Left Bank Dance Studio to Open September 24

Left Bank Dance Studio for All, founded by renowned New York professional dancers will open September 24 on State St. in Alton to offer dance and dance-based fitness classes for people of all ages and abilities.

Left Bank's emphasis will be on moving with power and elegance to great music from all eras, for people of all ages. The goal is a fun, expressive and artistic experience for all students. Beginners of all ages are encouraged to attend classes.

Teachers include formers stars of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Stephen Petronio Company, Broadway, American Ballet Theatre, Paris Opera Ballet, The Slaughter Project, Atrek, Ballet Oklahoma, Agnes de Mille, Ann Marie D'angelo, Baryshnikov's White Oak Project, The Antony Tudor Ballet Trust, and a NCAA Track and Field Board Chairman.

Classes will cost $10.00. Special workshops will cost more, but are priced to be affordable to all. Private lessons are available with the founders and top teachers.

Classes offered are Dance for All, Mommy and Me, Eginton Alignment, Contemporary Ballet, DanceBlast!, Yoga for Warriors, After Work Ah! Yoga, SilverFit, Stronger Faster, Horton Modern Dance, and Salsa Party.

Left Bank Dance was founded by Hilary Harper-Wilcoxen and Chuck Wilcoxen, Jr. and Margaret (Meg) Eginton. American Ballet Theatre stars Amanda McKerrow and John Gardner are the Artistic Directors of Left Bank Dance's Institute for Ballet Studies (specialized workshops). The Advisory Committee includes McKerrow, Gardner, and Alton resident and arts advocate Penelope Schmidt, who until 2002 owned the successful Schmidt-Bingham visual arts gallery in New York City, as well as Karin Averty, former Principal ballerina of the Paris Opera Ballet and Brooke Desnoes, founder of L'Academie Americaine de Danse in Paris. Coca teacher Erin Chislin Lane, Washington University faculty member Cecil Slaughter, Principia adjunct instructor Kelly Nichols, and former Atrek co-Director Betsy Brandt will also bring excellent teaching to our Studio for All.

In addition to the Left Bank Studio for All, the organization will offer community outreach workshops, a repertory company for early career choreographers and dancers (spring 2013), and consultancy services for colleges and schools. Left Bank Dance actively seeks corporate partners for community outreach opportunities.

Co-founder Eginton says: “ We can't wait to open the doors and share our love and belief in movement and dance as super fitness and food for life with everybody.”

About the Founders

Meg Eginton in Merce Cunningham's Duets

Left Bank Dance founder Margaret (Meg) Eginton was a leading dancer in the world renowned Merce Cunningham Dance Company, the cutting edge Stephen Petronio Company and also starred on Broadway opposite Bill Irwin in Largely, New York and acted off-Broadway and in movies and commercials. She was the first young woman to receive a Young Artist Fellowship from the American Dance Festival, for her early choreography. She is the recipient of many state and national awards including the New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” award for Outstanding Performance and the “Crystal Bell” for acting from the International Volkov Theatre Festival in Yaroslavl, Russia, and awards for best play direction from the Sarasota Herald Tribune, Sarasota Creative Loafing, and the Iowa Playwrights Workshop. Her dance company, Meg Eginton and Dancers, was produced by all the major NYC venues for contemporary dance including Dance Theatre Workshop, Movement Research, The Kitchen Center for Music and Art, Dance Chance, P.S. 122, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Her theatre and dance work has received support from state and national grants and fellowships including the New York Foundation for the Arts, the New York State Council for the Arts, New College Foundation, JCT Foundation and Trust for Mutual Understanding.

Meg is the creator of Eginton Alignment, a method of self care for posture, range of motion, and stress release, which she has taught in France, Russia, Switzerland, Italy, and across the United States. Meg and Eginton Alignment are credentialed by the International Somatic Movement and Therapy Association. She is a registered Movement Educator and Therapist (ISMETA) and for seven years studied Alexander Technique and Feldenkrais Work with master teacher Lydia Yohay in New York. Eginton Alignment is taught in workshops, ongoing classes, and private lessons.

