Nutcracker Short and Suite

THE ARTISTS

Matisse Madden (Sugar Plum Fairy) is the director and producer of Matisse and Friend’s Nutcracker Short and Suite. She hails from Kauai and received her early training from Royal Ballet Kauai. She has performed to critical acclaim in both the United States and Europe. She has danced with Ballet West, Connecticut Ballet and Dimensional Dance. She has guested in Utah and Vermont as the Snow Queen and Sugar Plum Fairy. Madden has performed the lead in Dimensional Dance’s Wyeth: Looking Beyond and Peaceable Kingdom and as Prudence Crandall, in Whole-Souled Women: The Story of Prudence Crandall and Sarah Harris. In 2023 she choreographed the opening section of Dimensional Dance’s production of The Story of Ruth which was performed with live singing and music by the chamber choir Voce. She also danced as Naomi in the production of The Story of Ruth.

Although Madden is focuses on performing at present, she has a strong academic background. She received her B.A. in Dance (Ballet emphasis) and B.S in Zoology from Brigham Young University, and her MFA from The University of Utah. Madden currently teaches the intermediate and advanced Ballet classes at Yale University. Matisse Madden is also the assistant director Dimensional Dance.

Ruth Vesenka Lewis (Mother) Ruth Lewis is the founder and director of Dimensional Dance. Lewis conceived and is the lead choreographer of the company’s award winning work Whole-Souled Women: The Prudence Crandall and Sarah Harris Story. She recently created, directed and choreographed The Story of Ruth which was performed with live music and singing in collaboration with Voce, the New England chamber choir for St. Alban’s Episcopal Church. She has also choregraphed for Saratoga City Ballet, CONNectic Ballet, and collaborated with Ekklesia Contemporary Ballet and CONCORA Connecitcut Choral Artists. Lewis performed professional in the main company of American Repertory Ballet for seven years performing works by Alvin Ailey, Gerald Arpino, George Balanchine, and Paul Taylor. She finished her career as a principal dancing as the Sugar Plum Fairy in Septime’s Webre’s Nutcracker.

Lewis teaches at Ekklesia School of Ballet in Middletown. In addition she leads teaching artist choreography workshops on environmental justice and social justice history with Jus Hues and Savana Jones respectively in Hartford County. Lewis teaches yoga at Farmington Big Sky.

When not in the studio she is an Avon Land Trust Board member. She leads invasive plant removals on the Avon Land Trust properties so future generations can enjoy nature. She is married to history author Scott Lewis. They have two grown children.

She was born in Jakarta, Indonesia, but spent the majority of her youth growing up in the pastoral town of Harvard, Massachusetts where her parents owned and operated the International Youth Hostel, Friendly Crossways.

Sunmi Jung is a Taekwondo Master, educator, and performer with over three decades of experience in martial arts.

She is a former member of the Korean National Taekwondo Demonstration Team and a U.S. Open Taekwondo Gold Medalist.

Trained in Physical Education and human movement science, she brings a unique perspective that connects athletic discipline with artistic expression.

Sunmi is the owner and head instructor of Olympic Taekwondo Academy in Connecticut, where she teaches children confidence, focus, and respect through movement.

She is honored to be part of this special Nutcracker collaboration celebrating the harmony between martial arts and the performing arts.

Paiter van Yperen (Cavalier) is from Deep River CT. He is a dancer, choreographer, and dance educator based in Connecticut. He is also a Collective Artist with Ad Deum Dance Company.

Paiter began his formal training at the Ekklesia School of Ballet under Elisa Schroth. It was at Ekklesia Contemporary Ballet where he later accepted his first professional contract as a company artist in 2013. During his seven years with Ekklesia he served as Company Artist, Principal Dancer, resident choreographer, and Assistant Director.

Paiter is a Certificate graduate of the Ailey School in New York, where he performed with the Ailey Student Performance Group (ASPG), Hope Boykin Dance, and The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. He is endlessly thankful for the years of artistic and technical training, encouragement, and life giving friendship of his mentors Randall Flinn, Steve Rooks, Matthew Rushing, and Freddie Moore.

Professionally he has performed, taught, and choreographed, nationally and internationally with Ekklesia Contemporary Ballet, Ad Deum Dance Company, Open Sky Arts Collective, Inlet Dance Theater, Freddie Moore’s Footprints, Ballet Hartford, The Ailey School, and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

Paiter also works closely with artists, and scholars such as Dr. Ellen Davis, Makoto Fujimura, Andrew Nemr, Morley van Yperen, and others from Duke Divinity School and Duke Chapel to explore the intersection of movement, art, humanity, and faith. Having grown up surrounded by the arts and later making it his vocation, he is passionate about how art moves, tells story, and innately creates space and opportunity for the deepening of every kind of relationship.

Pam Glauber (Joan of Ark), began her dance career at the School of the Hartford Ballet. She later attended Connecticut Dance School and Connecticut Ballet Center before joining Connecticut Ballet as a company dancer. She has also trained with BalletMet Columbus and Columbus Dance Theater, as well as summer dance programs at the Boston Ballet and the Walnut Hill School for Performing Arts.

