Regional Dance America presents the 62nd National Choreography Intensive
to provide a one-of-a-kind experience for choreographers to explore the craft of choreography and for dancers to study in a variety of dance styles and with diverse choreographers.
RDA’s National Choreography Intensive (NCI) is a multifaceted program, providing dancers, emerging choreographers, and seasoned choreographers the unparalleled opportunity to work, study, and create under the guidance of nationally recognized professionals in the fields of dance and music. The 62nd NCI will take place at Wright State University’s Creative Arts Center.
A native of Indianapolis Indiana, Devin Baker began his dance journey with a community-based youth performance ensemble named Iibada. He’s studied with Milton Myers, Ana Marie Forsythe, and Baba Chuck Davis. He credits the start of his performance career to Dr. Elana D. Anderson, Kevin “Iega” Jeff and Gary Abbott with Deeply Rooted Dance Theater. Devin has danced as a soloist for Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble, Deeply Rooted Dance Theater, and Dayton Contemporary Dance Company (DCDC). As a rehearsal director for DCDC, he has developed an interest towards sharing his performance experience through teaching. Devin has had the pleasure of teaching both internationally and nationally as a guest teaching artist at International Associations of Black in Dance (IABD), Shanghai Dance Stages, Ohio State University, Alabama State University, and Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Academy.
Born in Charleston, South Carolina, Sarah Hairston Berkley began her early ballet training at Charleston Ballet Theatre. At the age of 9, she continued her training in Columbia, South Carolina under the direction of Ann Brodie at the Calvert Brodie School of Dance and later went on to graduate from North Carolina School of the Arts. Upon graduation, Ms. Hairston Berkley joined Boston Ballet II where she danced for a year and in 2001 she joined Cincinnati Ballet as a Corps de Ballet member. Ms. Hairston Berkley was promoted to Soloist in 2006 and later to Principal in 2010 after a successful debut as Princess Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty. Throughout her performance career, she held featured roles in the breadth of classical repertoire including Myrtha and Giselle in Giselle, Odette/Odile in Swan Lake, the Lilac Fairy, Carabosse and Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty, Snow Queen and the Sugarplum Fairy in The Nutcracker and Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, among others. In addition to the classics, Ms. Hairston Berkley’s Balanchine repertoire includes the Siren in Prodigal Son, the Second Movement in Symphony in C, Emeralds in Jewels, Dark Angel in Serenade and “The Man I Love” in Who Cares?. Ms. Hairston Berkley has also performed in work by such notable choreographers as Adam Hougland, Luca Vegetti, Jessica Lang, Amy Seiwert, Val Caniparoli and Yuri Possokhov. She danced with Cincinnati Opera for many seasons and choreographed their production of Die Fledermaus in 2016. Since 2006, Ms. Hairston Berkley has been an instructor in Cincinnati Ballet’s Otto M. Budig Academy and was promoted to the role of Academy Director for the 2016-2017 Season.
Debbie Blunden-Diggs became Artistic Director for Dayton Contemporary Dance Company (DCDC) in 2007. In 2019, she was named Chief Artistic & Producing Director. For over 20 years she performed with the company appearing in most of the company’s repertoire. Before becoming Artistic Director, she served as the company’s Associate Artistic Director, Deputy Director for Arts and Operations, and Resident Choreographer. In addition to her choreographic and artistic leadership, Ms. BlundenDiggs is the Executive Director of Jeraldyne’s School of the Dance, the cornerstone to Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, and she works closely with DCDC’s pre-professional company, DCDC2. She has created works for the company, which have become part of the company’s artistic blueprint. Her notable works include Configurations, Kaleidoscope, Fragments, In My Father’s House and Traffic. Her first piece Variations in Blue, composed when she was seventeen, was submitted as an entry in the Young Choreographers Showcase and selected for inclusion in the National Choreographic Plan. She has contributed an impressive body of work including No Room, No Place, No Where for which she received a Monticello Award in 1982. In May 2002, she adjudicated the Regional Dance America Northeast Competitions. Ms. Blunden-Diggs was Co-Director/Choreographer for The Human Race Theatre’s production of Crowns, as well as Director/Choreographer for Central State University’s original production of In The Pursuit of Wind among others. She created ballets for and worked with students at University of Dayton, Sinclair Community College, Wright State University, Central State University, South Dayton Dance Theatre, and Stivers School for the Arts. She served on the Board of Directors for The International Association of Blacks in Dance from 2000-2006. She has received numerous awards and accolades. Among them are honors from Regional Dance America, Monticello Choreographic Fellowships in 1979 and 1980, and two Individual Fellowship Awards from the Ohio Arts Council in 1981 and 1984. She received the Black History Month Congressional Award for Community Service by Congressman Mike Turner (OH-10) in recognition of 40 years serving the community through dance and dance education. The Fisk University Alumni Association honored her with an Excellence in Artistry Award, and she was awarded a Montgomery County Arts and Cultural District Master Fellowship for artistic excellence and community outreach initiatives in 2000. In 2014, she received the Image of Hope Youth Advocacy Award for her contributions to improve the lives of youth in the Greater Dayton area. Ms. Blunden-Diggs is an adjunct professor at University of Dayton in the Theatre, Dance, and Performance Technology Program, and serves on numerous boards: membership chair of the International Blacks in Dance Association (IABD), Secretary for the national Board of Trustees of Dance/USA since 2020, and the Seedling Foundation Board for Stivers School for the Arts.
