thread meddle biographies | Stefani Cole

directors

Christine Betsill Christine Betsill is a southern-bred Chicago-based dancer choreographer and singer. Her work has been shown in Chicago, Champaign-Urbana, Louisville, KY, Quito, Ecuador, and Santiago, Chile. She has danced for Renée Wadleigh, Anna Sapozhnikov, Rachel Thorne Germond, Jan Erkert, and Wally Cordona. She has a Bachelors in Vocal Performance and a MFA is dance from the University of Illinois.

Johannah Wininsky is from Sharon, Pennsylvania. She holds a BA in Dance from Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania and an MFA in Dance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she was the honored recipient of the Vannie L. Shiery Award for excellence in choreography and performance. She has worked with the Pennsylvania Dance Theatre as Artistic Director and choreographer and has danced for James Hansen‘s Dance Assemblage, NYC, Dance Alloy, Pittsburgh and RTG Dance, Linda Lehovec and Dancers, and Glass House Dance, Chicago. She is the co-founder/artistic director of Thread Meddle Outfit and a founding member/choreographer for Moyamo Dance. She currently teaches dance at New Trier High School in Winnetka IL.

collaborators

Anna Sapozhnikov is the founder and artistic director of MOYAMO DANCE, a company featuring many dancers and choreographers from the Chicago land area and the Midwest. She has served on dance faculty at the Youth Performing Arts High School in Louisville and as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana for the 2005–2006 school year. Her choreography has been produced in various venues throughout Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Colorado, and Kentucky. Anna has received numerous grants from the Kentucky Arts Council and the Kentucky Foundation for Women, who found her work to be “stunning, impressive, and skillful." Anna will be teaching Modern Technique and Dance History at the Dance Center of Columbia College in the fall.