NCI - Choreographers and Dancers

2024 Choreographers

Charles Askegard has had a long and distinguished career as a dancer, director and choreographer. He joined the American Ballet Theatre under the tutelage of Mikhail Baryshnikov, where he performed leading roles in major full-length ballets and worked with legendary choreographers Twyla Tharp, Glen Tetley, Natalia Makarova, and Agnes de Mille to name a few. After ten years with ABT, he joined the New York City Ballet to further his artistic goals. He performed there as a Principal Dancer for fourteen years where he had the opportunity to work under Jerome Robbins and Peter Martins and dance a large number of the classic Balanchine ballets in the repertory. Upon leaving the New York City Ballet, he formed a company, Ballet Next, whose mission focused on producing new work. While there, his work was seen at The Joyce Theatre, BAM Fishman, Vassar College and the British Virgin Islands. He is now currently employed with the Philadelphia Ballet as Rehearsal Director where he has choreographed for both the Philadelphia Ballet, and the Philadelphia Ballet II. Most recently, he has been named the Dance Artist in Residence of the Performance Garage in Philadelphia for the 2025 season, which is a choreographic position. His work has been presented by companies, Universities, summer festivals, schools and ballet galas, across the nation and also in the movie John Wick III.

Cherice Barton, an accomplished choreographer, director, and educator, currently resides in Los Angeles, California. Following a decade-long tenure as a contemporary ballet dancer, Cherice rose to prominence as the resident choreographer for Franco Dragone's Le Rêve Cirque spectacle in Las Vegas, Nevada. In the years following, Cherice followed her curiosity which led her to develop a choreographic portfolio spanning a diverse array of projects, boasting collaborations with Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, The Grammy Awards, America's Got Talent, Lucasfilm Animation, Dancebreak Broadway Showcase, Rosin Box Project, and Spotlight Grand Finale at the Music Center LA, among others. As an educator, Cherice has been sought after to speak and conduct masterclasses at various institutions such as the Juilliard School, USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance and Marymount Manhattan College, to name a few. Her dedication to education is exemplified by the establishment of Axis Connect, a non-profit, bi-coastal educational platform she co-founded with her sister Charissa. This initiative serves as a crucial link between aspiring dancers and the professional dance industry, fostering a supportive community where artists can explore diverse career options. Currently, Cherice is the recipient of the Dancers Transition Center's retraining grant, with a focused effort on advancing her expertise in live and televised entertainment as a Creative Director. A multifaceted force in the creative arts, Cherice Barton continues to inspire and uplift, leaving an enduring legacy in the realms of entertainment, dance and education.

DaYoung Jung, a former Principal Dancer and current Rehearsal Director at Oklahoma City Ballet, is from South Korea. Jung trained at Moscow’s Bolshoi Ballet Academy and graduated with honors from a master's degree in Ballet Pedagogy. Throughout her career, Jung performed the title roles of many of the great classics, such as Giselle, Romeo and Juliet, Swan Lake, and The Sleeping Beauty, as well as works by George Balanchine, Jirí Kylián, Septime Webre, Twyla Tharp, Michael Pink, Robert Mills, and many others.
Transitioning away from the stage, Jung became a Rehearsal Director at Oklahoma City Ballet. She is also a dance educator who has been invited as a panelist by Ballet Des Moines to speak on moving arts and dances in April 2022 and called upon for her expertise as a judge at ADC/IBC final in 2023. She has quickly established herself as an award-winning choreographer. She was invited to present her work “Dissipation” at The Five Moons Dance Festival in August 2021. The following year, she was invited again to present – this time with her work, “Composition”. In 2022, “Vignettes” was chosen as the audience’s favorite of the Milwaukee Ballet’s competition Genesis: International Choreographic Competition. Her most recent work, “There, Never There.” was performed by Oklahoma City Ballet in 2023 at the Ballet Under The Stars, a free performance for the entire Oklahoma City metropolitan area at Scissortail Park.

Donna Salgado is a dancer and choreographer working in New York City, and is the founder and directing artist of Continuum Contemporary/Ballet. Donna’s formal ballet training began under Tatiana Akinfieva-Smith and continued as a member of the Eastern Shore Ballet Theatre. She holds a BFA in Dance Performance from Towson University and an MFA in Dance from SUNY Purchase, and spent summers training at ABT, CPYB, NYSSSA Ballet, and Lines Ballet. As a performing artist, she’s worked with the José Mateo Ballet Theatre, Eglevsky Ballet, Connecticut Ballet, Rebecca Kelly Ballet, Sierra Nevada Ballet, Thomas/Ortiz Dance, David Fernandez’s Some Dance Company, Deborah Lohse’s ad Hoc Ballet, and Marika Brussel, among others, and has danced in works by George Balanchine, Paul Taylor, Geoffrey Holder, Edwaard Liang, Gabrielle Lamb, and Juanjo Arques. Continuum Contemporary/Ballet aims to expand the role of creativity in ballet by engaging in processes that encompass experimentation, collaboration, new vocabularies, and design. Donna’s choreography has been presented and/or commissioned by the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival (3 seasons), Bryant Park, Columbia Ballet Collaborative, Counterpointe Festival for Women Choreographers, Latin Choreographers Festival, 92nd Street Y, Newport Dance Festival, Brooklyn Ballet, Nacre Dance Group, Princeton University Ballet, Harvard Ballet Company, and the Ballet on the Beach Festival. She’s participated in creative residencies at Sky Hill Farm Studio, Windhover, and, in 2024, Kaatsbaan Cultural Park.

