GUEST FACULTY
WEEK 1: JULY 6-10
Originally from Annapolis, MD, Anton T. Wilson received his BFA from the North Carolina School of the Arts and has enjoyed a 36-year international career as a dancer, teacher, and choreographer. He has performed with companies including Ballet Theatre of Maryland, Djazzex (Holland), Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, and Jennifer Muller/The Works.
Anton is a two-time recipient of the Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award and was one of four choreographers selected for the Four Steps Forward project in The Hague. He has created works for the Annapolis and Baltimore Symphony Orchestras, Opera Vivente, and more. Teaching credits include the Kirov Academy of Ballet, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and his current faculty positions at the Baltimore School for the Arts and The VIVA School. He also remains active in equestrian competition.
Portrait © Larry Martin
WEEK 2: JULY 13-17
Ethan Stiefel is an internationally renowned Dancer, Instructor, Coach, Director and Choreographer. Stiefel was the Artistic Director of the Royal New Zealand Ballet from 2011-2014. Just prior to being appointed the RNZB’s Artistic Director, Stiefel served as Dean of the School of Dance at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA).
Stiefel began his professional career at age 16 with the New York City Ballet where he quickly rose to the rank of Principal Dancer. He was also a Principal Dancer with the Zürich Ballet and joined American Ballet Theatre as a Principal Dancer in 1997. Stiefel gave his final performance with ABT in July 2012.
His repertoire of full-length works included Florimund (The Sleeping Beauty), Siegfried (Swan Lake), Romeo (Romeo and Juliet), James (La Sylphide), Albrecht (Giselle), Lescaut (Manon), Lenski (Onegin), Jeanne (Raymonda), Colas (La Fille Mal Gardée), Solor (La Bayadère), Oberon (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), Prince (Cinderella) Cassio (Othello), Basil (Don Quixote), Franz (Coppélia), Conrad and the Slave (Le Corsaire). He appeared in a wide variety of shorter works by George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Michel Fokine, William Forsythe, Lar Lubovitch, Jiří Kylián, August Bournonville, Bob Fosse, Antony Tudor, Christopher Wheeldon, Eugene Loring, Peter Martins, Nacho Duato, Frederick Ashton, Twyla Tharp, Paul Taylor, Nils Christe, Susan Stroman, Mark Morris, and Christopher Wheeldon, among others.
Guest appearances include The Royal Ballet, The Mariinsky Ballet, New York City Ballet, Australian Ballet, Zürich Ballet, Bayerische Staatsballett, Hamburg Ballet, The National Ballet of Canada, Teatro Colon, New National Theatre (Tokyo), Kings of the Dance, and numerous tours in the United States, Japan, Russia and throughout Europe.
Stiefel was invited to serve on the jury for the Paris Opera Ballet’s 2014 annual promotion examination and was on the jury of the 2015 Prix de Lausanne.
His Royal Highness Crown Prince Albert of Monaco presented Stiefel with the Statue Award of the Princess Grace Foundation, the Foundation’s highest honor, in October 1999. He received the prestigious Dance Magazine Award in December 2008.
Portrait © Emma Zordan
WEEK 3: JULY 20
Allegra Inch is a member of New York City Ballet’s corps de ballet. She was born in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania and began her dance training at age 5 at Stiefel Steps Classical Ballet Academy, under the direction of her mother, Erin Stiefel. At the age of 9, she began training at Pennsylvania Regional Ballet under Stiefel, Victoria Silva, Sandra Carlino, and Jeffrey Gribler. Inch attended the summer program at the School of American Ballet, the official school of NYCB, in 2021 before enrolling full-time at SAB for the winter term that year. She became an apprentice with NYCB in November 2022, and joined the corps de ballet in October 2023.
Portrait © Erin Baiano
WEEK 3: JULY 21-24
Jessica Saund began her early dance studies with California Ballet, and continued her training on full scholarship at the Kirov Academy of Ballet in Washington, DC. In 1996, she joined the Washington School of Ballet under the direction of Mary Day. That same year, Ms. Saund took the Gold Medal in the junior division at the 2nd International Ballet Competition in South America. In 1999, she was invited to dance with Le Jeune Ballet de France in Paris before joining the English National Ballet, where she remained for 5 years. In 2006, she entered American Ballet Theatre.
Ms. Saund has performed soloist and principal roles in every full-length ballet in the classical repertoire. She has performed leading roles in the works of George Balanchine, Mikhail Fokine, Anthony Tudor, Sir Kenneth MacMillan, Michael Corder, Jerome Robbins, Sir Frederick Ashton, and John Cranko, and has worked with and created roles for many of the greatest living choreographers, including Twyla Tharp, John Neumeier, Kevin McKenzie, Paul Taylor,Mark Morris, Jiri Kylian, Dwight Rhoden, Lar Lubovitch, James Kudelka, Benjamin Millepied, Christopher Wheeldon and Alexei Ratmansky.
