PARTICIPATING CHOREOGRAPHERS/ PERFORMANCE ARTISTS 2026
EMILY CARGILL + DANCERS, founder and host company of the Women Arts Exchange, is now in it's 13th season of extraordinary dance making, dedicated to making an impact on the city of JAX by invigorating the Jacksonville dance scene, building community awareness, and cultivating artistic collaborations across the city of Jacksonville and beyond. ECD has toured and presented dance works all across the US in cities such as NYC, Boston, Atlanta, Boulder, Charlotte, Tampa, Detroit, Richmond, Durham and Jacksonville. In 2024, Artistic Director, Emily Cargill, was one of 60 Jacksonville-based artists to be awarded the Individual Artist Grant, funded by the Cultural Council of Greater Jacksonville and the City of Jacksonville. In 2023, Emily was awarded the Community Foundation Individual Artist Grant, to assist in creating her dance piece, bone memory, for the 2nd Annual Women Arts Exchange. This season, ECD presented their evening-length work, the passenger, at Taliaferro Hall, will be the featured artist at the February ArtWalk at Jax Children's Chorus' performance space, will present a new work at the 4th Annual WAX and will engage in several touring opportunities this Spring. ECD is thrilled to share their love for innovative, bold, exciting dance work with the Jacksonville community through the inclusive and trailblazing platform of the Women Arts Exchange.
SAMANTHA "SAMI" COPLON is a freelance dance performer, educator, and choreographer currently based in Orlando, FL. Originally from northern New Jersey, Sami trained primarily at the Dance Academy of North Jersey under the direction of Jason Luks, Jaclyn Walsh, and Angelica Stiskin. She performed at Symphony Space in New York City and appeared in the Capezio A.C.E. Awards in both 2016 and 2018. Sami continued her training at the University of Florida, earning her BFA in Dance in 2022. There, she studied under Dante Puleio, Xan Burley, Alex Springer, and Trent D. Williams Jr., among others. Following graduation, she relocated to New York City to further her artistic development, working and training with artists including Doug Varone, LaQuet Sharnell Pringle, and Emily Cargill. She performed across various festivals and showcases in NYC and beyond, at venues such as Brooklyn Music School, Dancewave, and Gibney. She most recently performed with LaQuet Sharnell Pringle in their debut show, "The Art of Becoming." She is also an experienced dance educator and currently teaches weekly open classes at Momentum Dance Complex in Winter Garden, FL. In 2024, Sami founded her own collective, Cope + Company. Cope + Company crafts contemporary work driven by intricate detail and bold physicality, keeping dance urgent, connective, and essential. Since its inception, the company has performed in festivals and showcases across the East Coast. A recent milestone includes premiering In Hushed Caveats, presenting Parts I and II together for the first time, at the PDC Live Arts Festival in Brooklyn, NY. Cope + Company is set to premiere a new work at Women Arts Exchange in March 2026. The company is thrilled to be back at WAX for the 4th time.
JADA LAFAIRE ALLEN is a Jacksonville, Florida native and a recent graduate of Valdosta State University, where she earned her BFA in Dance and received the Honors Award for Creative Excellence in Dance. During her time at VSU, Jada was a scholarship recipient and a member of the National Honor Society for Dance Arts. She performed in numerous faculty, guest artist, and student works, and had the opportunity to present her own choreography at the 3rd Annual Women’s Art Exchange and the American College Dance Association. Jada’s training includes the American Dance Festival and intensives with Doug Varone and Dancers, Staib Dance, Jacksonville Dance Theatre, Emily Cargill and Dancers, and New Dialect. She is currently a company member with Emily Cargill and Dancers, where she continues to develop her artistic voice and performance practice.
THERESA JIMMERSON is a choreographer and dance artist from Germany based in St. Augustine, Florida. She received her ballet training in the pre-professional program of Theater Basel under Amanda Bennett and at the German Opera on the Rhine in Düsseldorf. In 2016, she moved to New York City, where she performed with numerous companies and freelance choreographers, including Vivo Ballet (Enzo Celli), RIVA Dance Company (Rannvá Niclasen), Luca Renzi Smith, Julia Ehrstrand, Max Stone, and others. Her choreographic work has been presented in Germany and across the United States at dance festivals, college showcases, and performance series. Most recently, she has been commissioned to create new works for Jacksonville University, Jacksonville Dance Theater, and Florida Southern College. She is the founding Artistic Director of CALIMA DANCE, a newly established contemporary dance company based in Northeast Florida.