In 2003 she assistant directed and choreographed Wagner's Parsifal for Seattle Opera. In 2005 she produced and directed Boston Marriage for the Paris Foire St. Germain. In 2007 she acted in My Mocking Happiness in an English language production performed in Moscow and St. Petersburg, RU. Her play, The Secret Life of ThemePark, co-written and performed by Eric Paul Jakobsen toured Florida in 2009. In 2011 Cezanne's Doubt premiered at Sarasota Ballet. In 2010 and 2011 new dance and music works, including Living and Dead: The Gettysburg Project, co-created with composer Stephen Miles, premiered in the professional series New Music New College. In 2012 she premiered Antibes, at Principia College.

She has previously served on faculties of New York University Tisch School for the Arts, and the American Repertory Theatre/Moscow Art Theatre Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University. She has also taught Movement for Actors, and Dance at Moscow Art Theatre and Vakhtangov School, Ru; the International Institute for Performing Arts/Paris, Roy Hart Theatre, FR; Yale College, Principia College, The University of Iowa;Theatre de Vevey, CH; SpazioZero, Commune di Napoli,Theatre Cesenatico, the University of Bologna, IT. In addition to her role as Head of Movement and Dance at FSU/Asolo Conservatory she is adjunct Professor of Acting, Theatre Arts, and Interdisciplinary Performance Practice at the New College of Florida. She is a master teacher for NYC Atlantic Theater and teaches Eginton Alignment and Movement for Actors in their advanced acting workshop each summer in Burlington, VT.

Meg serves on the advisory boards of the International Institute of Performing Arts, and Aquavit Theatre in Chicago. She is a past member of Actors Equity, American Guild of Musical Artists; Screen Actors Guild/American Federation of Television Artists. Her BA is in dance from Sarah Lawrence College and she earned her MFA from The University of Iowa, where she was an Iowa Arts Fellow. Meg helped found Left Bank Dance in Alton in 2012-2013 while on sabbatical from her professorship at the Florida State University/Asolo Conservatory, and her involvement will continue in the future.

Meg is thrilled to expand her dance practice to people of all ages and walks of life at Left Bank Dance!

Hilary Harper as Sugar Plum in The Nutcracker

Left Bank Dance Founder Hilary Harper starred as a professional dancer for many years performing as a soloist and principal dancer with such companies as Company of American Dance and Ann Marie D’Angelo and Company in New York City, Connecticut Ballet, Ballet Oklahoma, and many others. Performances included corps, solo and principal roles in ballets such as The Nutcracker (Sugarplum Fairy), Balanchine’s Concerto Barocco, de Mille’s Rodeo (Kissing Girl), Sokolow’s Magritte, Magritte, Les Sylphides and Giselle, as well as numerous other original works. It has been her privilege to create roles with many notable choreographers over the years including Agnes de Mille, Anna Sokolow, Darrell Barnett, Diane Coburn-Bruning, Bo Spassoff, Meg Eginton, Ann Marie D’Angelo, Brett Raphael and Christine Dunbar.

Hilary now serves on the Antony Tudor Ballet Trust Curriculum and has organized several workshops in Tudor's work for greater St. Louis dancers. She has recently been privileged to serve as both Ballet Mistress and Repétiteur for Antony Tudor’s ballet Little Improvisations. She is a guest artist teacher for Académie Americaine de Danse de Paris every summer where she teaches ballet and Somatics. She also teaches at The American College Dance Festival.

Harper-Wilcoxen is Assistant Professor of Dance at Principia College where she teaches ballet, modern and jazz, dance history and theatre movement and is Chair of the Theatre and Dance Department. She choreographs dances and plays, and directs Principia's yearly dance production, which often involves as many as sixty students.

Harper-Wilcoxen is the creator of “Dance as Metaphor”, an innovative Corporate Leadership Training Program that uses dance making as a means to teaching collaboration and leadership skills. She has taught this workshop for Korn/Ferry International throughout the world with their Corporate Leadership Training Program. This program speaks to her continuing interest in bringing dance to broader audiences through creative and accessible venues; it also illustrates her passion for creative and effective leadership training in business, education and the arts.

Prior to her teaching career in higher education Hilary worked in both politics and development. Her political work included one campaign as Finance Director and, later, two campaigns as Campaign Manager for a Unites States Congressman in Connecticut’s Fourth District. Her development career took her to Stamford Center for the Arts where she was Director of Development.

