2007-2008 Company Dancers

Lavinia Reid 

Guest Choreographer.  Danced with the Rainbow Arts Co., Saga Ambegaoker and Dancers, and others.  Studied at the Boston School or Ballet with Tatiana Baboushkina, Boston Conservatory, American Ballet Cent, Ballet Center of Ithaca, and Village.  Choreographer and costume designer for companies in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Texas, and the District of Columbia.  Awarded scholarship to National Craft of Choreography Conference and a residency at the Carlisle Project, funded by the Ford Foundation.  Former faculty member, Ballet Center of Ithaca and the Seneca School of Ballet (Dundee, NY).  Currently artistic director of the Chambersburg Youth Ballet in Pennsylvania and teaches ballet at Willson College in Shippensburg.

Johann Studier 

Resident Guest Dancer.  Born in Naples Italy.  Ballet training from the Houston Ballet, San Francisco Ballet School, Marin Ballet School, and Marin Ballet Company.  Danced for three seasons with the Houston Ballet under Director Ben Stevenson.  Danced with the Ithaca Ballet since 2003 in a variety of roles including the Cavalier in The Nutcracker.  Mr. Studier also teaches the Men and Boys class at the Ballet Center of Ithaca.

Byron Suber

Guest Choreographer Byron Suber is originally from New Orleans, LA, and moved to Ithaca in 1991 after ten years of living and working in New York City. His work there included choreography, music, theatre, costume design and performance art. His pieces have been shown at La MAMA Inc., Performance Space 122, the Kitchen, DANSPACE and the American Dance Festival. He has received grants and awards from the Harkness Foundation, Art Matters Inc., New York Foundation for the Arts and the Cornell Council for the Arts. He has taught at the American Dance Festival, Dance Space, Steps. Since coming to Cornell he has continued to create work in dance and theatre as well as entering the realm of digital media for instance in collaboration with
professors and students from MIT on a pair of digitally wired sneakers
that produced music when the dancer moved. At Cornell, Suber teaches ballet and modern technique, dance history and criticism, dance composition, and digital media. He has set three works on the Ithaca Ballet, Bach Solo Cello Suite #1, Pulcinella and Dvorak Piano Quintet. He teaches a interdisciplinary summer program in Europe that
combines dance studies with theatre studies, film studies and history
of architecture and urban studies. At present he is completing a M.A/Ph. D in the History of Architecture and Urbanism at Cornell. In this work, in looking for a site for study where the moving (or immobile) body is inescapably bound to architecture, his present project titled, The Poetics of Incarceration, considers the ways in which prison space
behaves as a persistent metaphor while engaging the body as a specific form of cultural production. This requires an exploration of how the body and carceral environment intersect with urban space, domestic space and theatrical space, specifically in the sphere of cinematic expression. Continuing into his dissertation, he will
explore how non-white bodies have been used juxtaposed to modern
architecture in American, Italian and French films of the post-war period. He is also working on a textbook titled Identity and Ideology in Classical Ballet. This text considers the history of western classical dance as it both perpetuated and confronted western ideology
in the realms of race, class, gender and sexuality.

Nadia Drake

BA Cornell 2002 Biology, Psychology, Dance
PhD Candidate in Genetics and Development
Principal since 2004

Nadia Drake grew up in Santa Cruz, California, where she received her early training with Santa Cruz Ballet Theatre and performed principal roles with the company.  She trained on scholarship at the San Francisco Ballet School , and also attended summer programs at the Pennsylvania Ballet and Washington Ballet schools.  As an undergraduate, Nadia choreoraphed and performed with the Cornell Dance Program.  Nadia danced as a guest artist with the Baltimore Ballet in 2003-2004, performing such roles as the Sugar Plum Fairy (The Nutcracker) and Odette ( Swan Lake ), before returning to Cornell as a graduate student in Genetics and Development.

