American Repertory Ballet

Archives: People

Rebeca Maso

Rebeca Maso is a former ballet dancer from Cuba. She received her training at the Professional Ballet School in Cuba. She also obtained her Diploma as Ballet Teacher in Cuba and has been teaching for more than 30 years for professional and school levels. She was one of the founder dancers of the Professional Ballet Company of Santiago of Cuba under the direction of Maria Elena Martinez and worked as rehearsal assistant and maître of this company for a few years. In 1995 traveled to Venezuela where she was a member of the Professional Ballet Company Nuevo Mundo of Caracas under the direction of Zhandra Rodriguez.  Maso came to the US in 1999 as a guest artist of Ballet Metropolitano de Caracas participating in the International Ballet Festival in Philadelphia.

In Cuba, she was teaching in regional ballet schools and taking students to examinations and open classes during national seminars. She had been a guest teacher for Milwaukee Ballet School Summer Intensive, San Jose Ballet Festival in Costa Rica, New Orleans Ballet Association, Martha Graham School, Kentucky Ballet Theatre and had the opportunity to participate in the Youth America Grand Prix (YAGP) in Mexico as an invitation of this organization as a part of Ballet Hispanico ballet faculty. She is currently in the ballet faculty of Ballet Hispanico School of Dance in NY, Evolution Dance Center and American Repertory Ballet/ Princeton Ballet School.

Ms. Maso is an ABT Certified Teacher, who has successfully completed the ABT Teacher Training Intensive in Primary through Level 3 of the ABT National Training Curriculum ABT.

Her work includes classical and neo-classical styles of renowned choreographers such as Jose Pares, Paulo Denubila, Dennis Nahant, Alberto Mendez, Carlos Orta, Jorge Lefebre, Lazaro Martinez, Gustavo Herrera, Hilda Rivero, Maria Rovira, Hector Montero, among others.

Tony Lee

Tony Lee graduated from Johns Hopkins University, where he received the Louis Sudler Prize in the Arts, the Arts Innovation Grant, and the inaugural Studio North Grant & Mentorship. While studying at Hopkins, Tony trained in dance at Towson University with Runqiao Du and Susan Mann. He continued his training with American Repertory Ballet first through the summer intensive and later as a trainee. Since then, Tony has gone on to dance with Olympic Ballet Theatre, Connecticut Ballet, and Uptown Dance Company and has performed original works choreographed by Kyle Davis, Connor Walsh, Karina Gonzalez, Chet Walker, and Andre Silva. In addition to his performance career, Tony has worked in ARB’s finance office since 2016.

Julie Diana Hench

Julie Diana Hench (Executive Director) has been a performing arts professional for nearly 30 years. Originally from New Jersey, Ms. Hench studied at the School of American Ballet where she was nominated for the Princess Grace Award. At age 16, she joined San Francisco Ballet as corps member. She became a principal dancer with San Francisco Ballet and Pennsylvania Ballet (now Philadelphia Ballet), performing and originating role in classical and contemporary repertoire. She appeared as a guest artist with New York City Ballet and several international touring groups, and participated in a dancer exchange with The Royal Ballet in London.

Ms. Hench was a private coach and guest teacher for renowned ballet schools across the country, and was appointed to the artistic leadership team at Pennsylvania Ballet. She received Isadora Duncan Awards for her dancing at San Francisco Ballet, and an Association Alumnae Award for her studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She served as Executive Director of Juneau Dance Theatre (JDT), a non-profit arts organization in Juneau, Alaska, where she facilitated collaborations with local artists and arts groups to enrich the dancers’ experience, grow audiences, and broaden the organization’s impact. At JDT, Ms. Hench helped the organization partner with the Kennedy Center’s “Any Given Child” initiative to expand arts education in Juneau public schools. She launched Juneau’s first-ever summer intensive ballet program and was honored to stage works for the George Balanchine Trust, enabling JDT to present Balanchine’s work onstage.