XAN BURLEY (she/her/hers) is a choreographer, performer, teacher, and arts administrator who was based in New York City from 2007-2018, where she continues to work and present choreography. Burley performed, toured, and taught nationally and internationally with Doug Varone and Dancers from 2012-17, dancing on stages such as the Joyce, BAM/Brooklyn Academy of Music, and the Metropolitan Opera. She continues to act as répétiteur for many of Varone’s seminal works, staging pieces such as Bessie Award-winning Boats Leaving (2006), as well as Lux (2006) and Strict Love (1994), which she staged on UF casts with SoTD professor Alex Springer. She has also performed in the work of artists such as Chris Aiken, Nancy Bannon, Daniel Charon, Jeanine Durning, Shannon Gillen, Angie Hauser, Shannon Hummel, Donnell Oakley, and Tami Stronach, among others. Burley holds an MFA in Choreography and Performance from Smith College and received bachelor’s degrees in Dance and English from the University of Michigan. With Alex Springer, she was honored with the 2015 Emerging Artist Alumni Award from Michigan’s School of Music, Theatre, and Dance. CHOREOGRAPHIC RESEARCH Burley develops choreographic research in close collaboration with Alex Springer, with whom she has been working since 2006. Burley and Springer’s work has been commissioned/presented in NYC and elsewhere by Movement Research at the Judson Church, Danspace Project, New Dance Alliance’s Performance Mix Festival, Joe’s Pub, the 92Y, the TANK, MATA Interval at the Museum of the Moving Image, Gowanus Art & Production, the American Dance Festival (NC), Smith College’s Theatre 14 (MA), the School for Contemporary Dance and Thought (MA), Trinity College (CT), Rhode Island College, the Dance Complex (MA), Women Art Exchange (FL), and Treasure Hill Artist Village (Taipei, Taiwan), among others. With Springer, Burley has received support for the development of their creative work through an AIR Taipei International Artist Residency at Treasure Hill Artist Village (Taiwan), the Croft Artist Residency (MI), Jacob’s Pillow Research Fellowship and site-specific commission (MA), the Marble House Project Artist Residency (VT), a yearlong artist residency at University Settlement in NYC, and NYC space grants from Center for Performance Research, Gibney Dance, BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange, and Triskelion Arts. Their evening-length interdisciplinary project for North was created as recipients of Brooklyn’s Center for Performance Research (CPR) Inaugural Technical and Production residency and with support from the Mertz Gilmore Late-Stage Production grant. Burley and Springer have been commissioned to create performance work for many university and college dance departments and repertory companies throughout the U.S. including the University of Michigan, James Madison University (VA), Skidmore College (NY), Emory University (GA), Ohio University, Santa Fe College (FL), Florida School of the Arts, and Zenon Dance Company (MN), to name a few. They have created numerous dance films, including daylighting (2009), which won the Silver Award in the Dance Films Association’s 48-Hour Challenge. An Ostrich Proudly (2011) was featured on Hulu in TenduTV’s Essential Dance Film and was the subject of scholar Priscilla Guy’s “Where Is the Choreography? Who Is the Choreographer? Alternate Approaches to Choreography through Editing,” a chapter from the Oxford Handbook of Screendance Studies. Their choreography also appears in the feature-length film Frances Ha (2013), which was later screened at the Boondock Film Society (NY) with a coinciding site-specific performance of Burley’s duet 'never only one'. Every Body Meeting (EBM), Burley and Springer’s interdisciplinary performance collective, includes artist/curator Will Owen (PA), award-winning dancer Hsiao-Jou Tang (NY), and others. Every Body Meeting reimagines the “general body meeting” as fertile ground for inclusive, hyper-collaborative creative process at the intersection of multiple disciplines and perspectives. The members endeavor to both defy and celebrate their disciplinary distinctions to craft meaningful and impactful dance performances and art experiences.