As a professional dancer, Pam has performed with Connecticut Ballet, Ballet Hartford, Ballet Theater Company, Ekklesia Contemporary Ballet, Fisher Ballet, Ajkun Ballet Theatre, Alvin Ailey’s Extension Program, Staten Island Ballet, and Xclaim Dance Company in Columbus, Ohio, where she taught company classes and served as publicist. She recently retired from five years of performing with Dimensional Dance, based in Hartford, CT.

Pam has been teaching at the Hartt School Community Division since 2019. Her other teaching credits include Greater Hartford Dance Academy in Glastonbury and founding an after-school ballet program for at-risk students in Ithaca, NY, which she ran for three years. She takes Irish dance recreationally and has competed in the World Irish Dancing Championships. Pam holds a BA in English and a minor in dance from Cornell University. When she is not dancing, she maintains a parallel career in children’s book publishing, editing novels while raising her two children.

Jus Hues (Elephant)is a versatile dancer and singer from Bloomfield, CT. He has performed and taught in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. At age 10, Hues began pursuing hip hop. Self-taught, Hues worked his way into becoming a versatile choreographer, hard hitting dancer and energetic performer. While attending Berklee College of Music he performed touring with a Pharaohe Monch, Medusa, and Slum village for the “Beats For Peace Tour”. Hues has shared the stage with New Edition, Take 6 and Casely. As a choreographer, Jus has created dance for newly signed artists in the industry and performed in front of industry executives from BET. He was the lead in the hip hop and ballet piece Krump Led Swan: A Fusion of Grit and Grace. Jus is featured as Prudence Crandall’s nemsis, Andrew Judson, as well as her controlling husband, Calvin Phileo, in Whole-Souled Women: The Story of Prudence Crandall and Sarah Harris. When not performing he the dynamic director of Jus Move Studios.

Sarah Holjes (Clara)

12 years old. Dancer at New England Dance Center, Regional First Place Showstopper

Hope Blackburn–Shoup (Mary) grew up near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where she began her dance training at the Philadelphia Dance Theatre. With PDT, she attended annual Regional Dance America festivals and had the opportunity to portray lead classical roles as the Firebird and the Sugar Plum Fairy. Blackburn went on to dance at Butler University, where she graduated with a BFA in Dance Performance and a BA in English Literature in 2021. Blackburn also earned a distinction for her choreography from Butler’s dance department for her work entitled By Name. With Butler Ballet, she performed soloist roles in full-length ballets including The Nutcracker and The Sleeping Beauty and was a part of works created by Cynthia Pratt, David Ingram, and Susan McGuire. Two year ago she joined Ekklesia Contemporary Ballet where she currently dances, teaches, and choreographs. Last year she -co-choreographed with Jacob Shoup a section for the piece The Story of Ruth for Dimensional Dance. She is an advocate for the transformative power of dance for all people.

Jacob Shoup (Joseph) grew up in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, studying ballet and jazz at the University of Akron’s Dance Institute. In high school at the Interlochen Arts Academy he performed the lead in Christopher William’s Afternoon of the Faun and as Johnny in Paul Taylor’s Company B. Upon graduating, Shoup pursued higher education through Butler University, receiving a BA in Dance Pedagogy. At Butler, he danced soloist roles in The Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty and in the premiere of Patrick de Bana’s Falling Sky. Shoup developed an interest in choreography while at Butler, making dances on his fellow students, and even choreographing for weddings. He has danced for Neos Dance Theatre, performing in the Heinz Poll festivals that he grew up watching. Shoup dances with Ekklesia Contemporary Ballet where he performs, teaches and choreographs. Last year he co-choreographed with Hope Blackburn a section of the piece The Story of Ruth for Dimensional Dance in which he performed the role of Chilion. He delights in deepening his connection to the Connecticut community.

Caitlyn Sullivan (Maripan) (courtesy of Ballet Hartford) grew up in Watertown, Connecticut and began her dance training at Connecticut Dance Theater and Brass City Ballet. At the age of 10, she joined the children’s division of The Nutmeg Ballet Conservatory and three years later advanced to their pre-professional division where she rigorously trained for 6 years. During her time at Nutmeg, she danced lead roles in The Nutcracker such as the Sugar Plum Fairy, Dewdrop, and Snow Queen. She has also performed many classical excerpts: Aurora’s Wedding Pas de Deux, The Rose Adagio, The Grand Pas de Deux-Act 3 of La Bayadère, and The Grand Pas de Deux-Act 3 of Le Corsaire. She has also danced many original works by Victoria Mazzarelli and Thel Moore. Upon graduating from The Nutmeg, she graciously accepted a traineeship from Fort Wayne Ballet in Indiana where she trained this past year. She performed in the company’s professional production of The Nutcracker as well as Romeo and Juliet. Alongside her classical training, she worked towards pursuing a higher education at the University of Saint Francis and studied dance history and modern techniques such as Horton and Graham. Caitlyn is grateful for all the opportunities dance has brought for her.

Tiger (Hip hop Battle) B-Boy, Hip Hop artist, performer, choreographer, teacher. IG Tiger_lu860

Top Photo: Gennaro Della Ragione, Victoria Jaenson, Jus Hues, Matisse Madden, Alexa Bobrowski