prinicipal artists
Juliette Soucie, artistic director
Juliette Soucie is an experienced choreographer and performer based out of New York City. Her works with Dog-Eared Dancers were performed as part of Norfolk ArtsWave! Festival in Norfolk CT at the Battell-Stoeckel Estate of Yale Summer School of Music, and presented by Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. In addition, Ms Soucie’s works have been performed at The Music Shed, Norfolk, CT, Green Space/Fertile Ground, LIC, NY; St. Mark’s Church, WestBeth Studio, Washington Square Church, Context Studios, The Annex @ Barnard College, BAX (formerly Gowanus Art Exchange,) DanceSpace, 440 Studios, the Minor Latham Playhouse, the Clare Rose Playhouse, and featured in Urban Artworks at PACE Downtown Theater. Ms Soucie was also a member of Property-of-Us, a choreographers’ collective based in New York City. Her dances have been commissioned by Orchesis Dance Group and St. Joseph’s College in Long Island. She also was the choreographer for Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, staged at the Triad Theater in NYC. As a performer, Ms Soucie danced with Francine Landes, Sally Hess & Dancers, Matthew Brookoff, Alan Danielson, and in Ernestine Stodelle’s Silo Concert Dancers in works by Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman. Ms Soucie trained at the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance, where she studied dance composition with Pearl Lang, and at the Paul Taylor Dance Company. She studied ballet under the tutelage of Ilana Suprun, Beth Goheen, and Maggie Black. She received a B.A. from Columbia College in Anthropology and studied dance and choreography at Barnard College. Ms Soucie currently has a specialized personal training business in New York City and teaches the New York City Ballet Workout.
Chandana Sikund, managing director
Chandana Sikund studied and performed Odissi, an ancient Indian classical dance canon from the second century B.C., originating from temple dancers on the east coast of India who devoted their entire lives in voluntary service to God. She has also studied Kathak, another classical Indian dance canon which was danced in the courts of the Mughals and gave rise to Flamenco. Ballet, however, has been her life-long love since her youngest days, and provides the framework of her experience. Her motto is “Dance is the breath of life.” Ms. Sikund originally studied ballet at The Royal Ballet in Great Britain. She has worked with noted choreographer Stas’ Kmiec’ promoting the New York City Ballet Workout in workshops around New York City, and studies ballet with Anne Easterling. She is currently a lawyer in New York, but also has graduate degrees in Philosophy, Urban Planning, and Museum Studies.
Nettie Capasso, founding member
As a dancer with the Kansas City Ballet, Nettie Capasso performed a diverse repertory of works by George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Todd Bolender, Alvin Ailey, Eugene Loring, and Anthony Tudor, including the role of “Leto” in Balanchine’s Apollo- in an unprecedented restoration of his 1928 original work; “Phlegmatic” and “Melancholic” in Balanchine’s The Four Temperaments; and “Dewdrop” in The Nutcracker. Ms. Capasso also performed several featured roles in works by Kansas City Ballet founder and then director, Todd Bolender, including Classical Symphony and Celebration. Additional ballets in her performance repertory included Concerto Barocco, Serenade, Memoria, Lilac Garden, Firebird, An American in Paris, Danse Concertantes, Billy the Kid, and many others. Ms. Capasso has also appeared with American Ballet Theatre at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, and for several summers, with the New York City Ballet at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in Saratoga, NY. It was here, at the age of 12, while performing as a “Bug” in Balanchine’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, that she thought her fledgling career was over when she failed to correctly perform staging instructions- from Mr. Balanchine himself- during the Opening Night Gala! Thankfully, her hopes were restored later that summer when she was cast in one of Balanchine’s final works, Mozartiana. Ms. Capasso trained at the prestigious School of American Ballet where she performed at Lincoln Center and at the 1989 Holland Festival in Amsterdam. She received her early training at the Mid- Hudson Ballet in Poughkeepsie, NY. Ms. Capasso holds a Bachelor’s degree in Clinical Nutrition from Hunter College and a Master’s degree in Occupational Therapy from New York University. She is currently an occupational therapist in New York specializing in neurological rehabilitation.
John Curtis-Michael, founding member
John Curtis-Michael is thrilled to be dancing again. A veteran musical theater performer, he has done more than fifty musicals in New York, London, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas--as well as throughout Europe and Japan. He has worked with some of the great choreographers of the twentieth century including Jerome Robbins, Peter Martins, Peter Gennaro, and Agnes DeMille. He was in the hit film Footloose, choreographed by Lynn Taylor-Corbett, and was in the original cast of the NBC soap opera Santa Barbara as well one of the original dirty dancers in Dirty Dancing, both on stage and video. For ten years,his was the singing voice of “Christmas in New York” in the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular. He has toured world- wide in West Side Story and in My Fair Lady as “Freddy.” He won a Drama- Logue award for his portrayal of “Eddie Ryan” in the musical Funny Girl. For the past 20 years, Mr. Curtis-Michael has been the owner of a special event and catering company in Manhattan. John Curtis-Michael Special Events & Design has garnered numerous accolades for its design and custom-catered events for New York, Palm Beach and Los Angeles clientele. After not dancing a step for well over a decade, he is back and thrilled to be performing with some of his dearest friends this year. In “dancer years,” by his calculations, he is actually 103! He is living-proof that there is no fool like an old dancing fool.