Lighting Designer
Monique L’Heureux is an award winning lighting designer who has been working in the field of dance for over two decades. This year, she is celebrating her sixteenth collaboration with artistic director, Molly Lynch. Past designs include: Ma Cong’s French Twist for Smuin Ballet; Molly Lynch’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Anjani Ambegaokar’s Made in Mumbaii at the Cerritos Performing Arts Center; The Motion Picture and Television Fund event featuring Chita Rivera, Dick van Dyke, Shirley MacLaine, Hugh Jackman, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Jennifer Hudson, and others; Charles Moulton’s Ball Passing piece in Fall for Dance at the Orange County Performing Arts Center; Robert Sund’s Alice in Wonderland; the National and Pacific Festivals of Regional Dance America; the summer season at the Hollywood Bowl; and associate design work on the Universal Studios’ Magical Starlight Parade in Osaka, Japan. She attended Pepperdine University and received her MFA from the University of California, Irvine, after which she apprenticed at the Los Angeles Music Center’s Mark Taper Forum. She has taught for the dance departments at Loyola Marymount University and Moorpark College and the theatre department at El Camino College.She is the recipient of four Lester Horton Dance Awards. She is an accomplished artist and photographer whose work has been shown in galleries including the Long Beach Public Library’s Art on Display, the Carl Broderick Gallery, VIVA Gallery, Long Beach Arts Center, City of Brea Gallery, and The Stage Gallery, as well as a permanent installation in the Glendale Adventist Medical Center. She is a member of United Scenic Artists. www.artanddesigns.net

Costume Coordinator
Hannah Andersen is a costume coordinator, theatre technician, and recent college graduate, receiving her BA in Theatre Technology from Chapman University in 2021. Some recent projects she has had the joy of working on are Freaky Friday the Musical, Zanna Don’t!, Native Gardens, Our Town, and Tartuffe as the costume shop liaison and wardrobe supervisor at Chapman University, Million Dollar Quartet and American Mariachi as a hair and makeup technician at South Coast Repertory Theatre, The Nether as the costume designer at The Wayward Artist, The Feast as a hair and makeup technician with Long Beach Opera, and Newsies as a dresser and stitcher at 3D Theatricals. She loves working with all things costume, hair, and makeup within the performing arts and entertainment industry and is delighted to be on board this project as a costume coordinator for NCI

2023 NCI Dancers (Note: 2024 NCI dancers will be posted here as soon as the selection process is complete.)
Women: Anwen David – Ballet Memphis* Katherine “Katie” Deuitch – Ballet Austin Elizabeth “Lizzie” Kanning – Ballet Idaho Michelle Katcher – Sacramento Ballet* Saho Kumagai – Atlanta Ballet Sophie Savas-Carstens – Philadelphia Ballet Sophie Williams – Texas Ballet Theater* Lily Wills – Pacific Northwest Ballet Men: Lester Gonzalez – Dayton Ballet Joseph Hetzer – Oklahoma City Ballet* Daniel Kubr – Sacramento Ballet Clay Murray – Festival Ballet of Providence Cameron Pelton – Oregon Ballet Theatre Andrew Rossi – Ballet Met Sean Sessions – Saint Louis Ballet Hunter Solomon – Ballet Tucson *Returning dancers		2023 NCI dancers


2023 Choreographers Kristopher Estes-Brown Ye Li Ian Schwaner Carrie Ruth Trumbo	2022 Choreographers Emily Adams Leiland Charles Jennifer Hart Gina Patterson	2021 Choreographers Sean Aaron Carmon Mari Meade Katarzyna Skarpetowska Eva Stone
2019 Choreographers Julia Feldman Alan Hineline Alex Ketley Tom Mattingly	2018 Choreographers Kevin Jenkins David Justine Ilya Kozadayev Mariana Oliveira	2017 Choreographers Suzanne Haag Robert Mills Penny Saunders Christopher Stuart
2016 Choreographers Tom Gold Nicole Haskins Stepanie Martinez Ben Needham-Wood	2015 Choreographers Nicolas Blanc Norberto De La Cruz Jimmy Orrante Sarah Tallman	2014 Choreographers Barry Kerollis Gabrielle Lamb Philip Neal Garrett Smith
2013 Choreographers David Fernandez Susan McCullough Kitty McNamee Petr Zahradnicek	2012 Choreographers Melissa Barak Thang Dao Darrell Grand Moultrie Wendy Seyb	2011 Choreographers Brian Enos Heather Maloy Peter Pucci Paula Weber
2010 Choreographers Anne Marie DeAngelo Helen Heineman Viktor Kabaniaev Peter Quanz	2009 Choreographers Sidra Bell Deanna Carter Rick McCullough Olivier Wevers	2008 Choreographers Amy Seiwert Edmund Stripe Emery LeCrone Ma Cong
2007 Choreographers Melissa Barak Frank Chaves Edwaard Liang Jerry Opdenaker	2006 Choreographers Ron De Jesus Graham Lustig Charles Moulton Gina Patterson	2005 Choreographers Val Caniparoli Christopher d'Amboise William Soleau Luca Veggetti
2004 Choreographers Ann Marie DeAngelo Peter Pucci James Sewell Lynne Taylor-Corbett

Click on links above to view archived choreographer biographies


Site design:	Copyright © 2005-2024 National Choreographers Initiative	Problems with this site? Contact: