Instructors

Emily Haussler is the Artistic and Executive Director of RESILIENCE Dance Company (RDC). Since founding RDC in 2019, Emily has directed and choreographed four full-length premieres, the most recent being Come With Me (2023). She has furthermore curated three repertory concerts for the company and helped create unique programs including dance film projects, walk through performances, lecture demos, and community collaborations. 

Overall, her work centers on building healthier, more sustainable dance communities by equipping dancers with resources for their mental health, physical wellbeing, and artistic success. She believes in the power of collaboration and in challenging the toxic norms of the dance world, seeking to create high quality, insightful dance works inside of healthy dance spaces.

As a teacher, Emily has lead master classes at St. Louis University, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Washington University in St. Louis, American College Dance Conference, and Southeastern Missouri University (SEMO). She was furthermore commissioned by SEMO to set an original work, while the company has been commissioned to perform at SEMO, Missouri Dance Organization's Conference and Washington University as the recipients of the Marcus Residency in 2022.

Emily holds a B.A. in Dance and Biology from Washington University in St. Louis, and has trained in Ballet, Modern, Improvisation, and Countertechnique. Prior to founding RDC, Emily danced professionally as a Trainee for Nashville Ballet (2018-19), as a Trainee for The Big Muddy Dance Company (2019-20), and as a freelance artist for Emily Duggins Ehling (2020) and Jennifer Medina (2017). Her choreographic repertoire consists of over a dozen works, including her first ever full-length concert, fine lines between, which debuted in Nashville, TN in April 2019. Emily continues to work as a freelance choreographer outside of RDC and teaches at St. Louis Academy of Dance. 

Much like her dance inspiration Katherine Dunham, MJ wanted to combine her anthropological studies with her love of dance. In 2017, she was named COCA's Katherine Dunham Pre-Professional Division Fellow in 2017. The following year, MJ relocated to Atlanta, where she interned at Dance 411, trained in commercial styles and choreographed/performed for various artists. She returned to St. Louis in Fall of 2020 to open her dance media company: 314 Movement Lab. Since her hometown return, MJ has become Professor of Hip Hop Dance at Washington University & Webster University, choreographed for over 7 artists, provided multiple professional opportunities for local dancers and has instructed various classes in contemporary, heels, hip hop and jazz-funk styles. Her goal is to make St. Louis a hub for developing young artists. 

Born and raised in Santa Ana California, Omar Olivas currently resides in Edwardsville, Illinois (USA). He has studied Countertechnique since 2005, participating in the One Body One Career in 2007, 2019 and 2022. Omar attended and successfully completed the Countertechnique Teacher Training program in 2022.

Omar has a Masters in Kinesiology from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and graduated with a Bachelors in Fine Arts in Dance Performance at the University of California, Irvine. As a professional, Omar has performed nationally and Internationally with such distinguished groups as Diavolo Dance Theater, BackhausDance, Los Angeles Contemporary Dance Company, and Neglia Ballet. Omar has been a guest artist at several institutions including La Salle College of the Arts in Singapore, Ballet Centrum in Fürth Germany, Brigham Young University (BYU), University of California Irvine, Chapman University, Webster University, and Jon Lehrer Dance Company Summer Intensive. Omar continues to perform self-produced works and is a guest performer for Diavolo Dance Theater and Neglia Ballet. The majority of Omar’s time is spent educating aspiring dancers for the department of Theater and Dance at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, where he is a full-time professor.

Ashlynn Woelbling moved to Saint Louis in 2010 where she trained under the direction of John Rokita, Tammy Rokita and Nicole Whitesell. After graduating high school, she moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to attend Point Park University. In the spring of 2020, she earned her Bachelor of Arts in Dance Performance and a minor in Business Management. While at Point Park, Ashlynn had the pleasure of working with faculty members Jason McDole, Garfield Lemonius, Judith Leifer-Bentz, Matthew Powell, and Colleen Hooper among many others. After graduation, she moved back to Saint Louis to pursue her career in dance by working as a trainee for The Big Muddy Dance Company as well as freelancing in the Saint Louis area. 

She is passionate about spreading her knowledge and love for dance to the future generation of dancers and currently teaches at three dance studios in the Saint Louis/Illinois area. Ashlynn is so excited to have received her first company contract from Resilience and ready for the 2022 - 23 Season!

Rosanna Tavarez received an MFA in Choreography from The Ohio State University and a BFA in Choreography from University of Michigan. She has a diverse background as a performer/entertainer and has had the honor of working with Marina Ambramovic, Ryan Heffington, Travis Payne, Tony Michaels and Rosanna Gamson/Worldwide. She also toured with N’SYNC and Jessica Simpson as one-fifth of the girl group Eden’s Crush and covered the Emmys, Grammys and Oscars in addition to hosting her own shows as a television personality for FOX, E!, TVGuide Network, and Telemundo/NBC.

As a dance educator, Tavarez is on faculty at CalArts Sharon Disney Lund School of Dance. She has taught as faculty and guest artist at numerous institutions including USC Kaufman School of Dance, University of Michigan, Loyola Marymount University, Scripps College, CalState Long Beach, Studio School, University of Southern Mississippi, Texas State University and Cal State LA.

She also creates her own work under the moniker LA DANSA DANSA. This work has been presented at The Broad Museum, ODC Theatre, REDCAT, Dance Camera West, The Odyssey, Breaking Ground Dance Festival, LA Department of Cultural Affair’s LA Dance Platform, Sarasota Contemporary Dance and Highways Performance Space.

Suzanne Beahrs teaches modern dance at Shawl-Anderson Dance Center in Berkeley and ODC in San Francisco, and creative workshops. She is interested in how modern dance classes can support expansive physical movement, expression, and community. She is grateful to have worked alongside many collaborators, including Ishika Seth, Chelsea Brown, Scott McPheeters, Brianna Taylor, and through her own company in NYC (2012-2015), with Sarah Hillmon, Julia Jurgilewicz, and Celine Syslo. She taught multiple courses at Elon University, NC. Suzanne works as a consultant in equity and inclusion, most recently with Justice Outside. MFA Dance, NYU Tisch School of the Arts; BA Geology, UC Berkeley. suzannebeahrs.com

Jakki Kalogridis is a New Orleans-based dancer, choreographer, visual artist, and writer. Her work synthesizes cultural history through contemporary performance, culminating in multi-disciplinary experiences. Jakki’s movement style deconstructs traditional ballet lines and alignment, privileging individual exploration within a specific framework, asking dancers to discover something new each time.  Jakki holds an MFA in Dance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a BFA in Studio Art from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. 

Xi Zhao (Choreographer) received her MFA from Tisch

School of the Arts at NYU and her MA at the School of

Dance, Minzu University of China, where she stayed as a

tenured lecturer after graduation and worked for 12

years. Xi’s choreographic works including Chinese Dance,

modern dance, and Chinese Opera have won many major

prizes in China and have been presented internationally.

She is the founder and artistic director of Beijing New

Dance Festival, one of the most influential international

contemporary dance festivals in China. From 2015 to

2000, the festival invited over 100 international artists

from more than 25 countries to perform and to teach in

Beijing, introducing various contemporary dance artists

and companies from central and Eastern Europe to China

for the first time. In view of Xi Zhao's contributions to the

international contemporary dance exchanges, the Dance

Fest Skopje in North Macedonia honored her the "Award

MENADA for Extraordinary Achievement in the Field of

Contemporary Dance" in 2019. Xi moved to St. Louis as a

Visiting Guest Artist in the Dance Department at Webster

University where she currently serves in the faculty team

and has been the Artistic Director of Webster University

Dance Ensemble since 2021.

Anna Bauer and Jairus Carr are dancers and choreographers living in Austin, Texas. They dance for the KDH Dance Company while producing their own work. Anna and Jairus began collaborating in 2022. Their pieces have performed at events across Texas: Texas Dance Improvisation Festival, Barnstorm Dance Fest, Austin Dance Festival, Aimed Dance Summer Fest, and RAD Fest. Together, they have completed residencies with Bellingham Repertory Dance, Keshet Makers Space Experience, and Homeport Art House.

What keeps dance interesting, for both the mover and the viewer? The duo’s recent choreographic collaborations attempt to answer this question with nuanced movement languages, humor, and bizarre spatial composition. In dance and in life, Anna and Jairus are trying their best. They also make coffee, read books, and hold hands.