DANCER BIOGRAPHIES
Maedée Duprès/Choreographer
Maedée Duprès is a pioneering figure in the British New Dance movement and a vital contributor to contemporary dance practice internationally. Born in Lausanne, Switzerland, she moved to London in 1968 to study music, later earning a scholarship at the London School of Contemporary Dance. Her performance career included work with seminal choreographers such as Richard Alston, Siobhan Davies, and Rosemary Butcher, and she toured extensively across Europe and North America as a member of the acclaimed Second Stride.
Duprès is especially recognized for her solo work, developed in deep collaboration with choreographers, composers and designers. Her solo programs, performed throughout Britain, France, Canada, Italy (including Venice and Como festivals), and beyond, pushed the expressive limits of dance and earned support from the Arts Council of Great Britain and Greater London Arts Association.
In 1987, Maedée moved to the United States to teach modern dance at Oberlin College and later Regis University in Denver.
She deepened her interdisciplinary practice in teaching T’ai Chi Ch’üan, and got certified as a
Alexander Technique teacher, and a CranialSacral Treatment practitioner. In 1993, she founded a living arts centre, a community-based studio dedicated to somatic movement, healing practices, and intimate dance performance.
Over the last three decades, Duprès has continued choreographing, producing original works for Denver audiences with local dancers. Her most ambitious project, By River & Industry (2016), a site-specific outdoor performance. Recent works include Journey (2019), 4 Solos (2020), Danièle (2024), and Human Landscape (2025), all exploring movement in deeply personal and communal ways.
Today, she continues to teach T’ai Chi Ch’üan and Alexander Technique while creating choreographic works that foreground presence, intuition, and the human body as an expressive site of resistance and renewal.
Anna Beatriz Bergstrom
Anna Beatriz Bergstrom is a classically trained ballet dancer from Volta Redonda, Brazil, whose artistic journey has taken her from the renowned Maria Olenewa State Dance School of the Municipal Theater of Rio de Janeiro to the United States, where she now performs and continues her training. After six years of intensive ballet training and professional development in Brazil, Anna first came to the U.S. in 2019 to pursue a ballet trainee program. She moved permanently in 2023 and has continued to cultivate her dual passions for dance and nutrition health in Denver. Her performance experience is grounded in technical rigor and artistic expression, shaped by Brazil’s rich cultural tradition and refined through international training.
As a recent graduate of the Nutrition and Dietetics program at MSU Denver, Anna is combining her lived experience as a dancer with academic expertise to pursue a career in sports dietetics. Her goal is to become a registered dietitian nutritionist, specializing in performance nutrition for dancers and athletes. She brings a unique perspective to the conversation about embodied health, informed by the demands of a dancer’s life and the science of nourishment.
Eve Brady
Eve Brady trained in Dallas under Denise Brown, Violette Verdi, George Skibine, Marjorie Tallchief and Jerry Bywaters Cochran. She studied ballet, modern dance, choreography, and theater at Texas Christian University and holds a BFA in Dance from CU, Boulder, and a Master’s in Creative Writing from Denver University.
She has a long history of performance, choreography, and directorships including director and head instructor of the Arvada Center Dance Department; director, choreographer, dancer, and board member for the Denver Independent Choreographers’ Project: and board member and co-designer of the Arts in Education program with SCFD.
Eve designed and directed the Englewood Leadership Academy, an innovative and academic award-winning public alternative school for highly motivated learners.
She has danced professionally with Dallas Ballet, Fort Worth Ballet, Danielle Helander Dance Company, Jane Franklin and Dancers, Fresh Blood Collective, Evolving Doors Dance, and Moovement House. She has choreographed for theater, dance collaborations, and musicals.
Eve has happily danced with Maedée Duprès and Dancers for 20 years.
Gwendolyn Gussman
Gwendolyn Gussman is a director, choreographer, performer, movement teacher, and generative artist based between Denver, Colorado and New York City. Gussman is the Founder and Artistic Director of interdisciplinary performance company, HOLDTIGHT, which creates work centering eco-psychology. Gussman’s work with HOLDTIGHT has been awarded residencies & co-presentations including at the Newman Center for the Performing Arts (Denver), Denver Arts & Venues, The Performing Arts Complex (Denver), Museum of Contemporary Art (Denver), the cell theatre (NYC), Carroll Hall (NYC), and others. As an independent choreographer, her work has been produced and presented nationally by National Sawdust (NYC), The Gallery Players (NYC), James Madison University (VA), Seaside Dance Festival (FL), Nimbus DanceWorks Offline Series (NJ), Denver School of the Arts, and more. In 2021, Gussman was named a Toulmin Creator through the support of National Sawdust, Center for Ballet and the Arts, and The Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation.
