Leadership Team
Rosely Conz President
Rosely Conz, MA, MFA, is a Brazilian dancer, filmmaker, choreographer, and educator. Her screendances have been presented in Ireland, Barbados, Mexico, Brasil, South Africa, and in many states in the US. Since 2018, Rosely has been a curator for SSF and helped produce the two Brazilian editions of the festival in 2019 and 2020. Presently, Rosely is an Assistant Professor of Dance at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, where she continues researching how dance and screendance can address issues of immigration and displacement.
Photo by Richard Pfister
Photo by Ingi Jensson
Ana Baer Carrillo Vice President
Ana Baer Carrillo, MFA, is a Mexican video-choreographer living in the US since 2000, and she has been with SSF since nearly the beginning. Internationally active since 1990, her work has been produced in America, Asia and Europe by dance, film and screendance festivals, as well as by galleries, museums and institutions of higher education. In 2014 she co-founded WECreate Productions with Heike Salzer to further explore themes of identity, the body, and site-specificity through artistic collaboration. The international scope of her presentations, the diversity of the forms in which she works, and her frequent practice of collaboration are evidence of her twenty-first century, transitional, interdisciplinary contributions to the Arts. Currently on faculty at Texas State University, Baer Carrillo works across several discrete fields and genres, maintaining a clear dance-centric conceptual line in her research agenda.
Michelle Bernier Executive Director + Artistic Co-Director
Michelle Bernier, MFA, is a dancer, educator, and filmmaker living in Denver, Colorado (USA). She holds a BA in Philosophy summa cum laude from the University of Southern Maine, and an MFA in Dance Choreography and Performance from the University of Colorado Boulder, with dual focus in somatic studies and digital media. Bernier has lectured on dance cinema at Universidad de Campinas (as a part of Sans Souci Brazil), Texas State University, California Institute of the Arts, University of Colorado Boulder, Association for Theatre in Higher Education, Colorado Dance Educators Organization, National Dance Educators Organization, and Dance Studies Association; her choreographic residencies include Texas State University, Colorado Mesa University, Metropolitan State University of Denver, and Jack’s Solar Garden. Her films have been screened at ADF’s Movies by Movers, Screendance Festival, Bebop Channel, and more. She is currently on faculty at Metropolitan State University of Denver, and was recently honored with the inaugural Emerging Leader in Dance Award from The Dance Archive. Bernier has served as Executive Director and Artistic Co-Director of SSF since 2015, continuing to cultivate her passion and experience to expand and diversify the organization.
Photo by Adam Riggs Pictures
Photo by Nina Padilla
Michelle Nance
Michelle Nance, MFA, currently serves as a Professor and Director of the Dance Program at Texas State University. Her choreography and screendance performances have been commissioned and produced in dance festivals and educational venues in the U.S., Guatemala, Mexico, Brazil, Barbados, Italy, S. Korea, Spain, Costa Rica, Scotland, Chile, Greece, the Netherlands, France, Iran, Egypt, England, Columbia, and Ireland. Ms. Nance earned her MFA in Performance and Choreography from the University of Colorado-Boulder in 2001. As a dancer, Ms. Nance has had the honor and privilege of performing in the works of many notable American choreographers and dance companies, including: Erick Hawkins, David Dorfman, and many more. She currently co-creates and performs in screendance works and hybrid screen/stage works with WECreate Productions, in addition to The Margarita Clan.
J. Akiyama
J. Akiyama is a Colorado-based improvisational artist. He also actively studies the Japanese martial art of aikido and practices somatic psychotherapy in Colorado. Did you know our logo is based on J. Akiyama’s photo of Marla Schulz performing in the Sans Souci Community Dance Film?
Peg Volpe Posnick
Peg Volpe Posnick is a Colorado-based independent dance artist and writer. She received her MFA in Dance from the University of Colorado Boulder in 1996. Peg served as Community Engagement Coordinator for CU Boulder Department of Theatre & Dance from 2002-2018 and was a guest lecturer from 2008-2010. Her current work includes a writing practice, creating solo improvisation scores to perform when opportunities arise, facilitating Fieldwork sessions for the Boulder, Colorado site, and assisting for the Boulder Dance for Parkinson’s Disease program. As a member of the Board of Directors, Peg serves on the Events and Programming and Disruptors Teams.
Program Staff
Ana Baer Carrillo Artistic Co-Director
Michelle Bernier Executive Director and Artistic Co-Director
Jeanine McCain Screening Partner Liaison
Sean Connolly Technical Director
Crystal Polis Bookkeeper and Grant Writer
Mayte Porragas Social Media Manager
Founders
- Michelle Ellsworth Founder
- Brandi Mathis Founding Curator
- David Leserman (a.k.a. Hamel Bloom) Executive Director Emeritus