She received her dance training on both coasts and in Europe studying at such schools as American Ballet Theater, The Martha Graham School, The José Limon Dance Institute and The Geneva Conservatory, Switzerland and from teachers such as Patricia Wilde, David Howard, Maggie Black, Marina Stavitskaya, Milton Meyers, Ann Reinking and others. She earned her BA in Political Science from Columbia University and her MFA in Dance from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, considered the top MFA program in the United States.

Founder Chuck Wilcoxen is the head Track and Field and Cross Country coach at Principia College, in Elsah, IL. At Left Bank Dance he helps dancers and athletes develop stamina, power, and speed. He has been coaching for twenty six years, and has been named the SLIAC (St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference) Coach of the year three times, most recently in 2011. He has also been named United States Small College Athletic Association National Coach of the Year. For five years, Chuck served on the NCAA National Sport Committee for Track and Field and Cross Country. He served as Chair of that committee for his last two years, ending in 2011. Chuck has coached several All Americans (men and women) in different events, and both men’s and women’s Cross Country teams have been conference champions. Chuck is most interested in discovering fun, safe, balanced, and highly effective development techniques for individuals. He studies and experiments constantly, borrowing from ancient Romans to contemporary Ethiopians and Norwegians. For dancers he is currently developing a “Generative Training for Dancers” workshop which he will unveil at Left Bank Dance.

Chuck is also a visual artist and author. His children's book Niccolini’s Song was published by Dutton Children’s Books, and was a best seller. It won the Concours Prize. He held a Merit Scholarship at the Art Students’ League in NY, and has shown his paintings at The Greenwich Art Society, Beaux Arts Gallery, Landmark Gallery, Greenwich Arts Council, all in CT, The Kodner Gallery in St Louis, and at the Holt Gallery at Principia College. He has taught studio art (drawing, painting, AP portfolio), art history, and aesthetics at prep schools in CT (The King School and Daycroft). He tries not to drive with his eyes closed when he has passengers in school vans, and many people say he reminds them of a young Lech Walesa. Chuck exercises his sense of humor at all times. He has also produced illustrations for many corporate clients, including General Electric. His editorial illustrations appeared in The Hartford Courant,  Greenwich Time, Stamford Advocate, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Christian Science Monitor, and were syndicated by The Times Mirror Group.

Amanda McKerrow is one of America’s most beloved and acclaimed ballerinas. She has the honor of being the first American to receive a gold medal at the International Ballet Competition in Moscow in 1981. Since then, she has been the recipient of numerous other awards, among them the Princess Grace Foundation Dance Fellowship in 1986, the Deane Sherman Award for Excellence in the Field of Dance in 1988, and the New York Woman Award for Dance in 1991.

Ms. McKerrow was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico and began her ballet training at the age of 7 at the Twinbrook School of Ballet in Rockville, Maryland. She later studied with Mary Day at the Washington Ballet, and joined that company as an apprentice in 1979. She became a full company member in 1980 and toured extensively throughout the United States and Europe.

Ms. McKerrow joined the American Ballet Theatre in 1982, was appointed a Soloist in 1983, and became a Principal Dancer in 1987. Her repertoire includes the leading roles in Cinderella, Giselle, Romeo and Juliet, Manon, La Bayadere, Coppelia, Don Quixote, The Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, La Sylphide, The Nutcracker, and The Dream. She has received acclaim for her performances of shorter works by George Balanchine, Antony Tudor, Sir Frederick Ashton, Mark Morris, Jerome Robbins, and choreographers such as Twyla Tharp, Clark Tippet, James Kudelka and Agnes DeMille.

Ms. McKerrow has performed as a guest artist throughout the world including appearances in Rome, Tokyo, Vienna, Latvia, Argentina, Spain, London, Montreal, Havana and across the United States. In 1999, Ms. McKerrow renewed her association with the Washington Ballet as a principal guest artist.

