for the Hannover International Choreographic Competition, a choreographic resident at Tanztendenz in Munich, and a recipient of the Eryc Taylor Dance New Choreographer Grant. Her work has been presented at Chelsea Factory, Asbury Park Dance Festival, the Martha Graham Studio Theater, and Triskelion Arts, and she has also choreographed for the NYU MFA Acting program’s First Year Performance Ensemble. As a performer, Chloe danced with GALLIM Dance Company under Andrea Miller as a company artist, and previously with Ballet BC under Medhi Walerski as an Emerging Artist. She has performed at venues including the Kennedy Center, New York City Center, the Joyce Theater, Lincoln Center, Grand Théâtre de Luxembourg, Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, Chelsea Factory, and REDCAT. Chloe also holds a BFA in Dance from the California Institute of the Arts and is a graduate of The HARID Conservatory.

Headshot by Hannah Mayfield

CLASS DESCRIPTION:

Our two-hour session together will focus on improvisation and movement generation. We’ll first move through an hour-long improvisational warm-up to synchronize the mind and body, emphasizing the development of physicality through imagination. The latter half of class will allow us to apply our improvisational findings to phrasing, encouraging artists to develop individuality within set material. 

CONTEMPORARY; 3PM - 5PM

BIO:

Gabe Katz (he/him) is a dancer, choreographer, educator, and director based in Brooklyn, New York. He has a BFA in dance from Marymount Manhattan College, and is also an alum of The School at Jacob’s Pillow, HSPro at Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, and Springboard Danse Montreal. Gabe has performed repertoire by choreographers such as Ohad Naharin, Hofesh Shechter, Maxine Doyle, Peter Chu, Sonya Tayeh, Jenn Freeman, Larry Keigwin, Akira Uchida, and Rena Butler, and has performed with NYC based dance companies MADBOOTS DANCE, Hivewild, and NVA & Guests. His commercial credits include Gap, Puma, Eartheater, Shygirl, Paul McCartney, and Ryan Heffington. He was featured in Akira Uchida’s film “Still” which made its premiere on NOWNESS in 2022. Gabe has taught and choreographed at dance institutions around the country, creating numerous live works as well as dance on film. Most recently, Katz premiered his film “MATTER” in collaboration with Miami Dance Collective, in 2025. He was also a performer and swing in the final years of Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More in NYC.

CLASS DESCRIPTION:

In class, dancers can expect to deepen their thinking just as much as their sensitivity. We will begin with a guided improvisation with roots in somatics and anatomy built to help focus our thoughts, heighten our sensations, and broaden our physical potentials for movement. We will wrap up this improvisation with a brief conversation and reflection, giving us a chance to verbalize our physical experience. This moment of discussion is not only designed to inform my practice as an educator, but offer a chance for dancers to share what they would otherwise leave unexpressed. Perhaps releasing an undeveloped thought allows fellow dancers to empathize, express their own thoughts, and even shift the energy and sense of community of the space.

Next, we will continue into a movement phrase based in various contemporary techniques that not only incorporates ideas from our guided improvisation, but correlates our daily human selves to who we are in a dance space. We will explore the spectrum of our strengths and weaknesses, our range of textures and qualities, and surprise our own expectations. Practicing patience, listening, and belief in our imagination, let’s dance!