Co-Executive Director, Harkness Dance Center, and Director, Dance Education Laboratory (DEL)

Erin Lally (BFA, MA) is the Co-Executive Director of Harkness Dance Center, and Director of the Dance Education Laboratory (DEL) at 92NY. Since 2002, Erin has taught dance in public schools, studio, and community settings, sharing her love of dance with children, educators, and families. She taught with Luna Dance Institute in Berkeley, CA where she served as the Family Services Manager, specializing in family dance classes and working with parents and children in the reunification process. Erin is the former Education Director of RIOULT where she led DanceREACH, RIOULT’s education outreach program. Erin was also a founding member and Dance Specialist at Bronx Charter School for the Arts in the South Bronx, NY where she created the dance curriculum and was the dance educator for grades K-5. Erin has served as a teaching artist for New York City Center, American Ballet Theatre, Ballet Hispanico, and American Repertory Ballet Company. Erin holds certificates from the 92NY’s Dance Education Laboratory, the Language of Dance (LOD), and a BFA in Modern Dance Performance at the University of the Arts, and a MA in Dance Education at the University of North Carolina in Greensboro. Erin is the recipient of the 2021 Outstanding Leadership Award from the New York State Dance Education Association. As an active practitioner, Erin teaches weekly family dance classes in the School of Dance, facilitates DEL workshops, and coaches new dance teachers. Erin believes in the power of dance to build relationships and foster community. She is thrilled to lead dance at 92NY, making the mission of Dance for Every Child a reality.

Co-Executive Director, Harkness Dance Center, and Director, Harkness School of Dance

Alison Manning is the former Executive Director and Co-Producer of The Yard on Martha’s Vineyard, working with the organization from 2008-2020 to provide meaningful residency opportunities for national and international dance and performing artists and bringing the performing arts to the Vineyard community. She is founding Co-Artistic Director and Choreographer of DanceTheYard, The Yard’s year-round professional dance company, with choreographic partner and company Co-Artistic Director Jesse Keller Jason. Jesse and Alison’s choreographic body of work has been presented at Jacob’s Pillow, Mass MOCA, The Yard, The Dance Complex, Ohio University, Triskelion Arts, among others.

Alison is a passionate Horton teacher and an avid tap and rhythm dancer and advocate. She discovered her love for the Horton technique as a scholarship student at Jacob’s Pillow, working with the great Milton Myers, and has continued studying with mentors Mr. Myers, Kristina Berger, Karen Gayle and other lauded Horton Teachers through the years. She taught the technique on Faculty at The Yard each summer, and as a guest teaching artist at NYU Steinhardt School, Wesleyan Univeristy, Peridance Capezio Center, and STEPS on Broadway. In addition to teaching, Alison dances and performs with The Bang Group and has worked for The Peggy Spina Tap Company, Xodus Dance Collective, Kinodance company among others. She is the current President of the Marymount Manhattan College Dance Advisory Board as well as a member of the Adjunct Faculty. She graduated Magna Cum Laude from said institution with a BFA in Modern Dance and a Minor in Art History. Alison lives in New York City with her wife and four children and is honored to be shepherding the Harkness School of Dance during this exciting time at The 92nd Street Y, New York.

Photo credit: Sally Cohn

Director of Administration

Chelsea Spraker joined The 92nd Street Y, New York in 2016 where she now serves as the Director of Administration for the Harkness Dance Center. Chelsea supports all aspects of dance at 92NY and works to provide programmatic solutions and operational support for the School of Dance, Dance Education Laboratory, Performance and Artists in Residence programs. Chelsea is an experienced leader and creative professional who is an advocate for dance education and is committed to making the arts accessible to everyone.

Prior to joining 92NY, Chelsea served as an arts administrator for various organizations including Gibney Dance Center, The Feldenkrais Institute of New York and The New York State Summer School of the Arts. As a performing and teaching artist, she worked with the Student Company at Mark Morris Dance Center and performed with the Mariah Maloney Dance Company among other New York City based artists. Chelsea graduated Summa Cum Laude from The College at Brockport, State University of New York with a BFA in Dance and Minor in Business Administration.

Associate Director of Early Childhood Dance

Daria Fitzgerald (M.A., Dance Education, New York University, Professional Dance Teacher Certification, New York State) is the Associate Director of Early Childhood Dance at Harkness Dance Center, 92NY. In this role, Daria leads Harkness Dance Center’s initiative to grow early childhood dance programs across the organization and beyond, teaches early childhood dance classes in 92NY’s Nursery School, Parenting Center, and Harkness Dance Center, and writes curriculum, leads professional development workshops, and coaches through the Dance Education Laboratory (DEL). Daria was recognized as one of the first DEL Lab school recipients for her teaching in the Nursery School.

