Workshops with Wellspring

Videography & Photography in Dance

MEET ALYSE
Alyse Kazimierczuck (she/her), from South Lyon, Michigan, earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance with a minor in Marketing from Western Michigan University in 2026.

Through her time at Western, she had the privilege of performing in works by guest artists Mike Esperanza, Kia Smith, Christa Smutek, and Kaitlyn Pollock. She has performed and choreographed in several student dance concerts. In addition, she was a member of WMU Dance’s student performance company, Western Dance Project, under the direction of Kelsey Paschich during the 2023-2024 academic year.

Alyse served in several positions in Western Michigan University’s Registered Student Organizations. She served as Co-director of Move ‘n Groove, Digital Marketing Coordinator for Orchesis Dance Society, and General Director of 269 Crew. As Social Media Specialist, she also collected, created, and edited social media content for Western Michigan University’s Department of Dance. She is passionate about contributing innovative ideas to the arts community and is excited to be a part of the Wellspring team!

Theatricality & Movement

MEET ANNALEE
Annalee Traylor is a choreographer, director, and educator originally from Huntsville, Alabama. Her work blends dance, theater, sound, and stagecraft into tragicomic performances that create spaces for wonder, contradiction, and connection. Working collaboratively, she approaches creating as a practice of listening, guided by intuition and a curiosity about the mysteries that accompany being alive. Her work interrupts perception and defamiliarizes the ordinary, with the quotidian serving as a point of departure into the absurd, grotesque, and entropic.

Traylor’s choreography and directing work has been commissioned and presented throughout the United States and internationally, including in Los Angeles, New York City, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Seattle, Italy, Portugal, and the Netherlands. Her work has been presented at venues including Battery Park, Green Space, Hudson Guild Theatre, New Hazlett Theatre, Ailey Citigroup Theater, Diavolo, Ferst Center for the Arts, Kelly Strayhorn Theater, Gibney, Center for Performance Research, and Highways Performance Space, among others. Recent commissions include Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, Kit Modus, Terminus Modern Ballet Theatre, and Theater Emory. Her work has been supported by residencies through The Goat Farm, Dance Lab NY, the UNCSA Choreographic Institute, Highways Performance Space, Kennesaw State University, Callanwolde Fine Arts Center, Dance Gallery Festival, and Emory University, where she received the inaugural 2023–24 Emory Arts Fellowship in Dance.

As an educator, Traylor approaches the classroom as a laboratory—an active space for critical dialogue, experimentation, risk-taking, and collective discovery. She encourages students to cultivate curiosity, confidence, and an attunement to presence while developing their own creative voices. In 2026, she piloted Movement & Theatricality, a creative practice course bringing together theater and dance students at Western Michigan University, where she is a Visiting Assistant Professor. Her guest teaching credits include UNCSA Summer Dance, Callanwolde Fine Arts Center, Reinhardt University, Core Dance, California Institute of the Arts, Carnegie Mellon University, Sam Houston State University, Point Park University, DeKalb School of the Arts, and Pittsburgh CAPA.

Earlier in her career, Traylor performed with the August Wilson Center Dance Ensemble from 2010–2013, dancing in works by Kyle Abraham, Robert Battle, Camille A. Brown, Darrell Grand Moultrie, Sidra Bell, Christopher Huggins, Kevin Iega Jeff, and Crystal Frazier. Additionally, she has freelanced with Pennington Dance Group, Clairobscur Dance, and slowdanger.

Traylor holds a BFA in Dance Performance from Point Park University and an MFA in Choreography from the California Institute of the Arts, where she received the S. Disney Lund Scholarship in Dance.  In 2018, she received a classical Pilates certification through Romana’s Pilates.

Dance Fitness

MEET KATE
Meet Kate Yancho, the Administrator/Director of the Education for the Arts (EFA) program!

Since joining the KRESA team in May 2025, Kate has hit the ground running, proving that arts education is essential and not optional.