BLISS KOHLMYER (Co-Artistic Director of project agora, 2010-2020) was in residence at Bates Dance Festival and created works for the San Francisco International Arts Festival, Dance Gallery, Breaking Ground, and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Her collaborative work with pianist Svetozar Ivanov (Sound Moves Duo) has been presented in various forms at universities throughout the US and Europe. Bliss’ choreographic work has been commissioned by LINES Ballet Summer Program, Péndulo Cero Danza Contemporánea (Mexico), Tampa City Ballet, Jacksonville Dance Theatre, Robert Moses’ Kin (San Francisco), and Sarasota Contemporary Dance Company, among others. Her tutorial on “Dance Making and Watching” was published by Human Kinetics in 2021. And, her collaborative film, Murmurs of the River, has been accepted to numerous film festivals. In New York City, she danced and toured internationally with Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company and the Sean Curran Company. In San Francisco, she danced with Janice Garrett and Dancers, Robert Moses’ Kin, and the San Francisco Opera Ballet. Her newest projects, collaborations with Andee Scott, include a duet by Robert Moses and the "The Professors Portrait", a film by Kate Weare and Jack Sorokin. She received her MFA in Dance from the University of Washington in 2011 and is currently an Associate Professor of Dance at the University of South Florida.
ANDEE SCOTT is a dance artist based in Texas. In recent years, her focus on dance as public art has led her to creating, curating, and producing large-scale, site-specific dance performance events including Dance in the Time of Coronavirus, a socially-distanced dance performance series, which was featured in Dance Magazine, as well as Our Town and Our Trail created with funding from the St. Petersburg Arts Alliance and Creative Pinellas. Her choreography with dance, video, and projection has been commissioned by dance companies and university programs, and her dances have been produced and presented nationally and internationally, most recently in Sweden, Mexico, and China. As a dancer, Andee was a member of Sharir+Bustamante Danceworks and Blue Lapis Light in Austin, TX, and Deja Donne in Italy, and she performed with David Dorfman Dance and AlienNationCo., under the direction of Johannes Birringer. Scott is currently touring The Invitation Situation, a quartet by Jeanine Durning, and is also performing work by Robert Moses with Bliss Kohlmyer. New projects include "The Professors Portrait," a short film by Kate Weare and Jack Sorokin with Kohlmyer and a new work with Durning. She is an associate professor in the Dance Science program at Texas A&M University.
JACQUI HINKSON is a movement and visual artist, arts administrator, and the Founder and Artistic Director of Atlanta-based dance and performance company, EXCAVATE BODY. Jacqui is a long-time mover — drawing inspiration from years as an athlete, yoga practitioner, runner, and dancer. She also considers her work in dance and movement heavily infused with her approach and work as a visual artist, often approaching composition through that lens. She completed ImmerseATL under the guidance of Sarah Hillmer, George Staib, and Anna Bracewell in 2021, and attended Paris Summer Academy with ORIANTHEATRE, under Mehdi Farajpour, in the summer of 2022. Later that year, Jacqui premiered her first evening-length work, AVALANCHE, at Windmill Arts. Following this premiere, Jacqui officially founded EXCAVATE BODY, and became a resident company at Windmill Arts. Jacqui considers EXCAVATE BODY a product of circumstance and necessity, and observes it as an essential part of her daily life. She is amused by the spontaneity, grit, and trust that leading a dance company presents and looks forward to witnessing the way the company, and work, evolves over the years. EXCAVATE BODY, an Atlanta-based dance company, leans into its physically demanding movement language, utilization of palpable imagery and visual art informed practices, and spontaneous and generative processes, to produce works that are interested in digging away at what is possible, probable, and true. EXCAVATE BODY plays with a tension-inducing juxtaposition: floating effortlessly in the unknown, while diving head first into embodied effort & rigor. This makes for a visceral push and pull that encourages viewers to throw themselves off their center, and into the deep end with us. EXCAVATE BODY is carving out a new space for curious and bold dance artists, sharing intentional, athletic, and daring work, and committing to seeking out unique opportunities for the flourishing Atlanta dance community.