Garet Wierdsma
Garet Wierdsma is a multidisciplinary artist from a small town in CT, and is the creator and director of Garet & Company. She graduated from NYU Tisch with a BFA in Dance in May 2021.Garet was selected as the Choreography Fellowship Recipient for Sacred Heart University in January 2022, and was selected for Young Choreographers Festival 2022 in NYC. Garet’s work with Garet&Co. has been showcased in Dixon Place’s “Dance Bloc NYC Festival” and “8 in Show,” Emerging Artist Theatre’s “New Work Series,” Queens Theatre’s “Turning in Place Film Festival,” Connecticut Dance Alliance’s “5X5 Dance Festival,” iKada Dance Company’s “Ko Da Fe,” Ku-Yang Lin & Dancers “Inhale Series,” The Bell House’s “EXCHANGE Choreography Festival,” Governors Island’s “The Craft NYC,” and Cross Move Lab’s “Anyplace Anytime Film Festival.” Garet’s work was also selected as the winner of Nacre Dance Group’s “So You Think You Can Choreograph,” won the Dance Cinema Award at Frostbite Indie Film Fest, and won 3rd Prize at Emotion & Soul Film Festival. When not dancing and creating, Garet also teaches as often as she can. Garet believes that art changes the world and is passionately and actively working to be a generator of light.
Leslie Frye Maietta
The University of the Arts, BFA; Hollins University | The American Dance Festival, MFA. Guest Artist/Assistant Professor of Dance- Connecticut College; Adjunct Professor, The University of Hartford, Hartt School Dance Division; Artistic Director, B O D Y | H O U S E -the collective- ; Owner, Body House -wellness-
Meghan McDermott
A graduate of the Hartford Conservatory with a double major in dance performance and pedagogy, Meghan has extensive experience in dance performance, musical theater and dance education. Currently, she performs and choreographs with IMMIX Dance Project and is one of the four core founders. Previously, she has danced with numerous CT companies including SOMA Dance Company, dancEnlight (Lorelei Chang), Sonia Plumb Dance Company and Justice Dance Performance Project. For the past 15 years, she has taught dance throughout the state of Connecticut at various workshops, dance schools, intensives, private schools, as well as residency programs in Oklahoma and New York. Meghan served on the Dance faculty at Westminster school from 2015-2022. Further teaching and choreography credits include: The Nutmeg Conservatory of Ballet, Kingswood Oxford School, University of St. Joseph, Westminster school, Miss Porters School, Ted Hershey Dance Marathon, 5×5 Dance festival, Built on Stilts Dance Festival in Martha’s Vineyard and West Hartford Community Theater (including a Broadway Review Tour to Ravello Italy). In addition to her dance career, Meghan is a certified barre instructor with STOTT Pilates and teaches for LIFER Fitness studio in West Hartford.
Peter Kyle
Peter Kyle is a dancer, choreographer, teacher, filmmaker, and Artistic Director of Peter Kyle Dance, based in Hartford, CT, where he teaches in the Department of Theater and Dance at Trinity College. Early in his career, he toured the world with Nikolais and Murray Louis Dance and has also performed in the companies of Mark Morris, Erick Hawkins, Gina Gibney, Laura Glenn and the theater company P3/east. Having shown his own interdisciplinary work on three continents, he has received numerous grants and awards, including from American Music Center, US Embassies in China and Ukraine, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, NYFA, NEFA, the Fulbright Specialist Program, and the Edward C. and Ann T. Roberts Foundation. He regularly works internationally, most recently in Ukraine.