Schedule, Classes, & Faculty (DPW)

Anna Barker (she/her) was introduced to Pilates during college as a strengthening and supportive tool for her dance career, and it quickly became an integral part of her training as a movement practitioner. She received her BFA in Dance and BA in Psychology from Temple University in 2009. She completed her classical Pilates certification through The Pilates Center, and was trained at Body Precision (Mat, 2009) in Philadelphia and InsideOut Body Therapies (Apparatus, 2013) in Durham. She has taught throughout Philadelphia, New York City, and the Chapel Hill/Durham area for the past 13 years. Anna opened The Movement Studio, a Pilates-based movement studio, in June of 2022 on Radical Healing’s wellness campus in Durham, NC. In addition to her studio work, she has an in-home practice supporting clients in recovery from major injury, surgery, and birth. Anna is fascinated by the healing and reconstructive elements of Pilates and has used the system to combat her own dance-related injuries. Her movement practice consists of an ever-expanding synergy of classical Pilates exercises and other movement ideologies including dance, yoga, functional range conditioning, PT-based movement rehab, slings myofascial training, TRX suspension weight training, movement for clients with neurological conditions, and perinatal and postpartum work. Anna’s choreographic research draws from the shared human experience to create an exchange about our social and interpersonal existence within an evolving sociopolitical context. She founded her dance-theater company, real.live.people, in 2014 with collaborator Leah Wilks. Since its inception, the company has presented three evening-length works and one feature-length dance film. Her work has been presented in various festivals and venues across the US. She was the recipient of the NC Arts Council Fellowship (2019) and the Ella Pratt Emerging Artist Grant (2018). Anna currently creates dance work both in Durham and in NYC.

annasbarker.com
IG: @annasaurusrexx

Classes: Drop-in Pilates-based Conditioning 

Photo by Zoe Litaker

Robert Battle became Artistic Director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in July 2011 after being personally selected by Judith Jamison, making him only the third person to head the company since it was founded in 1958. In 2023, Mr. Battle stepped down from his position after 12 years as Artistic Director.

A frequent choreographer and artist in residence at Ailey since 1999, he set many of his works on Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Ailey II, and at The Ailey School. The company’s repertory includes his ballets Ella, For Four, In/Side, Love Stories finale, Mass, and Unfold. In addition to expanding the Ailey repertory with works by artists as diverse as Kyle Abraham, Mauro Bigonzetti, Ronald K. Brown, Rennie Harris, and Paul Taylor, Mr. Battle also instituted the New Directions Choreography Lab to help develop the next generation of choreographers.

Mr. Battle’s journey to the top of the modern dance world began in the Liberty City neighborhood of Miami, FL. He showed artistic talent early and studied dance at a high school arts magnet program before moving on to Miami’s New World School of the Arts, under the direction of Daniel Lewis and Gerri Houlihan, and finally to the dance program at The Juilliard School, under the direction of Benjamin Harkarvy, where he met his mentor, Carolyn Adams. He danced with Parsons Dance from 1994 to 2001 and also set his choreography on that company starting in 1998. Mr. Battle then founded his own Battleworks Dance Company, which made its debut in 2002 in Düsseldorf, Germany, as the U.S. representative to the World Dance Alliance’s Global Assembly. Battleworks subsequently performed extensively at venues including The Joyce Theater, Dance Theater Workshop, American Dance Festival, and Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival.

Mr. Battle was honored as one of the “Masters of African American Choreography” by the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 2005, and he received the prestigious Statue Award from the Princess Grace Foundation-USA in 2007. He is a recipient of the 2021 Dance Magazine Award and has honorary doctorates from The University of the Arts, Marymount Manhattan College, and Fordham University. Mr. Battle was named a 2015 Visiting Fellow for The Art of Change, an initiative by the Ford Foundation. He is a sought-after keynote speaker and has addressed a number of high-profile organizations, including the United Nations Leaders Programme and the UNICEF Senior Leadership Development Programme.

