Meet the participating artists of A.M. Collaborative 2022-2023!
Click on a name below to jump to their bio!
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Sybilla Blank (she/her): @sybillaodenheimer
Sybilla Blank is an independent filmmaker born in Brazil and based in Atlanta. With a deep love for the magic that lives in the shadows and the stories that ache to be told, she moved to Los Angeles where she studied film and graduated from the New York Film Academy. Since then, she’s worked as a producer and director on branded content, film marketing campaigns, short films and features.
Sharon C. Carelock (she/her): @seecarelock
Sharon C. Carelock, a recent graduate of the MFA program at the Florida State University School of Dance, is thrilled to be back in Atlanta and presenting work. This native spent her time in school developing her artistic voice by studying and performing with prestigious faculty and notable guest artists, including Rodger Belman, Emily Johnson, Anjali Austin, and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar. Now that Carelock has returned home, she is once again united with those who helped her discover her passion for choreography and performance, like Corian Ellisor and Kamali Hill. She has recently completed her first season as Production Coordinator for Core Dance. Carelock is grateful to be reunited with this organization because of the opportunities, people, and lessons this company gives.
Darya Fard (she/her): @daryafardstudio
Darya Fard is a multidisciplinary artist and Georgia State University’s 2022 MFA Alumni. She received her BFA and first MFA degrees in Iran. She is highly interested in intersecting visual art, including printmaking, photography, video, installation, sound, and dance, with Persian literature, Mythology, and psychology. Her work examines universal connection by creating metaphorical, symmetrical, and symbolic mythical creatures inspired by Persian poetry, mythology, and psychological studies. Recently she focused on comparative scientistic studies and natural phenomena.
She taught multidisciplinary classes in Iran and continued her career as a university-level teaching assistant and Graduate Instructor. After graduation, she continued teaching at the GSU School of Art and Design. She has been professionally active in the art world since 2008, including solo shows, invitational exhibitions, and juried and group exhibitions across Iran and different states in the US, Italy, Turkey, Norway, Canada, and Belarus.
She was the featured artist in Atiba9 magazine, an international publication in Spain and Algeria, and Voyage magazine, a national publication in the United States. She is the recipient of more than three awards for artistic excellence.
In her studio practice and recent installations, she used various printmaking techniques like lithography, intaglio, silkscreen, woodcut/linocut, mono-print, and alternative photographic processes to create narrative works to translate to other mediums like video and sound, and dance and shadow.
Meg Gourley (she/her): @meggourley
Meg Gourley is a graduate of the University of Georgia with her BFA in Dance and a minor in Anthropology with a K12 Certification for Dance, with which she completed her student teaching at North Gwinnett High School in 2017. She began her dance training at the age of three at Decatur School of Ballet. Meg has had the pleasure of studying at the Joffrey Ballet School, Staibdance, the Governor’s Honors Program, and the American Dance Festival. While at UGA, she was chosen to perform work by notable guests such as Alexandre Munz, Luis Piedra, and Urban Bush Women. Furthermore, she had the opportunity to perform in Costa Rica with Danza Universitaria in San Jose, as well as travel and dance in Voronezh, Russia with the UGA Department of Dance. As a professional dance artist, she has performed and worked with Jessica Bertram, Poetica, Atlanta Dance Collective, Dance Canvas, Bautanz Here, and Valleto Dance. Meg continued her education with ImmerseATL, studying under George Staib, Sean Nguyen-Hilton, and Sarah Hilmer, having the opportunity to perform work by her peers, as well as with Staibdance in “Moat”. Currently, Meg is also in her fourth season as a company member of Kit Modus, under the direction of Jillian Mitchell. During her time with Kit Modus, Meg has been privileged to premier new works by Mitchell, including “Figment”(2019), as well as guest work by Mark Caserta, Pulkit Sharma, Ruben Julliard, Alexander Espinosa, Maddie Hanson, and Christian Denise. She has been a teacher in the Atlanta area for five years, teaching at Decatur School of Ballet, Covington Regional Ballet, Ballet Institute of Atlanta, and more. Meg has had the privilege of working as Head Resident Assistant and Administrative Assistant under Colleen Barnes at Joffrey South, as well as serving as guest faculty and on the audition tour for The Joffrey Ballet School. As a choreographer, Meg has worked collaboratively with Catherine Messina to create two duets, “Further West”(2021) which was performed in Fall For Fall Dance Festival in Atlanta and Inhale Performance Series in Philadelphia, and “We Let Our Hair Down”(2022) which was shown at Dixon Place in New York City and will be shown at Fall For Fall in 2022.