Julius Eclypse Jenkins is a street style dance professional and has been engaged in the street dance world for 20yrs. His training has taken him across the world teaching and performing. While his primary focus is Robotic animation, he has a working knowledge of the most popular street dances of Hip-Hop, Breaking, Popping, Locking, House and Krump. Eclypse has performed with a variety of artists like Krs- One, Mr.Carmack, Lupe Fiasco, Herobust, Flux Pavilion and many others. He is the founder of Heroes Rise Street Dance Academy Cincinnati Ohio’s first Street Dance Academy program. He is also a teaching artist at the Cincinnati Ballet, Adjunct Instructor at The University of Cincinnati-CCM and provides street dance sessions at after school programs for Cincinnati Public Schools. Eclypse is passionate about street dance culture and always open to opportunities to share his passion with others.
David Morse is a choreographer, musician, and soloist with Cincinnati Ballet. After training under Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux, Darleen Callaghan, Patricia McBride, Kathryn Moriarty, and Mark Diamond he danced 8 seasons with Charlotte Ballet. In his time there, he danced leading roles in a variety of classical and contemporary works. His choreography has been performed throughout the United States by professional companies, universities, and pre-professional schools, and has been recognized by various awards and accolades. David has participated in two sessions of the New York Choreographic Institute where he created new works on the dancers of New York City Ballet and the School of American Ballet. Also an accomplished pianist, David has served as an accompanist for Cincinnati Ballet, Charlotte Ballet, The Chautauqua Institution, and Regional Dance America.
Ashley Pabst is a native of Dayton, Ohio and graduate of Point Park University. Ms. Pabst has worked with many notable instructors and choreographers such as Darla Hoover, Margo Sappington, Christian Holder, Alan Hineline, Ron de Jesus, Doug Varone, Lynne Taylor-Corbett. While at Point Park University Ms. Pabst was chosen to perform at Kennedy Center, where she was awarded Northeast Performer of the Year. Ashley has appeared with both Atlanta Ballet and Dayton Ballet, where she performed principal roles in George Balanchine’s Serenade, Septime Webre’s Peter Pan, Stephen Mills’ There Once Was a Time, Alan Hineline’s Thresholds, William Whitener’s Caprice, and Stuart Sebastian’s Dracula. In 2009, at Regional Dance America’s Northeast Festival, Ashley received the Monticello Award for Best Emerging Choreographer and the Barbara Weisberger Choreographic Award for her work Aloft. In 2010 she received both the Project Tier Award and The National Choreographic Recognition Award for Sudden Impulse. Since then Ms. Pabst was granted eight additional National Choreographic Recognition Awards for her work throughout the Northeast and Pacific regions. Ashley has been commissioned to stage several new works by professional companies and conservatories such as Sacramento Ballet, Philadelphia Ballet, Cincinnati Ballet, Stivers Dance Company (IABD Festival) Eisenhower Dance Detroit, Southern New Hampshire Youth Ballet, Long Beach Ballet, GreeneWorks Project, Erie Contemporary Ballet, Metropolitan Ballet, Mid-Columbia Ballet, Ballet Yuma, Dayton Dance Conservatory, Delaware Dance Company, Central Indiana Dance Ensemble, Vineland Regional Dance Company, and Jazz Dance World Congress. In addition to her repertoire works, Ms. Pabst has choreographed and produced full length ballets such as Cinderella, Princess and the Pea, Snow White, and Ugly Duckling. Ashley’s professional teaching credits include International Ballet Competition in Jackson, MS, Regional Dance America Festivals (Northeast, Mid-States, and Pacific), adjunct faculty at Wright State University, Cinicinnati Ballet, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, NewDANCEfest, National Choreography Intensive, Dayton Arts Project, Delaware Dance Festival, Mid-Columbia Ballet, Dayton Dance Conservatory, and Southern New Hampshire Dance Theater.
