Ari L. Mokdad is an alumna from Grand Valley State University where she received three Bachelor of Arts degrees in Dance, Writing, and English. She has earned regional and national choreography awards, most notably, for her work "Grounded" which was selected to perform at the American College Dance Association in 2014. Ari had the privilege of working with many artists while at GVSU, such as Julie Blume, Thayer Jonutz, Autumn Eckman, Lauren Edson, Lizze Mackenzie, and Thodos Dance Chicago. Ari received her Master of Arts from Wayne State University in 2017. While in Detroit, she debuted a projection-mapped solo at the historic Detroit Music Hall titled Body Studies. Ari’s embodied lyric essay, titled “Body Studies: Arabets” was published in Elemental: A Collection of Michigan Creative Nonfiction, which was the recipient of the 2019 Michigan Notable Book Award. In 2019, Ari performed in Theotokos: Reimagining the Mother of God which was generously supported by the Lynch and Sons Fund for the Arts and debuted Water Studies with the Detroit Dance City Festival at the Detroit Institute of Arts. Ari is currently completing her MFA from Warren Wilson College and her PhD from Wayne State University. She is the recipient of the 2020 Rona Jaffe Foundation Graduate Fellowship and was awarded the 2021 Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs Grant for her forthcoming performance, "When Water Moves".

Amy Rose trained on scholarship at the Ruth Page Foundation School of Dance, American Ballet Theatre School and the Lyric Opera of Chicago.

Amy performed with the Chicago Ballet in “The Nutcracker” and “Alice in Wonderland” before joining American Ballet Theatre at the age of sixteen.

Amy danced as a soloist with ABT, featured in principal, soloist and character roles in both the classical and contemporary repertoire. She was featured in several “Dance in America” and “Live from the Met” television and video productions. During this time she also guested with the Universal Ballet in Korea, Japan and China, with Stars of American Ballet in Manila and performed at Jacob’s Pillow with Patrick Bissell and other ABT principals.

She then went on to dance with Pacific Northwest Ballet where she danced leading roles in many ballets including creating her roles in Kent Sowell’s “Carmina Burana”, “Cinderella” and Mark Dendy’s “Les Biches”. She was a featured dancer on their tour to Australia.

As a freelance dancer she guested with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Dance West Ballet, Northwest Ballet and the Civic Ballet of Chicago among others.

Ms. Rose has been on the faculty for the ABT Summer Intensives and in the Chicago area for 20 years. She’s currently on faculty for three different schools and is the ballet mistress for Ballet Theatre of IL and for the Schaumburg Prairie Center of the Arts “The Nutcracker”. She has also coached students for various competitions.

Amy Rose is an ABT Certified Teacher who has successfully completed the ABT Teacher Training Intensive in Primary through Level 7 of the ABT National Training Curriculum.

DeAnn Petruschke began training at the School of Cleveland Ballet under the tutelage of Daniel Job and Roni Mahler. She continued her training at the School of American Ballet, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre and the Milwaukee Ballet Schools. During Ms. Petruschkes' ballet career she danced as a soloist and in the corps de ballet for Ballet Arizona, Cleveland Ballet, San Jose Ballet, Oregon Ballet Theater, Grand Rapids Ballet and Ballet Gamonet. While performing with the Grand Rapids Ballet, she taught in the school. Ms. Petruschke has continued her teaching career as faculty and guest instructor at schools in Michigan, Ohio and South Florida. Ms. Petruschke currently resides in Miami, where she is currently a faculty member at New World School of the Arts and the Miami City Ballet School, both since 2012.