Daria served as assistant director of Kids Do Dance at The Yard and an associate director of the Arnhold NYU Steinhardt/Global Visiting Scholar Summer Workshop. She has taught children’s dance classes in New York City public schools, the Penn Family Early Childhood Center, the JCC, and various other community and arts organizations. Daria published curriculum through the New York City Department of Education and was the lead curriculum designer of The Yard’s Making It program.

Daria has presented professional development workshops through the National Dance Education Organization (NDEO), Dancing Classrooms, and The Lawrence Arts Center. She served on NDEO’s board of directors and development committee. While in graduate school, Daria founded the Steinhardt Dance Education Association, received the Steinhardt Music and Performing Arts Professions award, and twice received the New York State Dance Education Association graduate student award.

Daria visited Uganda three times to collaborate with and learn from teachers there. She curates an Instagram page where she shares her favorite books to use in children’s dance classes @booksfordancing.

Program Manager

Rachael Lieblein-Jurbala (she/her) joined The 92nd Street Y, New York in 2022, where she serves as Program Manager for the Harkness Dance Center and Dance Education Laboratory (DEL). Prior to joining 92NY, Rachael was Program Manager for the Spencer Educational Foundation, where she managed five educational grant programs dedicated to funding opportunities for students in the risk management and insurance fields. From 2019 to 2020, Rachael taught dance and led community programming for young people at the Center for Family Life Beacon Community Program at PS1 in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and served as Teaching Artist for the Lifelines Interdisciplinary Arts Program at M.S. 136 and M.S. 821. As a dancer and choreographer, Rachael’s work investigates humanistic and sociological questions and aims to provoke conversation, in hopes that she, the performer, and the viewer may all find deeper self-awareness and subsequent potential for radical empathy. Her work has been presented at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the WestFest Dance Festival, WAXworks, Uptown Rising, and the Tank Theater. Rachael is co-producer and curator of the WestFest Dance Festival, an annual festival presenting the works of emerging and established movement artists in New York City. She is currently education chair and board member of the Sasamani Foundation – an organization dedicated to increasing access to education and employment opportunities for women and girls in Tanzania. Rachael holds a bachelor’s degree in Dance and Sociology with a certificate in Community Action and Public Policy from Connecticut College.

www.rachael-lieblein-jurbala.com

Assistant Program Manager

Jennie Palomo, Assistant Program Manager, joined 92NY in 2019. Jennie grew up in Southern California until she moved to New York City to attend The Juilliard School in 2015. Throughout her time at Juilliard, she was able to take part in the Gluck Fellowship Program where students performed at various NYC health care facilities on weekends throughout the year, to develop a personal commitment to help the community through dance and music. After receiving a BFA in Dance in 2019, she starting working part-time at 92NY for the Harkness Dance Center while dancing as a freelance artist in the city. Now, Jennie has joined the Harkness team full-time, first as their Dance Center Coordinator, and now as Assistant Program Manager.

Dance Center Coordinator

Aimee Graham joined 92NY in 2023, where she serves as the Dance Center Coordinator for the Harkness Dance Center. Aimee grew up in Boulder, Colorado prior to attending Marymount Manhattan College where she graduated Summa Cum Laude. She holds a BFA in Modern Dance and a BA in Business specializing in Advertising and Promotion. During her time at Marymount, Aimee had the opportunity to work closely with, and perform works by, Paul Taylor (rehearsed by Lisa Viola), Caleb Teicher, Netta Yerushalmy, Nancy Lushington, Sekou McMiller, and Megan Williams. With a strong passion for dance and a strategic mindset, she brings a unique blend of skills to the team.

Artistic Advisor

Sameena Mitta is artistic director of dance-theater company MeenMoves and its outreach program MadHops. Mitta was a 2022/23 Artist in Residence at 92NY Harkness Dance Center, an NJPAC Choreography Fellow 2019-2022, and received a 2023 Choreographic Fellowship award from the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation. She has presented works at Little Island, 92NY, NJPAC, BAM Fisher, Americas Society, Ailey Studio Theatre, Martha Graham Theatre, Judson Church and many other venues around NYC and around the world. Mitta has produced live events including International Women’s Day of Dance and co-produced international digital events with 1014 Space for Ideas. Mitta completed an intergenerational dance film Bilateral Quadrennium and continues work on a 10-year site-specific dance film project in Germany, Struwwelpeter Project. Mitta earned with distinction the Cecchetti Society’s Diploma and a MA in Dance Creation from Université du Québec à Montréal focusing on Movement Intervention for South Asian survivors of domestic violence. Under Mitta’s artistic direction, MeenMoves explores questions of identity, focusing on the unique perspectives of those who check “none-of-the-above”, to create socially relevant, quirky, highly-technical dance-theater works for stage and film. Mitta advocates for diversity in dance and has sat on multiple dance juries for granting agencies in Canada and the USA. Mitta is mentor to the Recanati-Kaplan scholars in dance, the Harkness Dance Center Artistic Advisor, and she is on faculty at the Limón Institute and 92NY.