Erin Long-Robbins began her dance training with the Northeast Regional honor company, Allegheny Ballet where she performed many lead roles. She also studied at Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet, on full scholarship at the Rock School of the Pennsylvania Ballet and Saratoga Summer Program in New York. She graduated summa cum laude from Wright State University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in Dance and a Minor in Psychology. Mrs. Robbins has taught at Antioch College, Dayton Ballet School, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Gem City Ballet, Santa Cruz Ballet Theatre in California, Pennsylvania Regional Ballet and Regional Dance America’s Northeast Festival held in Dayton. She is currently an adjunct professor at Wright State University and Sinclair Community College. Mrs. Robbins is also co-owner of The South Dayton School of Dance in Centerville, OH as well as Co-Artistic Director and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the award winning, non-profit dance company South Dayton Dance Theatre.
Gregory Robinson began his primary dance training in 1970 at the University of Alabama (Tuscaloosa) with Lou Wall in Graham technique and Phoebe Barr in Denishawn style. His participation marked the first time in the University’s history that a male had performed with the dance group. Resident guest artists in dance for that academic year included Betty Jones and Fritz Ludin, from the Jose Limon Company, and Nicholas Gunn of the Paul Taylor Dance Company. In 1971, Mr. Robinson transferred to the University of Alabama in Birmingham (UAB). He was accepted as a theatre major with a concentration in dance, and began his classical ballet studies in the Vaganova system with Stevan Grebel and Melanie Mihalic. His studies at UAB included a roster of reknowned guest artists and teachers that afforded a strong foundation and a full spectrum dance education from the theoretical to the practical. As a member of BalletUAB, he had the opportunity of performing a repertory of mixed programs and many full length ballets. Mr. Robinson continued to perform with BalletUAB and pursue his BFA through 1980. He joined Dayton Ballet in 1980 under artistic director Stuart Sebastian. He performed with the Company as a principal dancer in a repertory that spanned from the classical canon to neoclassical and contemporary works. His further studies continued in New York City with Maggie Black and Marjorie Mussman. By the late ’80’s, he had begun to choreograph for the Company and was named Ballet Master. In 1993 he was appointed Artistic Associate for the company by Dermot Burke and his duties expanded to include co-directorship of Dayton Ballet II. As a resident choreographer for Dayton Ballet, Mr. Robinson has created many original works for the Company as well as other performing arts organizations. Mr. Robinson has been in demand as a guest teacher and has taught at BalletMet, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Ohio Ballet, Wright State University, Miami University, Marygrove College, and the University of Idaho. He is currently on the faculty at Ponteorvo Ballet Studios, Dayton Dance Conservatory, J-Squared Dance (formerly Howard School of Dance), and Company Ballet teacher for DCDC. Mr. Robinson toured nationally as a featured performer in the revival of Bob Fosse’s Dancin’. He made his film debut as a dancer in A Rage in Harlem.He served for several seasons as volunteer Artistic Director to produce “Dancing for Tomorrow,”. Mr. Robinson was the first to be awarded the Virginia Sebastian Award for Choreography, in 1986. In 1996, he recieved the Montgomery County Arts & Cultural District Bicentennial Impact Grant. He was also a recipient for the Culture Works Artist Fellowship for the year 2000. He was honored with the 2002 Choo-San Goh Award for Choreography from the Choo-San Goh & H. Robert Magee Foundation. In 2008 his ballet Corazon earned a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Gabrielle Sharp, a native of Dayton, Ohio, began her classical ballet training at Dayton Ballet, which led her to the start of her professional dance career. The highlight of her time dancing at Dayton Ballet was earning the Josephine and Hermene Schwarz award, as well as working with faculty and guest choreographers, Dermot Burke, Gregory Robinson, Alan Hineline, Susie Payne, and Christopher Fleming. After dancing professionally for Dayton Ballet, she furthered her career and has been Co-Director of Dayton Ballet II for 8 years. In her transition from ballet dancer to co-director, she found a new passion for competitive ballroom dance. She is DaVida trained in American Smooth and currently competes in American Rhythm ballroom. She has had the opportunity to work with Tony Meredith, Sam Sodano, Kimberly Mitchell, and Mark Brock. In the past decade, Gabrielle has achieved national titles at United States Dance Championships, Ohio Star Ball, Cleveland DanceSport, and Michigan Dance Challenge.
