MKE MIX

Gabrielle Lamb, choreographer and 2020 Guggenheim Fellow, is based in NYC, where she directs Pigeonwing Dance, described by The New Yorker as “eccentric...playful...curious.” Her work has also been presented by the American Ballet Theatre Incubator, the New York Choreographic Institute, the MIT Museum, BalletX, the Julliard School, the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, Ballet Collective, Whim W’Him, Jacob’s Pillow, and Dance on Camera at Lincoln Center. She has won fellowships and competitions at Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Milwaukee Ballet, and the Banff Centre, as well as the S&R Foundation’s Washington Award and a Princess Grace Award. A native of Savannah, GA, she trained at the Boston Ballet School and was a longtime soloist at Les Grands ballets Canadiens, later performing with Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company and Pontus Lidberg Dance in NYC. She has been lauded by DANCE Magazine as “a dancer of stunning clarity who illuminates the smallest details—qualities she brings to the dances she makes, too.” 

She was recently selected as a 2024 Hearst Choreographer in Residence at Princeton University. Her 2024 commission includes the Savannah Music Festival, and “rising,” an evening-length collaboration with Grammy-nominated Neave Trio. 

Penny Saunders, originally from West Palm Beach, Florida, graduated from the Harid Conservatory in 1995 and began her professional career with the American Repertory Ballet under the direction of Septime Webre. She went on to dance with Ballet Arizona, MOMIX Dance Theater, Cedar Lake Ensemble, and, in 2004, she joined Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. In 2011, Saunders won the International Commissioning Project, which launched her choreographic career, creating pieces for Hubbard Street, Cincinnati Ballet, Whim W’Him, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Parsons Dance, Oklahoma City Ballet, BalletX, Sacramento Ballet, The Royal New Zealand Ballet, Charlotte Ballet, and Seattle Dance Collective, among others. Saunders is honored to be the Resident Choreographer at The Grand Rapids Ballet, to have received support from The New York City Ballet Choreographer Commissions Initiative, to have participated in the Guggenheim Works & Process and The National Choreographers Initiative, and to be the recipient of the 2016 Princess Grace Choreographic Fellowship. She is currently Artist in Residence at USC Kaufman School of Dance as well as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at The University of Utah School of Dance. 

A French native of Dutch descent, Nelly van Bommel was selected as one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch” in January 2010. She is an award-winning choreographer whose work has been featured in France, Taiwan, Canada and the United States in venues, companies and programs, including Ballet Austin, Milwaukee Ballet, Kaatsbaan International Dance Center, the Baryshnikov Arts Center, Taipei National University of the Arts, Springboard Danse Montreal and the Juilliard School.   

Van Bommel is an Associate Professor in the Conservatory of Dance at Purchase College, State University of New York, currently serving as Director.  

“Nelly van Bommel’s choreography magically teeters between tragedy and comedy, classical and folk, serenity and wildness.” —?Dance Magazine