 MICHAEL VERNON, Artistic Director & Choreographer
Michael Vernon studied at the Royal Ballet School in London with such legendary teachers as Dame Ninette de Valois and Leonide Massine. He performed with the Royal Ballet, the Royal Opera Ballet, and the London Festival Ballet before coming to New York in 1976 to join the Eglevsky Ballet as ballet master and resident choreographer. He was artistic director of the Long Island-based company from 1989 to 1996.
He has choreographed numerous works for ballet companies in the United States and worldwide. Mikhail Baryshnikov commissioned him to choreograph In a Country Garden for American Ballet Theatre (ABT). His solo S’Wonderful was danced by ABT principal Cynthia Harvey in the presence of President and Mrs. Reagan and shown nationwide on CBS television. He also worked as the assistant choreographer on Ken Russell’s movie “Valentino,” starring Rudolph Nureyev and Leslie Caron.
Vernon has taught at StepsNYC for many years, working with dancers from New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theater, and many other high profile companies. He is an integral part of the Manhattan Dance Project, which brings NY-style master classes to all regions of the country. He has been involved with the Ballet Program at Chautauqua Institute since 1995, regularly teaches and mentors dancers for Ballet Hawaii in Honolulu, and is the artistic director for Ballet School of Stamford in Connecticut.
Vernon has been company teacher for ABT, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Metropolitan Opera Ballet, and Alvin Ailey Company and School, as well as guest teacher for the Julliard School.
 RICHARD BERNAS, Guest Conductor
Gramophone Award-winning conductor Richard Bernas is also music consultant at Tate Modern. Events he has developed there are without equivalent in European museums, being gallery rather than concert based. They have included performing Feldman’s Rothko Chapeland Tallis’ Lamentations in Tate’s Rothko Room, commissioning Rebecca Saunders’ Chroma for the large Turbine Hall, performing music during such exhibitions as Arte Povera, Surrealism and Brancusi, and collaborations with BBC Radio 3 and the Almeida Festival.
As well as conducting many of the BBC Orchestras and performing extensively in Europe, he has worked with many of today’s leading composers. World premieres have varied from Nicholas Maw’s Odyssey with the BBC Symphony at the Royal Festival Hall to Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Sternklang in the Berliner Tiergarten, including James Dillon’s Oceanos for the BBC Proms and a number of ballets for The Royal Ballet at Covent Garden, where he has been a guest for over a dozen years.
Highlights of his varied theatre work include Britten’s Death in Venice for Scottish Opera; Mozart’s Idomeneo for the Theatre du Capitole, Toulouse; the Ravel Operas for Opera Zuid, Holland; Britten’s Prince of the Pagodas at Covent Garden and the MET; Will Tuckett’s full staging of Stravinsky’s Soldier’s Tale at ROH2; and the première of Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire on the main stage at Covent Garden. As well as the Royal Ballet, other dance companies he has worked with include the Paris Opera, San Francisco, Hong Kong and New York City Ballets.
His Decca recording of Turnage’s opera Greek has recently been re-issued and NMC will re-issue his Virgin recording of Casken’s Golem (Gramophone Award). LMC have just issued his recording of Satie’s cantata Socrate. He also conducted the BBC video production of Greek which won the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Award as best broadcast of the year.
Bernas has given talks on new music, new audiences, and orchestras for the Association of British Orchestras and Westminster University, as well as lecturing for City University and London’s Department of Cultural Policy. Recent Tate Modern collaborations have been a three-hour-long John Cage Musicircus staged throughout the museum to launch the re-hang of the Abstract collection, a reconstruction of the original performance of Pierrot Lunaire for “Kandinsky, the path to abstraction,” and curating Alvin Curran’s Maritime Rites, which was played by over 200 musicians on and around the Thames just outside the museum.
Last season, he returned to Covent Garden for the world premieres of two ballets by Wheeldon (Nyman) and McGregor (Talbot), as well as works by Hindemith and Schoenberg, and made his debut with the Hong Kong Philharmonic.
 C. DAVID HIGGINS, Set & Costume Designer
C. David Higgins has been designing scenery since 1972, when he began working at the Jacobs School of Music as a master scenic artist. Now a faculty member, he has been designing opera and ballet scenery and costumes across the globe for theaters in the United States, England, Italy, Iceland, and Korea. With over 150 productions to his credit, he has been described as one of America’s finest scenic painters by Opera News magazine and is best known for his detailed, Italianate painting style.
