Adeena has dedicated her life to teaching dance both in HS and at the University level. Prior to joining Ririe-Woodbury, she taught high school dance for 32 years, directing Dance Company and coaching Drill Team. While at Granger High School she was instrumental in creating The Granite District Dance Concert, The Granite District Choreography Festival, The High School Dance Festival and countless benefit concerts. Adeena received her B.S. in dance from Brigham Young University and M.F.A from the University of Utah. She was awarded 1997 UAPHERD Outstanding Dance Educator, UHSAA Drill Team Coach of the Year three times, Granite District Excel Outstanding Educator in 2005 and the 2018 Sorenson Legacy Award for Excellence as the Outstanding Dance Educator for the State of Utah. Adeena also taught at Utah State, Brigham Young University, Weber State and Salt Lake Community College. Working with Ririe-Woodbury, she loves the opportunity to be involved with “her people” in the Utah dance community. She is most proud of her 3 amazing children and her 6 grandchildren and is grateful for her remarkable and supportive husband.

Ai began dancing at the age of four in Tokyo, Japan, where she received several national dance awards. After coming to the U.S., she earned a BFA in Modern Dance at the University of Utah. Following graduation, Ai apprenticed for Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company in New York City, and danced professionally with Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company for eight seasons in Salt Lake City between 2000 and 2008. In 2009 she danced her way to New Zealand, where she acquired a Master of Creative and Performing Arts degree. Throughout her career, Ai has enjoyed teaching students of all ages and abilities, both nationally and internationally. In the state of Utah, she has served as Adjunct Faculty at Utah Valley University, taught creative dance for the University of Utah’s Tanner Dance, as well as modern dance technique for the Ballet West Academy. She is thrilled to have returned to Ririe-Woodbury in 2014 as Education Director, and looks forward to an adventurous future with the company.

Cody Brunelle-Potter (they/them) is a non binary dance artist who has worked between New York and Los Angeles. They began their dance and performance career in NYC, as a dancer and Assistant Director for In-Sight Dance Company in Queens. While in Los Angeles, they had the pleasure of making live performances with WhyteBerg, Mollie Wolf, Heidi Duckler, Robin Conrad, Invertigo Dance Theater, Rosanna Gamson World Wide, Acts Of Matter (Rebecca Lemme) Iris Company, LACDC Choreo Lab and Summation LA. They have also had the opportunity to work within the commercial industry with Toogie Barcelo, William Ylvisaker, Jessie Lee Thorne, Reggie Watts, Amy O’Neal, Panther Modern, Ani Taj, Sam Pinkleton, Billie Eilish, Fyohna, Austin McKenzie, Heavy Boots, AJ Lambert and Teddi Gold. They are thrilled and very grateful to begin a new journey in Salt Lake City with Ririe- Woodbury Dance Company. Cody is also a fiber artist who is interested in exploring the place where fiber art and dance meet to open up new ideas and ways of thinking about performance as sculpture. They are also interested in how costumed movement can inform us as people in today’s world about our deeper connection to ourselves when we delete the human form under costume sculpture. They have worked frequently with/for and are always inspired by fellow artist Mimi Haddon. The combination of these two forms creates the artist that Cody strives to be currently. They have created costumes for music videos with artists Teddi Gold, Al-Qasar, Talk2Strangers as well as the Opera Company Orpheus Project with Mimi Haddon. They are also a teaching artist who is currently teaching their own drop-in classes based on availability as well as leading class for Dance Church©.

Fausto is a Chicano dance artist from the Pacific Northwest. He graduated with a BA in Dance and a minor in Anthropology from the University of Washington (UW), where he was awarded the Evelyn H. Green Endowed Scholarship for artistic merit and promise. He grew up training in Mexican Folk Dance, and trained in ballet and modern dance in college. While at the UW, he danced with the Chamber Dance Company, under the direction of Hannah C. Wiley, performing work by Lar Lubovitch, Danny Shapiro/Joanie Smith, Bill T. Jones, and Doug Varone. He is a founding member of Seattle’s Au Collective, a collective of dance artists highlighting the work of artists from marginalized communities. With Au, he was been able to present and perform original choreography throughout the PNW and NYC. Fausto worked under the artistic direction of Donald Byrd at Spectrum Dance Theater, for six seasons, and was able to tour throughout the country and abroad. Fausto joined Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company in 2020 and has performed work by Raja Feather Kelly, LajaMartin, Stephanie Batten Bland, Andrea Miller and Daniel Charon, among others. He feels fortunate to be a part of Salt Lake City’s thriving arts community.‍

