Every member of our teaching faculty is an actively performing dance artist with at least seven years of company experience. They teach the same students for years and remember which side your knee bothers. Below: lineage, training, and what they teach here.
Naia trained at SUNY Purchase and danced for nine years with Stephen Petronio Company before founding Meridian in 2014. She teaches phrase-based contemporary that draws on release principles, partnering, and the breath-led articulation she developed through her years touring large repertory work.
Her Friday Level III class draws professional dancers from across the city — it is built around a new phrase set every two weeks, often pulled directly from work she is currently rehearsing or restaging.
Stephen Petronio Company (2009–2018) · Susan Marshall and Co. (guest, 2016) · BFA SUNY Purchase · further study at PARTS Brussels.
Joren co-founded Meridian after returning from a decade in Brussels, where he performed with Rosas and worked closely with Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker on score-based improvisation methodology. His teaching is rooted in attention practice — he treats the studio as a laboratory for noticing what is already happening in the room.
He teaches both the Tuesday Score Lab and the Thursday Listening Practice. The two classes pair: Tuesday is generative, Thursday is reflective. Many students take both for a full term.
Rosas (2011–2020) · PARTS Brussels graduate · further study with Lisa Nelson, Steve Paxton, and Deborah Hay · MFA Hollins Dance.
Eshe joined Meridian in 2017 after seven years dancing with Bill T. Jones / Arnie Zane Company. She specializes in beginner pedagogy — building careful first encounters with contemporary work for adults — and teaches the studio's core contact program, which has run continuously since 2015.
Her Sunday skill class is the entry point for new contact dancers; she works slowly, building from solo weight-shift through to partnered counterbalance over the course of a term.
Bill T. Jones / Arnie Zane Company (2010–2017) · Urban Bush Women (apprentice, 2009) · BFA Howard University · contact certification with Nancy Stark Smith and K.J. Holmes.
Mira joined Meridian in 2019. She came up through the Hubbard Street Dance Chicago school and went on to dance with Kidd Pivot in Vancouver for four seasons before injury redirected her toward teaching. She is a careful pedagogue with a gift for finding clean lines in dancers who are tired or confused.
She runs the Saturday Floor Work class and serves as the artistic director of our youth pre-professional program. Her teaching is precise, specific, and never punitive — she is the faculty member parents request when their teenager is auditioning for conservatory.
Kidd Pivot (2014–2018) · Hubbard Street Professional Program · further study at Tisch School of the Arts · certified Gaga teacher (Batsheva).
Faculty hold their seats for term-card students before drop-ins. Register now to guarantee your place in the class you want — Naia's Level III and Joren's Score Lab fill first every term.
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