Sabrina Matheson was born in West Lafayette, Indiana, and began her dance training at Lafayette Ballet School. She has attended several intensive workshops at schools such as Pittsburgh Youth Ballet, Ballet Austin, and BalletMet, as well as the Cantilena School of the Arts in St. Petersburg, Russia. She graduated from Lafayette Ballet Company, where she performed leading roles in The Nutcracker, Twelve Dancing Princesses, and Echoes of Indiana. Ms. Matheson continued her education at Butler University, where she earned a B.F.A. in Dance Performance and danced leading roles in The Nutcracker, Coppélia, Giselle, Paul Taylor's Cloven Kingdom, and other contemporary works.
After graduation, she studied on scholarship with Nashville Ballet and performed as a soloist with Vanderbilt Dance Theatre. After dancing with Ballet Theatre of Maryland, dancing corps and soloist roles, Ms. Matheson returned to Indiana in 2011, becoming a teacher at Performer's Edge and the Ballet Mistress of Ballet Theatre of Carmel, a pre-professional ballet company.
She founded Ballet Theatre of Indiana in 2014, and has created a number of works on the company, including La Sylphide, The Prodigal Son, and Perception.
Cole Companion began his training at the Alabama School of Fine Arts in Birmingham, Alabama. After graduating with their highest honor, the “Prix D’excellance De Danse,” he has been a performing member of Alabama Ballet, The Arova Foundation, Birmingham Ballet Reparatory Company, Oakland Ballet Company, and Bay Pointe Ballet. Previous roles include Albrecht in Giselle, Tea Man in George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker, Principal in Alfonzo Figeroura’s Changes, Hues, and The Awakening, Furbo In Graham Lustig's Pulcinella, Russian in Bruce Steivel's The Nutcracker, Michael in Bruce Steivel's Peter Pan, and Puck in Bruce Steivel's A Midsummer Nights Dream.
As a choreographer he has created numerous works including The Allegory of the Cave, Les Biches, Our Best Decision, El Dorado, The Cask of Amontillado, and Why Sarah Cries. He is currently teaching choreographic composition at Anderson University and this is his second season with BTI.
Sponsored by Morris, Yorn, Barnes, Levine, Krintzman, Rubenstein, & Kohner Apc.
Annie Mushrush is a company member with Ballet Theatre of Indiana. Additionally, she serves as their Ballet Mistress. While at BTI she has danced ‘Gamzatti’ in La Bayadère, 'Sugar Plum Fairy,' “Snow Queen,’ and ‘Dew Drop Fairy’ in The Nutcracker, as well as other principal roles in The Masque of the Red Death and Les Biches. During her time as Ballet Mistress she has set excerpts from La Bayadère, The Grand Pas De Deux from Flames of Paris, and excerpts from Act I of Don Quixote, as well as original choreography for The Nutcracker and Beauty and the Beast.
She received her Bachelor of Arts degree, magna cum laude with Highest Honors in dance pedagogy from Butler University in 2015 where she studied under and performed the choreographic works of Marek Cholewa, Patrick Hinson, Michelle Jarvis, Stephan Laurent, Susan McGuire, Cynthia Pratt and Derek Reid. While dancing for Butler Ballet she performed principal roles in Herzlichen Romanzen and The Nutcracker as the ‘Dew Drop Fairy’ and a soloist role as the 'Silver Fairy' in The Sleeping Beauty, among other roles in Giselle and Cinderella. In 2014 she toured Europe performing with Butler Ballet and trained with the Polish National Schools of Ballet in Warsaw and Poznan, Poland as well as The National Conservatories in Prague, Czech Republic and Bratislava, Slovakia.
Prior training also includes Northern Illinois University where she studied under Judith Chitwood, Brian Carey Chung and Autumn Eckman. While dancing with Northern Dance Theatre she performed the principal role of ‘Raymonda’ in Raymonda and represented NDT at the American College Dance Festival.
Audrey is a native of Ann Arbor, MI, and her initial ballet training took place in Chelsea, MI,at Youth Dance Theatre of Michigan, under Artistic Director Wendi DuBois (2003-2010). Audrey also trained with Ballet Magnificat, Ballet Austin, Paul Taylor Dance Company, and Louisville Ballet. She graduated from Butler University in 2014 with a major in Dance Performance and a minor in Strategic Communication. At Butler, Audrey performed in Butler Ballet’s Cinderella as “the Cat,” Cynthia Pratt’s Whole Against the Sky, and Susan McGuire’s Idyllwild. Audrey became a founding member of Ballet Theatre of Indiana as well as its PR and Marketing Director in 2014. Audrey has performed with BTI as "Effie" in La Sylphide, Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker, and the title role in The Firebird. Her choreographic works for BTI include directing music video “Here,” and co-choreographing Smooth Classicism, a contemporary pas de deux. She most recently premiered her pieces, Broken and 24, at Artspeak in Indianapolis.