Ken James has been creating, performing, and lighting movement-based work for over thirty-five years. As a lighting designer and production manager, Ken has been lucky to have lit hundreds of fantastic artists encompassing stage, site specific, experimental, and traditional works, including having the great joy of lighting both Anna Halprin and Ruth Zaporah in one evening. As a Distinguished Graduate Fellow at UW Milwaukee, his primary research utilized technology to increase audience participation and inclusion by creating inefficient viewing spaces that encouraged choice making and audience mobility. Around the same time in 2017, Ken created Performance Art Resources, an online research aid that now comprises over 3400 performance artists, performance art opportunities, and literature from 159 countries around the world. Ken has served on the board of directors for Dancers’ Group and the San Francisco Butoh Festival as well as on panels for the Djerassi Artist in Residency program and the Ohio Arts in Excellence Awards. In addition to being the co-director of Fellow Travelers Performance Group, Ken performed with Kei Takei’s Moving Earth, Project Bandaloop, Li Chiao Ping Dance, among other artists, and he received the San Francisco Isadora Duncan Dance Award (Izzie) in Choreography for The Adventures of Cunning & Guile along with co-choreographer Chris Black.

Leslie Kraus is a choreographer, performer, and educator with a distinguished career spanning performance and academia. From 2006 to 2014, she was a principal dancer with the Kate Weare Company, contributing to over ten of Weare's creations and serving as Assistant Director. From 2012-2015, Kraus performed with Punchdrunk in both Sleep No More (NYC) and The Drowned Man (UK), and has continued with the company as both performer and guest rehearsal director through 2024. From 2020-2025, Kraus coordinated the Five Moons Dance Festival, which honors and celebrates the legacies of the five renowned Native American ballerinas from Oklahoma. From 2018-2025, she taught at the University of Oklahoma, earning the rank of Associate Professor. Kraus is also a director for CONCRETE, an immersive theatre summer intensive under artistic director Stefanie Batten Bland. She holds a BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University and an MFA from the University of Washington. She is thrilled and honored to join Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company.

Luke Dakota Zender is a gender nonconforming non binary movement based performance artist that values the art of story telling over technique and they believe that movement is for all. “What we do as artists is represent what is possible with our bodies, our imaginations and our imperfections”. Zender has been dancing and choreographing in Los Angeles, New York and a few places in-between for the last ten years both in the commercial and concert worlds. In that time they have come to prioritize equity and inclusion above all else. The dance industry and lifestyle has been a mirror for Zender’s world and has provoked an inner work that has been equally fruitful and challenging. They believe that dance, particularly dance education has the power to transcend and teach life skills valuable to anyone at any and every part of life. As a dancer Luke Dakota has had the privilege to study under David Dorfman, Bill T. Jones, Anouk Van Dijk, Debbie Allen and many more. They have performed for Sean Keylock Company, Bodyart, Contemporary Dance Wyoming, Invertigo Dance Theatre, Rosanna Gamson World Wide, Alice Klock and many more.

Luke Dakota Zender is a movement artist originally from Wyoming. They have been dancing and choreographing nationally since 2013. In that time they have come to prioritize movement as a vehicle for story telling. As a performer Zender has worked with David Dorfman, Babs Case, Debbie Allen, Sean Keylock Company, Bodyart, Contemporary Dance Wyoming, Invertigo Dance Theatre and performed works by countless choreographers. They were the choreographic fellow for the state of Wyoming in 2020. They are currently dancing in their second season with Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company.

Megan (Portland, OR) received her formative training at the School of Oregon Ballet Theatre, and is a graduate of the California Institute of the Arts BFA Program in Dance. Since joining Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company in 2017 she has been part of many creative processes, and had the pleasure of performing new and historical works by Stefanie Batten Bland, Ann Carlson, Daniel Charon, Charlotte Boye-Christensen, Molly Heller, Keerati Jinakunwiphat, Keith Johnson, Raja Feather Kelly, Lajamartin, Andrea Miller, Shirley Ririe, Shapiro & Smith, Doug Varone, Kate Weare, Joan Woodbury, Yin Yue, Alwin Nikolais, and many more. As a freelancer in Los Angeles, she worked extensively with Rosanna Gamson//World Wide and Acts of Matter. Additionally, she has been a guest artist with the Des Moines Metro Opera, Portland Opera, Portland Festival Ballet, Pasadena Dance Theatre, The Union Project Dance Company, szalt, Nugent Dance, Utah Opera, and in numerous independent projects. Megan has toured internationally and domestically as a teacher and performer, and has her choreography produced in Portland, OR.‍

