Summer Dance Program
August 11 - 22
Increase in Clas Fees After June 30
Open Door Studio, Location and In-kind Sponsor


Master classes from great dance instructors in a variety of dance genres will be open to the public. Noteable local and national dance teachers will be teaching during the two week program.


Download Summer Brochure Front

Download Summer Brochure Back


Fee Schedule

Until June 30

$120 for a 10-class card

$70 for a 5-class card

Prices after June 30

$140 for a 10-class card

$85 for a 5-class card

$15 Single Class

Class Descrtiptions with Teacher Bios

Caroline Calouche, Festival Director, Pilates and Gyrokinesis®
Caroline Calouche began her training under Pat Wall at Gaston Dance Theatre in Gastonia, North Carolina. She furthered her dance education at Texas Christian University where she graduated with two B.F.A. degrees in Ballet and Modern Dance. In 2004 she received a North Carolina Regional Artist Grant to further her dance and choreographic studies in New York City and Brussels, Belgium. From these experiences, she was accepted into the International Choreographic Exchange Program at the Salzburg Experimental Academy of dance for post-graduate work in choreography. After her studies and work in the U.S. and Europe, Caroline established her contemporary and aerial dance company in her hometown of Gastonia, North Carolina.

Along with creating new works for Caroline Calouche & Co., she has choreographed for the Dance Department in the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance, Contemporary Ballet Dallas and Florida Community College at Jacksonville, The School of North Carolina Dance Theatre. Her work has been performed throughout North Carolina, Charleston, Chattanooga, Fort Worth, Austria and Germany.

Caroline has taught dance, GYROKINESIS®, and Pilates at The School of North Carolina Dance Theatre and The Belmont School of Ballet. She currently is an adjunct professor of dance at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and will be at Winthrop University in the Fall. For the past three years, Caroline has been a Teaching Artist for the Education/Outreach Department of North Carolina Dance Theatre over the past two years. Caroline is also the creator and director of the Charlotte Dance Festival.


José Limón was one of the most prominent American choreographers in modern dance. His choreography is powerful, focusing on human drama, and often incorporates themes from literature, history or religion. Throughout his career, Limón worked to change the image of the male in dance and bring it to a new stature and recognition. Born in 1908 in Culican, Mexico, Limón moved to the United States with his family when he was seven years old. He became interested in dance at the age of twenty, after moving to New York City to study painting. He began his his studies with pioneer modern dancers Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman, and was soon invited to join their company. In 1946 he founded his own company. Limón is best known for his piece The Moor's Pavane, based on Shakespeare's "Othello.” He choreographed over seventy-four other works, including The Traitor, The Exiles, There is a Time, Chaconne, Emperor Jones, Carlota, Dances for Isadora, and The Unsung. José José Limón died on December 2, 1972. Today, the José Limón Dance Foundation continues his work through two entities: the Limón Dance Company, an international touring repertory company, and the Limón Institute, an educational and archival resource organization.

Jonathan Riedel, Modern Dance / Limon Technique
Jonathan Riedel, native of Rye, NY, began dancing at the age of 17. He prospered in a career with the Limón Dance Company from 1996 to 2006, touring globally and performing works by such renowned artists as Doris Humphrey, Antony Tudor, Donald McKayle, Murray Louis, Jirí Kylián, Lar Lubovitch, Doug Varone, and Mark Haim. He has also been featured in many of José Limón’s masterpieces including Chaconne, Orfeo, Psalm, and The Moor’s Pavane. Heralded by critics, he was labeled “the Limón Company’s reigning male star” by Allan Ulrich of the San Francisco Examiner and Tobi Tobias of ArtsJournal declared him to be “surely one of the most fascinating dancers the company has harbored.” He has reconstructed Limon’s dances for The Juilliard School; Purchase College; Brown University; Wylliams/Henry Dance Theater; Il Balletto di Puglia, Italy; and LABAN, England.

In 2002, he choreographed his first piece for the Limón Company, The Unsightful Nanny and in 2003 he founded the Riedel Dance Theater, presenting its inaugural season in NYC and in Italy. His work quickly became known for his taut, intelligent humor and poignant dramatic power. The DanceView Times proclaimed it “brilliant,” “profoundly moving,” and having “an ingenuity and timing that would make Petipa jealous.” He was the first choreographer to professionally stage Erik Satie’s controversial, Uspud: Un Ballet Crétien. He has since created additional works for Limón as well as the Conservatory of Dance at Purchase College, the Yard in Martha’s Vineyard, the Good Moves Consort in Atlanta; and developed choreography and character movement for the video game, Godessia, produced by Artware.