As a performing artist, Gussman has worked with Shen Wei Dance Arts, Sean Curran Company, Cherylyn Lavagnino Dance, Vanessa Walters ‘Ripening’, Heidi Latsky, Cleo Parker Robinson, Amy Sedaris, Daniel Fish, Ashley Tata, etc. Her performance career has spanned The Koch Theater at Lincoln Center, MASS MoCa, Stanislavsky Theater, Teatro Arcimboldi, Shanghai Cultural Square Theater, Teatro Comunale Modena, American Dance Festival, Spoleto Festival, Theater Olympics Festival, among others. Gussman grew up dancing at Cleo Parker Dance & attended Denver School of the Arts then went on to graduate with a BFA in Dance from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. Gussman has been a guest teacher at organizations, institutions and schools across the country, in addition to maintaining a private practice where she teaches pilates, yoga, and somatics.
Sharon Wehner
Sharon Wehner is originally from San Jose, California, and had her fundamental ballet training with San Jose Dance Theatre, Dance Theatre Seven, and San Francisco Ballet.
A former Principal Dancer with the Colorado Ballet, Sharon has also danced with Amy Seiwart’s Imagery, the Oakland Ballet, the Washington Ballet, Zikr Dance Ensemble, Engage Movement Arts, Fuku Dance, and Maedée Duprès She has performed with the National Ballet of Japan’s Golden Ballet Co-Star, the Vail International Dance Festival’s International Evening of Dance, and the Lila Dance Festival. As a Principal Dancer, Sharon has performed numerous Principal roles in classical and contemporary works, some of her favorites being Odette/Odile, Juliet, Giselle, Aurora, Cinderella, the Sugarplum Fairy, Kitri, Medora, Stars and Stripes, Rubies, Theme and Variations, and the Leaves are Fading. After retiring from her 22-year career with the Colorado Ballet, Sharon is spreading her wings as a freelance artist, exploring new territory in classical and contemporary choreography that speaks to her and to audiences in a fresh and stimulating way.
In addition to her career as a dancer, Sharon is a Ballet Teacher, certified Sports Nutrition Coach, GYROTONIC®/GYROKINESIS® trainer, Yoga instructor, Reiki Master, and Instructor for Dance for Parkinson’s Disease. She has taught Ballet and Dance for over 30 years, for numerous schools and companies, including Colorado Ballet, Ballet Arts Austin, Yellowstone Ballet, The Russian Ballet Academy, Littleton Ballet, Classic Dance Academy, International Ballet School and Vermont Ballet.
In 2020, she was inspired to create RISE: The Empowered Dancer, a holistic mentoring program for teen and pre-professional dancers, to help young dancers cultivate health and mindset tools that support the demands of rigorous dance training.
In 2023 Sharon took the next step in service to the Colorado dance community, as owner and director of Denver Dance Center. She is committed to providing quality dance classes and studio space, fostering artistic growth for dancers, choreographers, and performers in our diverse and multi-cultural Arts scene.
Kristen Winkler
Originally from Oxford, Ohio, Kristen Winkler pursued her undergraduate degree from Miami University and her graduate degree from the University of Nottingham in England, before settling in Denver, CO. Her academic focus on interdisciplinary studies and visual culture was complemented by her intensive training in ballet and modern dance.
Though Kristen now trains at Denver Dance Center, her pre-professional study in ballet was conducted under Cincinnati Ballet principal dancers Anna Reznik and Alexei Kremnev, soloists Michael Wardlaw, Dawn Kelly, and Andrew Kasatsky, as well as intensives with Ballet Master Finis Jhung. Kristen’s modern dance training was guided by Dayton Contemporary Dance Company performers Terrence Greene and Greer Reed. She has performed with Ballet Tech Ohio, Next Generation Dance Company, Global Rhythms World Music Ensemble, Miami University’s Dance Theater, and competed in the Youth American Grand Prix in both Chicago and New York. In a feature on Ballet Tech Ohio in Dance Teacher Magazine, Kristen was recognized as “a talent to watch.”
Kristen is now an Art History professor whose work explores how visual and performing arts can drive individual and social transformation and deepen civic engagement. With over a decade of teaching experience at the Community College of Denver, Arapahoe Community College, and Metro State University, she brings a passion for connecting critical theory with lived experience. Her courses invite students to explore how creative expression shapes our understanding of personal integrity in a shared world and the meaning of a life worth living. Kristen’s academic lens is enriched by her lifelong dedication to training and performing in ballet, modern, and contemporary dance. This is Kristen’s second season with Duprès’ company.