Since her retirement from Ballet Theatre in 2005 she has devoted her professional work to enriching and inspiring young dancers internationally. In 2000, together with her husband John Gardner, McKerrow began working with the Antony Tudor Ballet Trust, staging and coaching many of the master choreographer’s works for a multitude of ballet companies and in college and university dance programs, Principia College being one. She has also staged numerous other ballets for professional companies and schools around the world. Recently, she and her husband, fellow dancer John Gardner, staged Antony Tudor’s The Leaves Are Fading for the Washington Ballet at the Kennedy Center and Ballet West in Salt Lake City. She also dedicates much of her time to teaching and coaching this great art form that she loves so completely. Her love for dancing, teaching, and students is evident in everything she does.

Left Bank Dance is thrilled to have Amanda McKerrow on its Artistic Advisory Committee. We are also thrilled to have her serve, with her husband John, as our co-Artistic Director for Left Bank Dance Institute for Ballet Studies. Her expertise and deep artistry in skills such as partnering, variations, musicality, drama, and classical technique are absolutely world class, and her knowledge will excite and artistically educate ballet dancers from all over the country. Her sensitivity to meaning found through movement nuance, was the greatest of her generation. Amanda is a true “dancer's dancer” and there is no other ballerina we could be more proud and honored to have as our collaborator and muse.

John Gardner enjoyed a stellar career as one of America’s most compelling dramatic dancers. He distinguished himself during his performance career in two major dance companies; American Ballet Theatre and The White Oak Dance Project and was in great demand as a guest artist, appearing frequently around the world with his wife, Amanda McKerrow. Today, he is a choreographer and one of America’s most beloved ballet teachers.

Mr. Gardner was born in Lafayette, Louisiana and began his ballet training at age 12 with Gwen Ashton in Lafayette and subsequently at the National Academy of Arts in Champaign, Illinois under the direction of Michael Maule. He received a scholarship to the American Ballet Theatre School at age 16 and joined the Ballet Repertory Company in 1977. He joined American Ballet Theatre in 1978 and was promoted to Soloist in 1984.

In 1991, Mr. Gardner became a Principal Dancer with The White Oak Dance Project under Mikhail Baryshnikov. He created roles in ballets by choreographers such as Mark Morris, Paul Taylor, Lar Lubovitch, David Gordon, Merce Cunningham and Martha Graham, touring extensively in Europe, the United States and Asia.

His repertoire with American Ballet Theatre has included: The Husband in Anastasia; the Head Fakir and the Bronze Idol in La Bayadere; the title role in Billy The Kid; the duet from Concerto Six Twenty Two; Gamache and Lorenzo in Don Quixote; the second sailor in Fancy Free; the Officer in Gaîté Parisienne; Hilarion and the Peasant Pas de Deux in Giselle; Camille in The Merry Widow; Cassio in Othello; the Champion Roper in Rodeo; Romeo, Mercutio, Benvolio and Paris in Romeo and Juliet; the Prince, the Bluebird and the Jewels in The Sleeping Beauty; Benno and Von Rothbart in Swan Lake; Gurn in La Sylphide; Gremio in Taming of the Shrew; as well as leading roles in Diversion of Angels, Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes, The Leaves Are Fading, Pillar of Fire, Dark Elegies, Gala Performance, Airs, Sunset, Opus Jazz, Interplay, Les Noces, Some Assembly Required and Bruch Violin Concerto No. 1 to name just a few.

Mr. Gardner’s passion for educating the next generation of dancers and sharing his love for dance and what it has to offer is evident in all his work. From choreography to teaching to coaching he imparts an infectious joy and respect for the work at hand, and a sincere appreciation for those he is sharing it with. His tremendous ability to share technical and musical knowledge is amplified by his enthusiasm and love for the art form he has devoted his life to sharing, at all times and in many ways.

Left Bank Dance is honored to have John on our Artistic Advisory Committee. We are also delighted to have him serve, with his wife Amanda, as our co-Artistic Director for Left Bank Dance Institute for Ballet Studies developing special training and repertory workshops in skills such as men's variations, conditioning, classical technique, contemporary ballet technique, musicality, and perhaps most especially, partnering. In addition to his virile and exuberant dancing, John was one of the consummate ballet partners of his generation. He has an immense breadth and depth of knowledge to impart about this most technical and sensitive ballet art, to dancers from all over the world. We are very excited and grateful to have him by our side.

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