2007-08 Company Bios

Artistic Staff

Diana Byer (founder & artistic director) has performed as a soloist with Les Grandes Ballets Canadians, Manhattan Festival Ballet, New York City Opera, and the Juilliard Ensemble. She received her principal dance training from Margaret Craske and Antony Tudor. She teaches adult professional ballet, point etechnique, and advanced children’s classes at Ballet School NY, which she founded in 1978. She has taught at Manhattan School of Dance, Compagnie de Michel Hallet (Lyon, France), and Cascina Bella (Milan, Italy). She has been guest instructor at the Cecchetti Society of America, Cornell and New York Universities, SUNY at Purchase, the Martha Graham School, and the Cecchetti Society of Canada (Toronto). Ms. Byer received extensive media attention for her ongoing work with homeless and at-risk children, winning special citations from President George Bush, First Lady Hillary Clinton, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the President’s Committee on the Arts & the Humanities. Ms. Byer coached the principals in the Columbia Pictures film, Center Stage. In the summer of 2003, she gave master classes in the Ballet School of Pecs, Hungary and she regularly provides master classes in schools and performance settings across the U.S.  She is a member of the Antony Tudor Centennial Celebration Committee.

Christina Paolucci (Associate Director) trained with the Boston Ballet and performed with the company while still in high school.  She is a 1995 graduate of The Juilliard School.  From 1996-2003, she was a principal dancer with NYTB, dancing leading roles in the company’s repertoire.  Ms. Paolucci staged ballets for contemporary choreographer Lila York and served as assistant to the director for The Juilliard School’s first Summer Dance Program. She was one of two dancers chosen to represent the Cecchetti style at the First World Congress of Classical and Contemporary Ballet in Monterrey, Mexico.  From 2004-2006, she held the position of Artistic Associate of The Tallahassee Ballet, where she taught all levels of ballet and choreographed for the company as well as directed the company’s community outreach program.  She is a faculty member of Ballet School NY, the official training academy of NYTB and for several summers, was on faculty at Perry-Mansfield Performing Arts School in Colorado.

Sylvia Taalsohn Nolan (costume designer) is the Resident Costume Designer of The Metropolitan Opera, where she designed Doug Varone’s Le Sacre du Printemps. In addition to opera, she has a special interest in designing for dance. Her affiliation with NYTB spans their traditional classical repertory, including The Nutcracker, The Two Pigeons, The Firebird, Cinderella, and Le Carnaval , to their original ballets, The Magic Rose by Edward Henkel, Ghost Stories by Christopher Gillis, Trouble on the Line and The Elements of Style by Matthew Nash, Orbiting and In These Shoes by Danielle Genest. She designed both The Alice-in-Wonderland Follies and Mother GOOSE! by Keith Michael. Ms. Nolan re-created costumes for NYTB’s revivals of La Cachucha (Elssler), Annabel Lee (Skibine), La Malinche (Limón), An Eccentric Beauty Revisited, Terpsichore Explained (Waring), Le Spectre de la Rose (Fokine), and Judgment of Paris (Tudor). She designed new costumes for the reconstructions of Fandango (Tudor), Les Mains Gauches (Tudor), Carnival of the Animals (Diamond), Design for Strings (Taras) and the DeMille Celebration. Ms. Nolan has also designed for the choreographers H.T.Chen, Martha Connerton, Adrienne Dellas, Lou Fancher, Nicolo Fonte, Clove Gallilee, Patricia Nanon, Matthew Neenan, Marco Pelle, James Sutton, Benoit-Swan Pouffer, and Roy Tobias.

Gillian Bradshaw-Smith (set & property design, scenic painting) was born and spent her youth in India. She completed Fine Arts studies at the University of Reading in England. She has lived in the U.S. since 1963 and became a citizen in 1976. Her paintings and sculptures have been exhibited in America and Europe. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Newark Museum of Fine Art, The Mint Museum of Art (NC), and the Worchester Art Museum (MA). Her design and painting for NYTB include Keith Michael’s The Nutcracker and The Alice-In-Wonderland Follies, Edward Henkel’s The Magic Rose, Donald Mahler’s Cinderella, and the production of Carnival of the Animals. She has also recreated the original designs for several NYTB reconstructions including Antony Tudor’s Jardin aux Lilas and she recreated the André Delfau backdrop for the revival of George Skibine’s Annabel Lee. Ms. Bradshaw-Smith has designed and painted productions for Dances Patrelle, The St. Louis Ballet, and The Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet. She has also painted many decorative murals and designs for private clients.

Lucas Benjaminh Krech (lighting designer) Dance: Mother GOOSE! (Keith Michael), A. DeMille Celebration (Gemze de Lappe and Sallie Wilson), Force/Quit (Nicolo Fonte), More Eather, Extra Instinct (Sean Curran) and Blueprint (Johannes Wieland). Theatre: Sake with the Haiku Geisha (Perry Street), Windows (INTAR), Hitting the Wall (Clurman), Cupid and Psyche (Themantics Group), Heliantha (PS 122), Fourth World (Ontological/Hysteric), The Dust Project (HERE), House of Lucky (The Magic), Young Zombiesin Love (Emerald Rain Productions); and numerous productions with Impact Theatre. Site specific:The Seven Deadly Sins: A Fire Opera (Oakland, CA), Medea (San Juan, PR), and Foucault’s Pendulum(Nevada Desert). He holds an MFA from New York University. www.lucaskrech.com

Noriko Suzuki (pianist) made her New York debut at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall in 2001. In 2005, Ms. Suzuki appeared as a soloist with the Symphony Orchestra “Great Artists”, an orchestra made up of top Japanese artists.  She performed Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.5 “Emperor” at Tokyo International Forum in front of four thousand people for their 25th annual event. She has been a prize winner of competitions in the United States, Europe and Japan, including The Most Distinguished Musician Award and Kabalevsky Special Prize at the IBLA Grand Prize International Competition in Italy. She was the Second Prize winner at the Soulima and Françoise Stravinsky New Millennium International Competition in the US. Ms. Suzuki is a featured artist of Yamaha’s New York Rising Star Series.