Ms. Hench has written for various productions such as Playbill, Dance, Dance Spirit, and Pointe, and was a Contributing Editor at Dance Teacher magazine where she wrote the monthly “Theory and Practice” column.

She earned a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, graduating summa cum laude, and served as President of the University of Pennsylvania’s Association of Alumnae. She also completed the Executive Program in Arts and Culture Strategy, a partnership between the University of Pennsylvania and National Arts Strategies. Ms. Hench has been the Executive Director of American Repertory Ballet and Princeton Ballet School since 2017.

Lindsay Cahill

Lindsay Cahill began her career at American Repertory Ballet in 2009 as a Dance Power Teaching Artist. Now in her new role as Access and Enrichment Coordinator she is excited to combine her love of the arts with her students, families and entire New Brunswick community. As a dance and gymnastics instructor for over 17 years, her passion of the arts shine through in her strong, patient and encouraging teaching style. Her past community partnership experience working in the City of New Brunswick’s Mayor’s Office and with New Brunswick City Market, her new role offers the ability to strengthen and improve the great City of New Brunswick she also calls home.

Email: [email protected]    |    Phone: 732.249.1254, ext. 19

Christopher Chambers

Designs for theater, dance, opera and special events. Dance: Ailey II, American Repertory Ballet, Ballet Memphis, Lustig Dance Theatre, Parsons Dance, Manchester Ballet, Ram Island Dance. Theatre: Cape Playhouse, North Shore Music Theatre, Connecticut Repertory Theatre, York Theatre, Curtain Call Inc., Boston College, Montclair State University, University of Hartford, Dramatics NYC, Gallery Players,Mount Washington Valley Theatre Company, Resort Players, M+D Productions. A Connecticut native, Chris currently lives in New York City and freelances as a designer and consultant. He holds a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Connecticut.

Aydmara Cabrera

Aydmara Cabrera began her ballet studies at the age of nine at the National Ballet School in Havana and became a principal dancer at the National Ballet of Cuba , under the direction of Alicia Alonso. Cabrera’s professional dance experience includes international ballet festivals and worldwide tours, performing lead roles in all classical and contemporary ballets with the National Ballet of Cuba and Ballet Hispanico of New York. She studied with iconic teachers such as Alicia Alonso, Loipa Araujo, Josefina Mendez, Joaquin Banegas, and Ramona de Saa. In the course of her career, Cabrera partnered with some of the most famous male dancers of our time, including José Manuel Carreño, Carlos Acosta, Orlando Salgado, Lienz Chang, Jorge Vega and José Zamorano, before moving to the United States and directing her own school in Miami. She has also been invited to teach at many internationally recognized schools, including Princeton Ballet School, developing a training curriculum that incorporates much of her Cuban roots.

Dawn Dell’Omo

Dawn Dell’Omo has dedicated the last 15 years of her career to the non-profit sector. Dawn has proven that a combination of dedication and hard work will produce favorable results and positive outcomes. She has a proven track record of success in both her financial roles as well as in her capacity as a fund raiser.
Immediately following college, Dawn joined a local CPA firm where she worked as an auditor for close to 5 years. In 1995, she joined the American Repertory Ballet company where she worked for 5 years as its Finance Manager.
In 2000, Dawn left the American Repertory Ballet to join the Foundation at Monmouth Medical Center as its Director of Finance. While at the Foundation, Dawn has held multiple roles. One of her proudest roles is the experience that she has gained in fundraising by being part of or organizing a variety of different events where she has helped raise $500,000 over the last five years.
Dawn’s love for the arts and her years spent as a dancer at the Princeton Ballet School, have brought her back to the ARB where she is relishing the opportunity to rejoin the ARB community.
Dawn is a lifelong resident of New Jersey and currently resides in Jackson with her two children, Nicholas and Thomas.
Dawn is involved in many outside ventures and volunteer initiatives including as a Board Member of the David S. Zocchi Brain Tumor Foundation where she takes a personal interest in the mission of the Foundation.
When asked what she is looking forward to most in rejoining the American Repertory Ballet, Dawn says, “I eagerly anticipate the opportunity to rejoin the ARB and to help it to reach in to new communities, bring financial success and experience unprecedented growth.”