Nadia has danced as a principal dancer with the Ithaca Ballet since 2004. Selected roles include Sugar Plum Fairy, Dewdrop, Snow Queen, and Coffee (The Nutcracker); Juliet (Romeo and Juliet); Titania (A Midsummer Nights Dream); the Cat (Peter and the Wolf); Swans and Kangaroos (Carnival of the Animals); Cheshire Cat (Alice in Wonderland); Gamzatti (La Bayadere); Autumn Fairy (Cinderella); and various repertory pieces including Boyceball, Wintersong, Tiny Bubbles, and Promenade by Larry Brantley, and Bach Solo Cello #1 circa 1989 by Byron Suber.  Nadia also danced with Byron Suber in 2005, and their work was featured as part of that year's "Light in Winter" festival.

Emma Fitzpatrick

Ithaca High School , Class of 2010

Born in  San Diego , California , Emma is currently a sophomore at Ithaca High School . Her roles included Marzipan, Ballerina Doll, Snow, and Waltz in The Nutcracker. She also performed in La Bayadere, Romeo and Juliet, and A Midsummer Night's Dream. Emma danced in the modern All-Brantley Show during the 2007 Winter Repertory. Her summer programs include Ithaca Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, and Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet Summer Intensive.

Nora DeMott Grady

Born in Ithaca, NY Nora has danced at Ithaca Ballet
since the age of six. She has attended Ithaca Ballet
summer camp for the past four years and has been part
of the company for three. Some of the ballets Nora has
performed in are: A Midsummer Nights Dream, The
Nutcracker, La Bayadere, Tilyou's Revenge and Raymonda.

Julia Hellmich

Cornell University 2011

This is Julia's first year with the Ithaca Ballet.  Julia trained at the Logrea Dance Academy with Beth Fritz Logrea and Jean Logrea in ossining, NY.  She has danced roles such as the Snow soloist, Dew Drop Fairy, and the Spanish variation in The Nutcracker, the Lilac Fairy variation from Sleeping Beauty, Prelude from Les Sylphides, and the Sylph in Graduation Ball.  She has recieved several dance sholarships from the Westchester Ballet Company and this year participated in the Youth America Grand Prix.  Summer study includes the Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet, The Rock School, and the Joffrey Summer Program.

Teresa Lynn

Ithaca High School 2008

Born in Columbia, MO.  Honor student in the New Visions Health Science program at Ithaca High School. Teresa has studied ballet for 15 years.  Previous roles include Chocolate,and demi-soloist in snow and waltz in the Nutcracker, the countess in Cinderella, and Helena in a Midsummer Night's Dream.  Summer study at the Ithaca Ballet, Ballet Met, Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet, and the Rock School

Rosie G. Sayvetz

Born in Ithaca, NY.  Rosie has been studying with the Ithaca Ballet since age six and has been dancing with the company for two years.  Past roles include the Moth Fairy in A Midsummer Night's Dream and Harlequin Doll and Candy Cane in The Nutcracker.  Summer study includes the Ithaca Ballet and Ballet Academy East.

Marielena Sosa

Homer High School, Class of 2008

Born in Cortland, New York, Marielena is a senior and an honors student at Homer High School.  She has been dancing since the age of five and has been with the company for three years.  In the summer of 2007, she attended American Repertory Ballet’s Princeton Ballet School.  Roles include: Tea in Nutcracker, Maid of Honor in Aurora’s Wedding, Lady of the Court in Cinderella, as well as La Bayadere, Bolero, and Byron Suber’s Bach Cello Suite. 

Ana Steen

Ithaca High School 2009

Born in Karlsruhe, Germany.  Honor student at Ithaca High School.  Previous roles include Snow and Waltz in Nutcracker and attendance in Cinderella.  Summer study at the Ithaca Ballet, and the Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet.

Katie Taylor

Ithaca High School 2011

Born in Philadelphia, PA where she lived for 5 years before moving to Ithaca and beginning ballet classes at The Ballet Guild of Ithaca. Katie has danced numerous roles in the Nutcracker; such as Clara, demi-soloist Tea, Waltz of the Flowers Corp, 2nd Corp Snow and the Rag Doll. She has been in excerpts from La Bayadere, Raymonda and Paquita, and has been in Cinderella, The Pied Piper, Romeo and Juliet and performed the role of Peter in Peter and the Wolf. During the summer Katie has attended American Ballet Theater Detroit, Chautauqua Ballet Institution and Ithaca Ballet. Katie lives with her mom, dad, older sister and three cats and is now a freshman at Ithaca High School.