Mr. Riedel has received the Choo San Goh Award in support of his work as well as funding from the The Greenwall Foundation, The Frances Alexander Foundation, and the New York State Council on the Arts. Currently, he is developing new work for RDT including two evening-length performances based on Dante’s Divine Comedy and the works of Edward Gorey. You can find more information at www.riedeldancetheater.org.

Joseph Kotay, Hip-hop
Joseph Kotay , referred to his dance peers as B-boy Kwzt1 (Quest One) is a native born of Liberia , West Africa . Since his arrival to states at the age of 4, by way of Charlotte in 1986, he originally studied visual arts through drawings. In 2000, during his freshman year at UNC Charlotte, he took on to an underground street dance currently referred to as B-boying, also known as break dancing by mainstream media. He has been involved with the B-boy scene since 2005, competing in underground battles in Atlanta, Greensboro, Raleigh and Charlotte.

His main stage performances include Requiem for New Orleans : A Hip Hop Eulogy, co directed by Professor James Vesce and Professor Donell Stines. This production ran twice at UNC Charlotte, and also made it to the New York Fringe Festival in the summer of 2006. Joseph is currently majoring in Architecture at UNC Charlotte.



Erick Hawkins was a true dance radical. He received the President’s Medal for the Arts at the White House on October 14, 1994 from President Clinton. In the President’s words: “For his boldness and talent he commands a legendary place in the American Modern Dance heritage…truly a pioneer.” He was still working when he died in 1994. Born in Trinidad, Colorado, April 23, 1909 he experienced the spiritual border where the Plains Indians met the Pueblo Indians an exciting polarization between Dionysian and Apollonian cultures that ensued his entire life’s work. He entered Harvard at 15, in 1924, earning a degree in Greek civilization. He began studying dance with German expressionist Harald Kreutzberg and then enrolled at George Balanchine’s School of American Ballet in 1934. He danced in Balanchine’s Serenade and was the first American student to teach at the school. In 1936 Hawkins choreographed his first work Showpiece for Lincoln Kirsten’s Ballet Caravan, now the New York City Ballet, in which his aesthetic of a non-abstract poetic idiom was already evident. Ballet Caravan debuted at Bennington College in 1936 with the modern dance company of Martha Graham. Hawkins became the first male dancer to join Graham’s troupe in 1938. For Graham he created unique male roles in many of her dances generating a new passionate image of masculinity in modern American dance and a compelling physicality of style in partnering for the Graham repertory.

Katherine Duke, Modern Dance / Hawkins Technique
Katherine Duke began studying with Erick Hawkins in 1983. She made her professional debut with the Erick Hawkins Dance Company in 1986 at Lincoln Center. Ms. Duke’s mercurial grace, purity of presence, and focused phrasing, as noted by Anna Kisselgoff of the New York Times, brought her critical acclaim. She was a teacher at the Erick Hawkins School and taught composition for Lucia Dlugoszewski. Ms. Duke performed as a principle dancer with the Hawkins Company until 1991 Jamake Highwater has written “There is little doubt that Katherine Duke represents the idealization of Hawkins’s four decades of creating dance.” In 1995, Ms. Duke returned to the Hawkins Company as a guest artist and teacher. At that time she assisted Dlugoszewski in setting Hawkins’ Journey of a Poet for Mikhail Baryshnikov. She served as rehearsal director to the Hawkins Company in 1999 and assistant to the choreographer in 2000. Ms. Duke became the artistic director of the Erick Hawkins Dance Foundation in 2001.

Denise & Joe Polsgrove, Swing Dancing
Joe and Denise Polsgrove have been dancing together since 2001 and are known by their high energy dancing and performances that make you want to get out of your seat and onto the dance floor.  Because Denise was a nationally ranked gymnast, you are just as likely to see her in the air as on the floor as they dance.  They are often seen around the Charlotte, Fort Mill and Rock Hill area either dancing, teaching dance, DJing or all of the above at community and private events, fundraisers, parades, weddings, WWII dances, Rockabilly BBQs and more.  They share their love of dancing with the community by offering lessons that are made easy and fun. Even those with two left feet can join them in this wonderful social activity.   The Polsgroves have taught swing dancing since 2003. And in 2007, teamed up with Kevin Connor and Kathy Schwartz to form GottaswingCharlotte.com, which is a licensee of Gottaswing.com, the largest swing-only dance and promotion company in the country.