Email: [email protected]    |    Phone: 732.249.1254, ext. 13

Janessa Cornell Urwin

Janessa’s costume designs have been a creative part of over 45 classical ballets and contemporary dance pieces for American Repertory Ballet, Traverse City Dance Project, Kun-Yang Lin/Dancers, Nacre Dance Company, The Nutmeg Ballet, MODArts Dance Collective, Axelrod Contemporary Ballet Theater and the Dance Department at Rutgers University and Stockton University.  She has collaborated with esteemed choreographers Ethan Stiefel, Amy Seiwert, Arthur Mitchell, Stephanie Martinez, Ja’ Malik, Claire Davidson, Da’Von Doane, Meredith Rainey, Caili Quan, Ryoko Tanaka, and Kirk Peterson, bringing their vision to the stage.  Over her decade-long tenure with American Repertory Ballet, Janessa has designed several critically acclaimed full-length works including Stiefel’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Peterson’s Beauty and the Beast.  Other design credits include: Athena Theatre, H (film short), The Lost Princess of Oz, and The Polar Express.  Janessa began her career as a ballet dancer, studied Costume Design at the Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC, and has guest lectured at NYU/ABT and Mason Gross School of the Arts.

Susan Tenney

Susan Tenney (Modern Dance, Ballet) is an award-winning Director and Choreographer. Her eclectic career has had her working professionally in dance, theatre and film, performing or having her work produced in venues that include the Kennedy Center, Off Broadway, Edinburgh Festival, Williamstown Theatre Festival, La Mama, Florence Gould Hall, Jacobs Pillow, France, Princeton University, and regional theatres including Cincinnati Playhouse, and McCarter Theatre. She received four commissions from the Coalition for Peace Action to create commemorative pieces, and a grant from the Princeton Arts Council to create The Tower a multi-disciplinary work. Her evening-length work Je me Souviens…I Remember was called “stunningly dramatic” by Princeton Patch. In 2020 she was a Resident Artist with New York Stage & Film developing McCourt a new play about the Pulitzer Prize winning memoirist Frank McCourt. She began her dance training at the Princeton Ballet School with Audree Estey and remembers Audree asking her and all the five year olds in the class, to whisper in her ear what “kind” of bird they would like to be, before they “flew” across the studio floor. For Princeton Ballet School she has taught Ballet, Modern Dance, and Choreography to students ages 4 to 84, and set her Mozart Divertimento in F on PBII and students from the Summer Intensive. Her fundraiser for the organization brought over 150 dancers, musicians and community members on to the fields of Princeton University for an outdoor performance featuring her choreography and structured improvisations danced by the community. Her initiative “Got Dance?” was a set of yearly weekend performances which she produced and directed that had the Adult Students of the school dancing in sold out shows in Studio A. She holds a B.F.A. in Dance from SUNY Purchase.

Amy Megules

Amy Megules began dancing with the Vineland Regional Dance Company and received her BFA in dance from SUNY Purchase, where she received the Bert Terborgh Dance Award. She apprenticed with the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago, and then danced with American Repertory Ballet. Amy has also been on faculty at Today’s Dance Center, the National Dance Institute of Trenton, and Mercer County Community College. Amy taught and choreographed for the Otto M. Budig Academy of Cincinnati Ballet, the College Conservatory of Music Preparatory Division of the University of Cincinnati, and was the ballet instructor for the elite and accelerated gymnasts at the Cincinnati Gymnastics Academy. Amy enjoys teaching the littlest dancers through adults. She is a children’s rehearsal director for ARB’s “Nutcracker” and Princeton Ballet School’s spring productions.