KRESA's EFA program has been nationally recognized as an innovator in arts education, with only a few programs of its kind in the world. Under Kate's leadership, the programs and her team reach nearly every student in Kalamazoo County through massive K-12 field trips to see global artists, high school courses, and K-8 creative lessons led by working artists, specialized workshops for alternative and special education programs, and so much more.

Kate's mission isn't to compete with existing art programs, but to deepen students' experiences with the arts by showing up in unexpected places and ways. One of her favorite moments in her role was watching more than 100 EFA dancers at Loy Norrix put on a showcase for their families and friends just six weeks into the school year.

When she isn't in a classroom or meeting, Kate enjoys turning her stress into baked goods, and she's currently perfecting her signature chocolate chip cookie recipe.

Building Durable Dancers

This session highlights a developing partnership between Wellspring, a professional modern dance company in Southwest Michigan, and Dr. Allyson Lowis, a physical therapist who specializes in working with dancers through both clinical expertise and lived experience in dance. Born from a shared desire for change in dance education, this collaboration explores how an anatomy-informed approach can support healthier, more connected, and more confident dancers. 

This session asks: How can we train dancers who not only move well, but who understand their bodies deeply – artistically, anatomically, and personally? Participants will learn how this partnership has been integrated into Wellspring’s professional company practices as well as youth and adult dance academy programming. Movement-based exercises and teaching strategies will be shared that cultivate body awareness, agency, and sustainable movement habits in the classroom. 

Central to this work is viewing the student as a whole human being, not solely as a dancer executing technique. By building anatomical awareness and encouraging curiosity about individual bodies, students develop a stronger sense of self and a healthier relationship with dance. This approach empowers dancers to recognize their strengths and limitations without judgment, strengthening trust between teacher and student and fostering a more inclusive learning environment. When woven into the classroom, anatomical terminology provides a neutral, shared language that fosters clarity, trust, and connection while learning. 

This session will also share observed shifts within the professional company space. Rather than limiting artistic outcomes, this anatomy-informed approach has expanded them. Dancers report increased confidence, clarity, and ownership in their movement choices, allowing artistry to emerge from a place of embodied knowledge rather than external expectation.

By supporting dancers in knowing themselves more fully, educators help cultivate artists who are more connected to their bodies, their creative voices, and their communities. This session invites dance educators to consider how integrating anatomical and functional movement cross training education into daily practice can shape not only stronger dancers, but more grounded, responsive, and connected humans. 

MEET ALLYSON
Allyson is a Kalamazoo native and graduated from Hope College with a BA in Exercise Science and a minor in dance in 2012. While at Hope she was in the pre-professional dance company dANCEpROjECT, now known as H2. After Hope she earned her massage therapy license before going on to Central Michigan University where she graduated with her Doctorate in Physical Therapy in 2017.

Allyson currently practices at Mindset Physical Therapy specializing in treating dancers. 

Outside of work, she can be found hanging out with her husband and dogs. Allyson enjoys dancing, hiking with her husband and pups, and traveling.

MEET MARISA
Marisa Bianan (she/her) obtained her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Western Michigan University in April 2018. Through her studies, Marisa had the privilege to work with leading choreographers, including Jeremy Blair, Monique Haley, Carolyn Pavlik, and Brendan Duggan. 

Since graduating, Marisa has presented various choreographic works in the Midwest, including at the 2019 RADFest and Inaside’s Summer 2022 in-person/virtual hybrid concert. Recent accolades include becoming a finalist for the 2021 Maggie Allesee Choreography Competition; receiving a commission to create a new work for Western Michigan University’s First Year Performance class, which premiered in February 2022; and, being accepted into the 2023 + 2024 Detroit Dance City Festival Choreographer’s Showcase. Most notably, she received the 2024 Detroit Dance City Festival's Best Choreographer Award and presented at the 2025 Festival. Marisa stepped into the role of Artistic Director with Wellspring in 2024 and is excited to continue sharing her artistic vision with the Southwest Michigan dance community. 2026-2027 will be Marisa’s ninth season with Wellspring.