Haley began her dance training with ballet, tap, and jazz classes at the age of five. She continued studying at various dance schools throughout Connecticut, narrowing her focus to classical ballet. In 2009, Haley joined the New England Ballet School’s student company to perform roles including Snow Queen, Dew Drop and Polish Mazurka Soloist. She has attended summer ballet intensives with the Bolshoi Ballet, The Rock School, and American Ballet Theater in New York. Haley placed in the top 12 for her classical variation in the 2012 Connecticut Classic Ballet Scholarship Competition, and was awarded a full scholarship to the Burklyn Ballet Theater summer intensive. In May 2016, Haley graduated from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts with a BFA in ballet, where she trained under Susan Jaffe, Laura Martin, and Jennet Zerbe with the American Ballet Theater National Training Curriculum. Haley is joining Ballet Theater of Indiana for her second season with the company, where she has performed the Third Shade Variation in La Bayadere, and hand-crafted tutu bodices for Mirlitons (The Nutcracker) and Belle’s sisters (Beauty & The Beast).
Sponsored by Peter McKenney
Emma Rose Beigel was born in Annapolis, Maryland, and began her training with The Ballet Theatre of Maryland before studying as a trainee with BalletMet Columbus under Susan Dromisky and Dimitri Suslov. She has attended summer intensives at Ballet Theatre of Maryland, English National Ballet in London, and BalletMet. Emma has enjoyed dancing principal and soloist roles in, Paquita, Carmen, The Nutcracker, Pas d'Esclave from Le Corsaire, La Sylphide and various contemporary works including Cole Companion's El Dorado, The Trap and Why Sarah Cries. Emma’s choreography for BTI includes: Johnny Cash; The man in Black, Sunshine and Annabelle Lee.
Emma's set design and construction for BTI include Dracula, La Sylphide, The Prodigal Son, The Masque of the Red Death, Beauty and The Beast, Baba Yaga, The Nutcracker, The Cask of Amontillado, and Zach Rosing Productions' The Rocky Horror Show. Emma is a founding company member of BTI.
Cheyanne Darnielle-Elam began her ballet training at the age of four years old at the Desert Youth Ballet in Rancho Mirage, CA under the direction of Valarie Mahabir. She continued her training throughout her youth, continuing at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts Classical Dance Department, from which she received her diploma. Upon graduation from LACHSA, she joined Los Angeles Ballet as a trainee and performed with the company throughout the year. After completing her year with LA Ballet, she chose to continue her education at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts under the direction of Dean Susan Jaffe, where she earned a Certificate in Ballet. This is Cheyanne's third season with BTI.
Catherine Jue is from Albany, NY where she began her dance training at the age of 3 with the School of the Albany Berkshire Ballet. She has spent many summers training at Saratoga Summer Dance Intensive, Boston Ballet, Charlotte Ballet, and Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet. In 2015, Catherine graduated summa cum laude from Butler University with a degree in Dance Pedagogy. Under the direction of Marek Cholewa, Patrick Hinson, Michelle Jarvis, Stephan Laurent, Susan McGuire, Cynthia Pratt, and Derek Reid, Catherine had the opportunity to perform in Balanchine's Valse Fantasie, principal roles as Sapphire fairy in The Sleeping Beauty, and in Herzlichen Romanzen. Catherine danced as a trainee with Louisville Ballet for the 2015-2016th season under Robert Curran, Mikelle Bruzina, and Uwe Kern. She performed in ballets such as Coppelia, The Nutcracker, Adam Houghland's Petrouchka and Balanchine's Western Symphony. For BTI, Catherine has danced as The Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker, and Mina in Dracula, as well as working as the Outreach Director.