Ms. Saund worked for many years with her mentor and coach David Howard. In addition to performing as a guest artist with several U.S. ballet companies, Ms. Saund has been featured in major campaigns for Barney’s New York, Vogue, Glamour, YSL, Seiko, and Bloch Ballet in both print and television advertisements.
Ms. Saund has been a guest teacher at ABT studio company, English National Ballet, ABT summer intensive,Complexions Contemporary Ballet, Steps on Broadway, Ballet Arts NYC, Regional Dance America Guest instructor, and ADC International Ballet Competition coach and Jury member
Ms Saund’s private students are currently dancing with American Ballet Theatre, The Stuttgart Ballet, English National Ballet, National Ballet of Canada, and The Royal Danish Ballet.
Portrait © Renata Pavam
WEEK 4: JULY 27-31
Gillian Murphy is an internationally renowned ballerina who recently retired from her 29-year performance career with American Ballet Theatre (ABT). Her repertoire included leading roles in ABT’s most iconic full-length classics and in shorter works by luminary choreographers of the past and present. Murphy danced a broad scope of styles and characters, including the title heroines in Cinderella, Giselle, La Bayadere, La Fille Mal Gardeé, Raymonda, The Sleeping Beauty, Sylvia, and Woolf Works. Raised in Florence, South Carolina, Gillian Murphy was a member of Columbia City Ballet before attending high school at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA). As a teenager, Murphy was awarded the Prix de Lausanne Espoir, and she joined American Ballet Theatre in 1996. After being honored with a Princess Grace Foundation Award, Murphy was promoted to Soloist in 1999 and to Principal Dancer in 2002. She starred as Odette/Odile in ABT’s PBS television production of Swan Lake and was featured in the Ric Burns American Masters documentary entitled American Ballet Theatre: A History. Murphy performed the role of Giselle in the New Zealand Film Commission’s movie of Stiefel and Kobborg’s production of Giselle at the Royal New Zealand Ballet, where she was a Principal Guest Artist for three years. Murphy has danced as a guest artist throughout the world, performing with the Mariinsky Ballet, the Royal Swedish Ballet, the Staatsballett Berlin, the Kiev Ballet, the Australian Ballet, the Metropolitan Opera, and in numerous other international engagements and galas. Murphy starred onstage in world premieres of new creations by Alexei Ratmansky, Mark Morris, Benjamin Millepied, Michelle Dorrance, Jorma Elo, Jessica Lang, Marcelo Gomes, James Whiteside, Aszure Barton, Peter Quanz, Natalie Weir, John Neumeier, Robert Hill, Christopher Wheeldon, Ethan Stiefel, and Twyla Tharp. She is a recipient of a Princess Grace Statue Award and an honorary doctorate from UNCSA. In 2018, Murphy graduated summa cum laude from St. Mary’s College of California with a Bachelor of Arts. In 2019, Murphy completed the Harvard Business School’s “Crossover into Business” program and served on the international jury panel of the Prix de Lausanne. For three summers in Martha’s Vineyard, Murphy directed a training program, Dreamcatchers, for dancers aged 12 to 14. She has taught and coached globally and throughout the United States, including at American Ballet Theatre, the ABT Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School, the Dance Theater of Harlem, the City Ballet of San Diego, Kaatsbaan, the Ivy Ballet Exchange, and the Princeton Ballet School. She became Artistic Associate at American Repertory Ballet in 2021 and lives near Princeton, NJ with her husband Ethan Stiefel and their son. For the most current updates, Murphy can be followed on Instagram @gillianemurphy.
Portrait © Rosalie O’Connor
ACCOMPANIST
STEvEN MITCHELL
We are thrilled to welcome pianist Steven Mitchell for all four weeks of our Summer Intensive!
A Perry County native, Steven has worked extensively as a dance accompanist in New York City since 1998. He holds a Bachelor of Music from Houghton College and dual Master of Music degrees in Piano Performance and Pedagogy from Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
Steven served as the ballet rehearsal pianist for the Metropolitan Opera from 2012 to 2020, and earlier, was Music Director and Pianist for Rosie’s Broadway Kids, a performing arts program founded by Rosie O’Donnell for New York City public school students.
His music for ballet class has been featured in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Blacklist, and Flesh and Bone, and he appeared on-screen in the dance film Center Stage. Now based in Harrisburg, Steven also works as a service provider for adults with autism, continuing his passion for meaningful community engagement.