Playing till the work emerges . . . . dedicated to the process

Hannah Mayer - Summer Intern 2008

Hannah first heard of the internship program at Halestone when she came to an open dress rehearsal for the fall 2007 CDCT performance during her winter break.  Hannah was searching for internship opportunities, as completion of an internship is required for her Women’s Studies major.  The opportunity described by Nancy Saylor in between dances at that performance sounded like the perfect thing for Hannah, who had been enduring extended periods of panic about how she could incorporate dance into her post-college life.  As a means of addressing this dilemma, she is seeking to construct her Women’s Studies Senior Project (scheduled for fall semester, 2008) around dance, particularly using choreographic methods that she first learned from Nancy Saylor at Halestone.  Hannah is excited to be spending the summer working with Nancy Saylor and others on the nourishing the visions and sorting out the logistics that are required to create dance as a notably expressive art-form for a large variety of dancers and audiences.

At Bennington, Ava’s focus in dance moved towards complex forms of improvisation and developing her own choreographic and movement styles.  Her Bennington performance credits include over a dozen student and professor works.  Ava has been part of a Meredith Monk performance project directed by Tom Bogdan, Bennington professor and member of the Meredith Monk Ensemble.  She has created six original pieces of choreography, including an interpretation of Igor Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring” with pianist John Blum, MFA '07. 

Ava worked with a wide array of other professional artists previous to the two consecutive winters that she interned at Halestone to fulfill her fieldwork term requirements. She performed at Danspace Project as part of their Draftwork/Academy Dances performance series and participated in the 2005 D.U.M.B.O. Dance Festival in Brooklyn, NY.  Additionally, she worked as an administrative intern for Movement Research in New York City and taught dance and yoga at Kingsley Pines, a summer camp located in the Sebago lakes region in Maine. 

Although Ava loves to move her body she also loves to study it. Since then she has completed her 200-hour yoga teacher certification through Yoga Works and aspires to become a certified Anusara yoga teacher.  In September 2007, Ava began earning Masters degree at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Education in the Masters in Teaching Dance K-12 graduate program.

Even Rogers - Intern 2007 through 2010

Ava Heller - Winter Intern 2006 and 2007

Ava Rose Heller was born in New York City where she began her dance training at the Peridance Center.  Following this, Ava attended the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and the Performing Arts.  There she studied ballet, Martha Graham technique, and the beginnings of dance composition.  In 2002 as part of the “July At Bennington” college immersion program for high school students, Ava studied a variety of improvisational forms, which forever changed her understanding of how dance is defined and created.  After graduating from high school in 2003, Ava enrolled at Bennington College. 

Even Rogers is an intern at Halestone Dance Studio and a Second Classmen at the Virginia Military Institute. He is an English major with minors in Writing and Fine Arts. Even began dancing in 2003 while living in Denver, Colorado, taking East Coast Swing classes from Dan Newsome and Tiffany Wine. After falling in love with the art form, Even branched out to learn the Charleston, Collegiate Shag, and the Lindy Hop, the grandfather of Swing, created in Harlem in the 1920s. While dancing at the Mercury Café in Denver, he joined the dance team Charleston Chasers and began dancing several nights a week and competing, often instead of attending class.

After Charleston Chasers, Even joined the troupe Atomic Rhythm briefly but was interrupted by attending VMI. In the past 5 years, Even has travelled to California, Nebraska, Washington DC, Georgia, Washington, and Virginia to work under the best Swing dancers in the country. Even has won several competitions including “Strictly Lindy” and “Jack and Jill.” Even brings with him the benefit of a lively Swing scene and a knowledge of Jazz-era music, combined with a passion for dance.

Hannah Mayer is a native of Virginia, raised in Lexington, who is a rising senior at Earlham college in Richmond, Indiana, focusing on women's studies, language, and religion. Dance has long been an important part of Hannah's spiritual, mental, and physical wellbeing; she took classes at Halestone Dance Studio for eight years and participated in The Community Dance Connection Theatre for two years prior to leaving the area. She continues her dance training at Earlham, taking modern dance classes and participating in a student-run dance and choreography club. Hannah's life at Earlham offers her plenty of other occupations as well - she coptains teh women's ultimate frisbee team, works with student government, and works for Earlham's Wilderness Department in the rock-climbing wall.

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