Lauren Nasci originated from Rio Rancho, New Mexico and started dancing at age two and a half. Her professional training began at Makaroff’s School of Ballet in Appleton, Wisconsin and later went on to train at the Milwaukee Ballet School. Ms. Nasci attended Butler University where she graduated with honors in 2014. She received a BFA in Dance Performance, as well as a BA in Mathematics. Lauren has performed roles in The Nutcracker, Giselle, Sleeping Beauty, Alice in Wonderland, Snow White, and various pieces in Butler’s Midwinter series. She has worked with choreographers such as Michael Pink, Rolando Yanes, Nadia Thompson, Denis Malinkine, Susan McGuire, Cynthia Pratt, and Derek Reid. Before joining BTI, she danced with Dayton Contemporary Dance Company’s Second Company where she took classes with Amy Jones, Alexis Britford, Marlayna Locklear, Dawn Carter, and Rebecca Sparks. This is Lauren's third season with BTI.
Megan Noonan, a native of Carmel, Indiana, trained with Suzann Delay at Central Indiana Academy of Dance and was a member of Central Indiana Dance Ensemble for five years. Megan began her dancing at BTI’s host studio, Performer’s Edge, performing in student roles with Gregory Hancock Dance Theater and Central Indiana Dance Ensemble. She is a recent graduate of Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music where she studied ballet under the direction of Michael Vernon and the late Violette Verdy. There she earned her Bachelor of Science in Ballet with an Outside Field in Kinesiology. At IU she performed in works such as Balanchine’s Raymonda Variations, Rubies, and Emeralds and Paul Taylor’s Musical Offering. Megan has attended summer programs at Ballet Austin, Alonzo King Lines Ballet, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Cincinnati Ballet, Regional Dance America’s National Choreographic Intensive, and Nashville Ballet. This is her second season with BTI
Christina Voreis is originally from Fort Wayne, Indiana where she received her dance training at Fort Wayne Ballet under the direction of Karen Gibbons-Brown. She attended Butler University where she studied as a Dance Performance major and Communication Sciences and Disorders minor. Dancing with Butler Ballet, she performed a variety of performances and roles as well as traveled internationally to perform in Poland and Russia. She has studied under Jeremy Blanton, Kim Sagami, Michelle Jarvis, Stephan Laurent-Faesi, Marek Cholewa, Derek Reid, Susan McGuire, Rossana Ruffo, and Cynthia Pratt. She has also trained with Ballet Austin and BalletMet. Upon graduating from Butler in 2014 with her BFA in Dance Performance, Christina spent the following year in Washington, DC dancing professionally with Dissonance Dance Theatre and ArasDance. She has relocated back to Indianapolis and is now in her third season with Ballet Theatre of Indiana.
Michelle Quenon began her formal ballet training at the Academy of Russian Classical Ballet under the direction of Sergey Rayevsky in her hometown of Novi, Michigan. Throughout high school, she also trained with Jamie Planko at Planko Classical Ballet Academy. She went on to continue her training at Butler University, where she received a BFA in Dance Performance and a minor in English. While at Butler, she danced various roles with Butler Ballet, including the Lilac Fairy in The Sleeping Beauty, the Arabian lead in The Nutcracker, and soloist roles in Derek Reid’s Waiting for Rides and Marek Cholewa’s Dance of the Amazons. Following graduation, she spent two seasons dancing with Nevada Ballet Theatre under the direction of James Canfield where she danced in The Nutcracker, Cinderella, Romeo and Juliet, The Sleeping Beauty and Cynthia Gregory’s Swan Lake. She also had the opportunity to work with artists from Cirque du Soleil during NBT’s annual collaboration with Cirque. This is Michelle’s first season with BTI.
Stirling Matheson grew up in Fairfax, California, where he trained at Dance Theatre Seven under David “Rocky” Roxander and Jody White. He continued his training at the Arizona School of Classical Ballet with Nadya Zubkov before attending Butler University, where he earned a B.A. in Dance (Pedagogy). While at Butler, he performed principal roles in Giselle, Cinderella, Serenade, and several other works. Under the direction of Marek Cholewa, he performed in a tour of Poland and studied at the Cantilena School of the Arts in St. Petersburg, Russia.
After graduation, he danced with Ballet Theatre of Maryland, where he performed soloist and principal roles in Alice in Wonderland, The Nutcracker, Romeo and Juliet, and Frontier 1812. After leaving Maryland he worked as a guest artist throughout the country before founding Ballet Theatre of Indiana in 2014. For BTI, Stirling has created a number of original works including The Firebird, The Masque of the Red Death, and Insurgent Creativity.
As a writer, Stirling has been published by Dance Magazine, Complex, 95 Octane, Technabob, and About.com.