T’Shauna Henry (she/her): @tshaymae
Henry is a Georgia Native who grew up as a dancer training with Northeast Atlanta Ballet, Valdosta State University, Dance Ensemble at Georgia State University, and Gwinnett Dance Project. Having studied and graduated from GSU with a B.A. in Film & Media and currently owning her own media service business, CreativiTEA MeTea EnterTEAment, she assembles visual creations inspired by her dance upbringing and narrations as an actress as an all around performer. She continues to work on intersecting art-based productions and projects alike as a dancer, actress, choreographer, filmmaker and producer.
Megan Hundley (she/her):
Megan Hundley is a dancer and musician based in Atlanta, Georgia. She has been a belly dancer, Bollywood dancer, Hawaiian hula dancer, and fire dancer for the past 12 years and performs/teaches at various events in the United States. Previously, she was also a professional violinist, violist, and cellist for over 20 years who performed with multiple symphonies, participated in competitions, and taught children and adults. Megan enjoys seeing herself and her students grow with music and dance, both personally and professionally, and is excited to continue that growth through another year with DanceATL.
Andre Lumpkin (he/him): @urb4n.sh4m4n
Andre Lumpkin is an artist, educator and entrepreneur from Athens GA. Although immersed in different cultural dance forms from a young age, he started his formal training at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Under the guidance of the dance program, he worked with artists and companies such as Blake Beckham, Kyle Abraham, Jennifer Archibald, StaibDance and Catellier Dance projects. Majoring in Sociology and minoring in Dance and Theater Studies, Lumpkin’s focus and passion centers the integral nature of arts and creativity in community and everyday life.
As an alumnus of Emory, Lumpkin continued on to earn his M.F.A in Choreography and Performance from The Florida State University School of Dance in 2017. During his graduate studies, He had the chance to work with renowned artists such as Jawole Zollar, Rodger Belman (R.I.P.), Jaamil Kosoko and Joya Powell, and hone his unique artistic voice. Post Graduate School Lumpkin continues to create, educate and perform nationally and internationally. As a professional, Lumpkin has dedicated himself to a holistic approach to choreography, teaching, performing, production design and community empowerment.
Merryn McKeough (she/her): @merryn_m
Merryn McKeough is an Atlanta-based choreographer and movement artist. Originally from Illinois, Merryn studied dance at Emory University, where she completed a choreographic honors thesis and graduated with highest honors in dance and movement studies. Merryn danced with the Emory Dance Company for four years and has presented work at ACDA, Play. Risk. Research., and the EDC concert.
René Nesbit (she/her): @canicolornowstudios @cherish.dance
René Nesbit is a dancer, choreographer, teacher, poet, and painter. She believes that creativity is powerful and that it can help change and unite the world. The founder of Can I Color Now Studios and director of Cherish Dance, she gives voice to her imagination through art, movement, and words. You can learn more about her goals and upcoming projects, here: www.canicolornowstudios.com www.welcometocherish.org
Keira Quinn (she/her): @thecakewinner
Keira is an Atlanta-based mixed media artist and educator, who specializes in stop-motion animation, puppetry and youth art education. Ever since being traumatized at a young age by clay animation – it is clay, why is it moving?!? – she has been enraptured by the world of hand-made storytelling and puppetry. During and after her time at the Savannah College of Art & Design, she has had digital freelance work with clients from Netflix and the MikeRoweWorks Foundation, she oversaw several segments for the independent, internationally-produced documentary, Romantic Chorus, and has performed puppetry at Atlanta’s own Center for Puppetry Arts and Stone Mountain Park. In addition, she has been teaching classes and workshops that merge artistic expression with STEM teaching principles in Atlanta youth art schools, libraries, museums and children’s hospitals since 2018, and is the Manager of Public Programs at the Children’s Museum of Atlanta.