Ferdy Tumakaka (music director and pianist) was born in Indonesia. In 2001, at the age of 17, he was the First Prize Winner of the Jakarta Piano Competition.  He serves as musical director for productions both in Jakarta and New York.  Mr. Tumakaka has given concerts throughout Jakarta, Paris, Barcelona, Tenerife and New York.  A recipient of numerous awards, Mr. Tumakaka has worked with distinguished artists such as Salomon Mikowsky, Jesus Angel Rodriguez Martin, Cecillio Tieles, Hansjörg Koch, Patrick Zygmanowsky and Ramzi Yassa. He studied with Aisha Ariadna Pletscher and Donn-Alexandre Feder. He is also a collaborator with Robert Strozier and Barbara H. Crook for the Workshop Theater, NYC.

The Dancers

Khangi Argaisukh is originally from Mongolia.  Before joining NYTB in 2007, Mr. Argaisukh danced leading roles in the classical repertory with the New National Theatre Ballet of Tokyo and the Mongolian State Theatre Ballet.  He was awarded a gold medal from the Mongolian Youth Association and graduated with a diploma from the Mongolian Music and Dance College.

Kyle Coffman is from Branson, MO and began his dance training at the Ozarks Performing Arts Alliance.  In 2003 he relocated to New York and studied, with full scholarship, at the American Ballet Theatre School and the Joffrey Ballet School.  He has performed locally and around the world with the Joffrey Ensemble, Peridance Ensemble and Buglisi/Foreman Dance.

Terence Duncan was a principal dancer with NYTB from 1996-2003.  He also danced with Suzanne Farrell Ballet for three seasons.  He holds a BFA in dance from Towson University and in 2006, received his MFA in dance from Florida State University, where he was honored with the Suzanne Farrell Fellowship.  Since returning to NY, Mr. Duncan has performed with New York Baroque Dance Company and David Parker and the Bang Group.  He also was an adjunct faculty member at the Hartt School at the University of Hartford. Mr. Duncan is a faculty member at Ballet School NY, the official training academy of NYTB.

Yukiko Kashiki was born in Japan.  She received her training at the Hakodate Ballet Academy in Japan, the Beijing Dance Academy in China and the Arts Educational School in London.  She appeared with Disney’s The Lion King , Mamma Mia , Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and The Phantom of the Opera. She choreographs for musical revues.

Mitchell Kilby is a native of Newcastle, Australia.  He began his training at the Marie Walton Mahon Dance Academy at age 16. After two years, he was accepted and received a full scholarship to the Joffrey Ballet School in New York.  He is a 2007 Byer Fellowship Recipient.

Carmella Lauer is from Flagstaff, AZ.  She is a graduate of the Virginia School of the Arts and has danced with Ballet Tucson and Staten Island Ballet.

Aaron Nichols began his ballet training in Charlotte, North Carolina under Katharyn Horne and Humphrey-Weidman modern technique under Mary Anne Mee. He has danced with North Carolina Dance Theatre in Opera Carolina’s production of Aida, New York Theatre Ballet, Julia Gleich Dances, Brooklyn Ballet, and Staten Island Ballet. As choreographer, Aaron has created dances for New York Theatre Ballet, Dance Central, Youth Ballet Company, Staten Island Ballet and the New York International Choreographers Festival.

Rie Ogura is from Tokyo and trained at the School of Alberta Ballet under Murray and Nancy Kilgour. She has received honors for the Advanced, Intermediate, and Elementary Ceccetti exams. She danced with the Alberta Ballet Company in Calgary, Canada for two years.

Evan Swenson studied at the Houston Ballet Academy for three years before joining The Atlanta Ballet where he danced in John McFall’s productions of Nutcracker, Swan Lake, Giselle, The Great Gatsby, and Sleeping Beauty.  He has danced in ballets by Christopher Hamson, Lila York, Michael Pink, Stanton Welch, Trey McIntyre, and Ben Stevenson. 

Julie-Anne Taylor was born in Perth, Australia and at 16, she was awarded the Solo Seal by the Royal Academy of Dance in London.  She attended The Graduate College of Dance, the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts, and the New Zealand School of Dance. In 2007 she attended the American Ballet Theatre New York Summer Intensive. She is a 2007 Byer Fellowship Recipient.

Micki Weiner, a native of Buffalo, NY, she has danced principal and soloist roles with The Georgia Ballet and the Richmond Ballet (Virginia).  She studied at the Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet under Marcia Dale Weary and Darla Hoover, as well as at the Boston Ballet and The National Ballet School of Canada.  Ms. Weiner is the Production Director of Dance Canvas in Atlanta, GA. 

Elena Zahlmann trained at the Princeton Ballet School and appeared with the junior company of American Repertory Ballet. Ms. Zahlmann also trained at the New Jersey Governor's School of the Arts. She has danced leading roles in The King & I and Oklahoma! staged by Gemze de Lappe at the MUNY. She is on the faculty of Ballet School NY and is dancing her eighth season with the NYTB.  She is a 2006 Byer Fellowship Recipient.