Jennifer Sydor, described as “dazzling” by The Boston Globe and “remarkable for her intense focus and vivid dramatic skill” by The New York Times, began her dance training at The Dayton Ballet School. She holds an MFA from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and a BFA from Butler University. In NYC she has enjoyed an extensive career as a freelance performer with choreographers such as Laura Peterson, David Parker, Vanessa Walters, John Carrafa, Andrew Schneider, John Heginbotham, Kim Brandstrup, Jill Sigman, Stefanie Nelson, Nia Love, Janice Lancaster, Sharon Moore, Ben Asriel, Janessa Clark, among others. She has toured internationally as a dancer with the avant-garde performance troupe and electro pop band Fischerspooner, in collaboration with The Wooster Group. She has performed in the Bessie Award winning productions Fraulein Maria, choreographed by Doug Elkins and Third Rail Project’s Then She Fell.
Gina Walther is a dedicated teacher/mentor and award-winning choreographer who has choreographed works performed nationally, regionally and on university stages. As a professional dancer, Gina performed works by many of modern dances’ most influential choreographers, they include Dwight Rhoden, Ulysses Dove, Donald McKayle, Merce Cunningham, Talley Beatty, Anna Sokolow, Donald Byrd, and many more. While performing with The Dayton Contemporary Dance Company (DCDC), Gina toured Germany, Russia, France, and throughout the United States. She had the honor of performing at Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, and The Joyce Theatre and was featured in the PBS special “Free to Dance”. She finished up her professional dance career by winning the Josie Award for Outstanding Female Concert Dancer. After retiring from performing Gina became a sought-after teacher/choreographer throughout the country. Her teaching experience includes Indiana University, Point Park University (PA), New Arts Festival (FL), Craft of Choreography Conference (UT & PA), DCDC, Dance On Tour (NM), Vineland Regional Ballet Company (NJ) RDA Pacific Festival (WA) RDA Mid-States Festival (IN & ILL) and RDA Northeast Festivals. Gina’s choreography has won several choreographic awards including the prestigious National Choreographic Award and the Project Tier Award. The New York Times called her work Still Present set on DCDC “a stirring dance” that “served as a sparkling introduction to the troupe”. Gina also had the pleasure of choreographing works for The Dayton Ballet and The Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra in addition to over 20 original works at Wright State. Gina received her B.F.A. in Dance Performance from Southern Methodist University. She is an Associate Professor and 2017-2018 CELIA Fellow at Wright State University.
Nashville native Countess V. Winfrey currently serves as a performer, teaching artist, choreographer, and rehearsal director for The Dayton Contemporary Dance Company. She began her training at the age of 11 at Wharton Arts Magnet Middle school and continued her training at Nashville School of the Arts. She later attended the University of Memphis, where she graduated Magna Cum Laude with a B.S. in Health and Human Performance, and a minor in Dance. Post-graduation, Ms. Winfrey joined Dayton Contemporary Dance Company’s pre-professional ensemble, which then led into a professional dance career with DCDC. She has danced professionally with DCDC and has also danced one season with ClancyWorks Dance Company (Washington, D.C.). Countess has performed nationally and internationally in Bermuda, China, Kazakhstan, and Russia. She has performed works by Ulysses Dove, Donald McKayle, Ray Mercer, Dwight Rhoden, Ronald K. Brown, Abby Zbikowski, Dianne McIntyre, Donald Byrd and more. Additionally, she has taught and choreographed for DCDC, DCDC2, The Ohio State University, Miami University, The School for Creative and Performing Arts in Cincinnati, the International Association of Blacks in Dance, Ohio University, Regional Dance Association and more. Her most recent commissions include the world premiere of her newest work “huMAN/NAture” for DCDC, including live musical accompaniment from the University of Dayton Jazz Ensemble; and the world premiere of “Homage: What was, Is, To Come”, commissioned by the Cincinnati Art Museum and Ohio Dance. Ms. Winfrey is currently in her 8th season dancing with the professional company and her 10th year with the organization.