 ROBERT O'HEARN , Costume Designer
Robert O'Hearn earned his bachelor’s degree from Indiana University in 1943. He has been a scenic and costume designer for the Metropolitan Opera, Vienna Staatsoper, Vienna Volksoper, Hamburg Staatsoper, New York City Opera, Greater Miami Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Santa Fe Opera, American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, and Ballet West. He served as professor for the Studio and Forum of Stage Design in New York from 1968 to 1988. O’Hearn has also given guest lectures and classes at Carnegie Mellon, Brandeis, and Penn State University.
 CHUN CHI AN, Rehearsal Accompanist
A native of China, Chun Chi An graduated from Beijing Music school in the early 70s. As a principal pianist, he worked with Beijing Central Ballet Company from 1972 to 1982. He came to America in 1982 and has a master’s degree in piano performance. From 1982 to 1992, he worked with Ballet West, Richmond Ballet, Cleveland Ballet, and Ballett der Deutschen Oper am Rhein (Germany). As a music director, he has been working with the Ballet Department in the Jacobs School of Music since 1992.
 DORICHA SALES, Ballet Mistress
Doricha Sales received training at the Boston Ballet with founder E. Virginia Williams, as well as at the School of American Ballet and Walnut Hill School of the Arts. She has danced with Boston Ballet II, Boston Ballet, Dance Theater of Florida, Ballet Florida, and Florida Dance Theater. She has been an advocate of arts and education, working as director of ballet for Rochelle School of the Arts, as a dance representative of the Hawaiian Alliance for Arts and Education, and served on the Committee for Artistic Excellence in Florida. At Indiana University, Sales has been a faculty member since 2001 and is the associate director of the Pre-College Ballet Program. She has two degrees, both of which she obtained at Indiana University: a B.S. in Ballet Performance with an Outside Field in History/Sociology and an M.S. in Ballet Pedagogy and Educational Psychology.
 IRINA TER-GRIGORIAN, Rehearsal Accompanist
Irina Ter-Grigoryan received her degrees of piano performance, pedagogy, and accompanist in the former Soviet Union. Ter-Grigoryan served as a faculty member at the Baku State Conservatory and as an accompanist for the Azerbaijan State Theater Opera and Ballet. She was selected from a small pool of musicians to accompany international and regional competitions representing the Soviet Union. During her time in the United States, Ter-Grigoryan has continued her work as an accompanist with the Temple Square Concert Series Recitals in Salt Lake City, UT, the University of Utah, and Ballet West Co., and as a collaborative pianist at DePauw University. Ter-Grigoryan currently holds the position of accompanist and music director with the Indiana University Ballet Department.
 STEPHANIE TULEY, Ballet Mistress for children
Stephanie (Lampe) Tuley received dual B.S. degrees in ballet (with high honors) and math (with highest honors) in May 2007. She performed as a guest with the Peoria Ballet in their 2007 productions of Cinderella, Pas de Quatre, and Swan Lake Pas de Trois. While at IU, Tuley performed soloist roles in many ballets, operas, and modern dance shows. She received awards from the Bloomington chapter of the National Society of Arts and Letters in 2004, 2006, and 2007. She has worked as a teacher, ballet mistress, and choreographer for the IU Pre-College Ballet Program since 2004. Prior to attending IU, Tuley graduated with honors from the Interlochen Arts Academy. She has served on the summer faculty of Interlochen Arts Camp since 2005.
 VIOLETTE VERDY, Coach for Principal dancers
Verdy is currently a professor of ballet at Indiana University School of Music. She was a principal dancer with the New York City Ballet for 20 years and an international ballerina with major companies in America and Europe. She is a former artistic director of the Paris Opera Ballet and Boston Ballet. Throughout her career she has taught for many ballet companies and schools, including New York City Ballet, The Royal Ballet, The Paris Opera, The Australian Ballet Company, The Royal Danish, and, most recently, The Bolshoi Ballet Company, the first outside female teacher invited since 1917. Verdy is also the principal artistic advisor for The Rock School of Ballet, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
 GUOPING WANG, Ballet Master
A native of China, Guoping Wang studied ballet at the Ballet Department of the Shanghai Dance School and in the graduate program at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. He danced with the Shanghai Ballet Company from July 1980 to October 1991 and joined Ballet Chicago in 1993, performing leading roles with the company through 1995. In 1997, while also a member of the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago, Wang was recognized by the Chicago Dance Community with a Ruth Page Award for Outstanding Dance Achievement. Wang has been on the faculty of the School of Ballet Chicago and a guest teacher and coach for the Indiana University Ballet Theater. This is Wang’s third year as a full-time faculty member at IU.
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