Gerri Houlihan studied at The Juilliard School with Antony Tudor and members of the Martha Graham and Jose Limon dance companies. She performed with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet Company, the Paul Sanasardo Dance Company, and the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company. From 1991 to 1999 she directed her own company, Houlihan and Dancers, based in Miami, FL. During that time, she was on the faculty of the New World School of the Arts. Ms. Houlihan serves on the Advisory Board for the American Dance Festival. She has been on the faculty of ADF from 1981 to 1983 and from 1987 to the present. As an international representative for ADF, she has participated in 17 international linkage programs in such countries as Korea, China, Mongolia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Estonia, Poland, and Russia. She is the recipient of ADF’s Balasaraswati/Joy Anne Dewey Beinecke Endowed Chair for Distinguished Teaching. She was Co-Dean and then Dean of the ADF School from 2010 to 2015 and received her MFA from the Hollins/ADF MFA program. She recently retired from Florida State University, where she was the Pearl S. Tyner Distinguished Professor in Teaching and is now Professor Emerita. Currently, she teaches at the ADF studios in Durham and is the Artistic Director of the Big Red Dance Project.

Netta Yerushalmy is a dance artist based in New York City. Her work aims to engage with audiences by imparting the sensation of things as they are perceived, not as they are known, and to challenge how meaning is attributed and constructed.

For her choreographic work, Netta has been awarded a USA Artists Fellowship, Guggenheim Fellowship, Princeton Arts Fellowship, Research Fellowship at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Toulmin Fellowship for Women Leaders in Dance at Center for Ballet and the Arts at New York University, New York City Center Choreography Fellowship, Van Cleef & Arpels / Jerome Robbins Bogliasco Fellowships, Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award, National Dance Project Grant, LMCC’s Extended Life program, Six Points Fellowship, Cultural Leadership Fellowship from Mandel Institute, and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship.

Her work has been commissioned and presented by venues such as PEAK Performances, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Joyce Theater, American Dance Festival, New York Live Arts, Danspace Project, Suzanne Dellal Center for Dance, HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Wexner Center for the Arts, La Mama, River to River Festival, Center for the Arts/Buffalo, International Dance (Jerusalem), Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Foundation, ‘62 Center for the Arts/Williamstown, ODC & Bridge Project, Harkness Dance Festival, International Solo Festival (Stuttgart), and Roulette.

Her work has been supported by the Baryshnikov Arts Center, UCROSS Foundation/UCLA, Watermill Center, MANCC, National Center for Choreography/Akron, Dance Initiative, Djerassi Arts Program, The Yard, Jacob's Pillow Lab, Miami Light Project, Movement Research, Gibney’s DiP, Trinity College.

Netta works across genres and disciplines: she contributed to artist Josiah McElheny’s Prismatic Park at Madison Square Park, choreographed a Red Hot Chili Peppers music video, worked with cellist Maya Beiser and composer Julia Wolfe on Spinning, and collaborated on evenings of theory and performance at the Institute for Cultural Inquiry (ICI Berlin).

As a guest artist and visiting faculty, Netta has created work with repertory companies and students nationwide at the University of the Arts, Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, Juilliard School, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, University of Oklahoma, Rutgers University, Marymount Manhattan, University of Utah, Princeton University, Zenon Dance Company, Drexel University, American Dance Festival, Alvin Ailey School/Fordham, SUNY Brockport, University of Texas at Austin, James Madison University, Long Island University, UNC Charlotte, Roger Williams University, Sarah Lawrence College.

As a performer, Netta has worked with Pam Tanowitz Dance, Doug Varone and Dancers, Joanna Kotze, Karinne Keithley, Nancy Bannon, Mark Jarecki, and the Metropolitan Opera Ballet.

Netta grew up in Galilee, Israel. She received a BFA in Dance from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.

Photo by Branda.