Ashlea Sovetts (she/her): @smashlea_
Ashlea Sovetts is a multifaceted dance artist who flows between a variety of different roles. Primarily, her work centers around choreography, dance in higher education and arts administration. As a choreographer, she investigates real-life experiences as inspiration to create narratives. As an educator, she emphasizes a somatic approach by focusing on breath, fluidity, and awareness of one’s presence in relationship to others. As an administrator, her skill set includes project execution, content development, recruitment/retention, grant writing/editing and leading facilitation amongst artists. Currently, she is a dance faculty member at Columbia College, in Columbia, SC and the Program Manager for the Staibdance summer intensive in Sorrento, Italy. She is a World Dance Alliance Americas board member, an NDEO Advocacy committee member and the former president for the Grand Strand Charter Arts board. Ashlea’s work has been supported by the South Carolina Arts Commission, Alternate Roots, the Andrew W. Mellon foundation, and the New England Foundation for the Arts. Ashlea, originally from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina graduated Cum Laude from Winthrop University and holds a Bachelors of Arts degree in Dance and her Master of Fine Arts in Dance from Texas Woman’s University.
Lizzy Storm (she/her): @lizzystorm
Lizzy Storm, born 1990, is an artist and educator from West Orange, New Jersey. Storm attended the Rhode Island School of Design and graduated with a BFA in 2012, and received an MFA in Studio (Drawing & Painting concentration) from Georgia State University in 2022. Her work has been exhibited at non-profits, artist-run spaces, universities, and museums in the Northeast and Atlanta such as the Newark Museum, Newark, NJ; Project for Empty Space, Newark, NJ; Montclair State University Segal Gallery, Montclair, NJ; Seton Hall University Walsh Gallery, South Orange, NJ; Index Art Center, Newark, NJ; Temporary Art Center, Atlanta, GA; University of Georgia Glass Gallery, Athens, GA; Welch School Galleries, Atlanta, GA, among others. Her work is in the collections of the Newark Public Library and numerous private collectors. She was a studio resident at the non-profit Gallery Aferro in Newark, NJ from 2013-2016. Storm resides in Atlanta, GA, where she keeps a studio at the MET Atlanta. She is a part-time instructor of Foundations at GSU and Emory University.
ensemble vim: @ensemblevim
Founded in 2019, ensemble vim is an all women-run contemporary chamber collective dedicated to the performance of music by living composers. We aim to highlight the works of underrepresented artists, especially those with strong ties to the southeastern US. With initiatives that include educational outreach programs and multidisciplinary collaborations, vim is on a mission to foster and elevate new music in Atlanta.
Jordan Young (he/him): @jordanyoungcreative
Jordan Young is an artist, educator, and arts advocate based in Atlanta, Georgia. For over a decade, Jordan has worked as artist and organizer to kindle curiosity and invoke public creativity. Melding disciplines through media production, performance, interactive design, and stage production, Jordan’s practice is focused on discovering playful modes of expression and collaboration that invite audiences to become co-creators. Jordan is the co-founder of Fort Psych Media & Events, a production design team partnering with artists and organizations to catalyze art creation and participation. Past collaborators include Chaka Khan Hacienda, Atlanta Film Festival, Atlanta Science Festival, the Southeastern Piano Festival, Charleston Fashion Week, iMAGINE Upstate STEAM Festival, and Artisphere. Jordan holds an M.A. in Media Arts from University of South Carolina with a B.A. in Production Studies in Performing Arts from Clemson University.