Miche' is a dancer, actor and choreographer from Gautier, Mississippi. She grew up training where her mother and aunt trained, leading her to chase a life in the arts in pursuit of telling stories which would inspire and empower others. A graduate of Troy University, Miche’ completed both a Bachelor of Science in Theatre and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance and was awarded the David Dye Award for Excellence in Theatre Artistry. Upon graduation, Miche’ accepted a position as acting apprentice at Aurora Theatre in Atlanta, where she continued to hone her skills as an actor, educator, and performer. Miche’ joined Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company in 2021 as a dancer and educator. Her most recent choreographic story was a collaboration with Fausto Rivera and University of Utah students in “Watch That Line,” for Ririe-Woodbury’s Traverse. Her creative work has appeared at Plan-B theatre, Dance Camera West, Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival, Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre, Atlanta Film Festival, Bronze Lens Film festival, MAD film festival, LoveDanceMore, SLPublicLibrary, Noori Dance film festival, Dance Canvas, Alabama Dance Festival and more. Miche’ has had the pleasure to perform works by Jose Limon, Alwin Nikolais, Andrea Miller, Stefanie Batten-Bland, Yin Yue, Raja Feather Kelly and more. Miche’ aims to create an evocative, interdisciplinary body of work that encourages us to expose our humanity, examine our wounds, and deeply connect with one another empathetically.

Sasha grew up in Ellsworth, Maine. She graduated summa cum laude from the Conservatory of Dance at SUNY Purchase with a BFA in Dance and minor in Arts Administration, with additional training abroad at the Taipei National University of the Arts. She has had the pleasure of performing work by Christina Robson, Lucinda Childs, Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, Taryn Russel, and Kevin Wynn, among others while in school. After working in NYC with collaborators including Chloe London Dance, Michelle Thompson, Alison Cook Beatty Dance, and Peter Stathas Dance, she relocated to SLC. There, she has worked with Oquirrh West Project, Wasatch Contemporary Dance Company, and Rachel Barker. She is also a passionate teacher of dance, yoga, and meditation. Sasha joined Ririe Woodbury in 2022.

Sasha grew up in Ellsworth, Maine. She graduated summa cum laude from the Conservatory of Dance at SUNY Purchase with a BFA in Dance and a minor in Arts Administration, with additional training abroad at the Taipei National University of the Arts. She has had the pleasure of performing work by Christina Robson, Lucinda Childs, Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, Taryn Russel, and Kevin Wynn, among others, while in school. After working in NYC with collaborators including Chloe London Dance, Michelle Thompson, Alison Cook Beatty Dance, and Peter Stathas Dance, she relocated to SLC. There, she has worked with Oquirrh West Project, Wasatch Contemporary Dance Company, and Rachel Barker. She is also a passionate teacher of dance, yoga, and meditation. Sasha joined Ririe Woodbury in 2022.

Thom has worked in the arts non-profit sector for 12 years in communications, outreach, and leadership roles for dance companies across the United States. From 2019 – 2023, Thom worked for The Rosin Box Project in San Diego as the organization’s inaugural Executive Director. Through his work, the company grew from a $30,000 to $500,000 budget and engaged students across Southern California in numerous dance education workshops. Thom is most proud of TRBP’s outreach program success, as well as the integration of TRBP into its present home in Liberty Station, a historic naval training center and reclaimed arts district in the heart of San Diego. Thom has presented on the topics of social media and dance education to the Board of Directors at Arts for Learning, The San Diego Arts Empower Mega-Conference, and San Diego Unified School District. He has previously served on the communications committee for AERO San Diego, as well as on the executive committee for Rising Arts Leaders of San Diego. Thom currently sits on the advisory Board for Vanguard Culture, a cultural arts organization serving the San Diego/Tijuana region. Thom has also served on the Board of Directors for Smashworks Dance, a dance and social advocacy organization based in New York City. Thom has a B.A. in Organizational Leadership from The University of Oklahoma, and previous to his work in administration was a professional dancer for ballet and contemporary companies in the Midwest. In his downtime, he enjoys hiking and camping with his dog, Zoey.