Deborah Reshotko Artistic, Director and Choreographer, is celebrating her 26th year of working as a choreographer and producing original dance works in 2006. She produced her choreography in New York City for nine years where her dances were critically acclaimed (and singled out by Edward Gorey in a cartoon portraying highlights of New York). She then moved to Colorado to pursue a vision of dance in community. She has made over 90 dance works since 1980 and has had her work produced throughout the USA and Canada. In 1993, Deborah founded SPEAKING OF DANCE as a venue for her choreography and for community outreach and development through dance. Deborah has worked in schools and communities as an artist-in-residence for over twenty years. She has been awarded a “Best of Denver” by Westword and many grants from Colorado organizations and foundations. Deborah has been a featured teaching artist for numerous arts and education institutes, colleges and universities, and she has been a national consultant in education for the last twenty years. She also teaches modern dance technique and improvisation classes for adults. Her choreography has been selected numerous times for the Colorado Choreographers Showcase, and she has been commissioned regularly to make new dance for the Colorado Symphony and the Colorado Performing Arts Festival, as well as the Mizel Museum of Judaica, Rose Medical Center, the Denver Art Museum and the Colorado Historical Society. She has choreographed for the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, as well as for numerous other theatre companies in Denver, and she has stage-directed for the Colorado Symphony. She and SPEAKING OF DANCE won the 2005 Colorado Dance Award for Service to the Field.

Esther Gross, Program Director, has a Master of Nonprofit Management degree from Regis University. She has had ten years of experience in nonprofits as administrator, volunteer, board member and performing member. She also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from the University of Colorado, and she has twenty years' experience teaching for and administering college programs, particularly continuing education programs. Esther has been working for SPEAKING OF DANCE for eight years.

Katie Brogren a Denver native, is a graduate Denver School of the Arts and holds a BFA from the University of Wyoming. In Chicago, she danced with Joel Hall Dancers and Deeply Rooted Productions. She currently dances with Hannah Kahn Dance Company and teaches throughout the Denver area. She co-directs Fragments of Divine, a performance group combing live music, modern dance, visual art and improvisation. Katie joined SPEAKING OF DANCE in 2005.

Gwylym Cano is a dancer, actor, film maker and poet. He holds a James Ryan Morris Tombstone award for his poetry. His first poetry book is called ‘water.’ His film company, Fool Moon Productions, has produced numerous shorts, such as The Boxer, Soul, and Hump Day, and two features, Lovepirates and Mermaid Springs. Gwylym is also a veteran of the local Xicano Theatre El Centro Su Teatro. He graduated from Yale in 1994, when he moved to Colorado. He is currently researching Qetzlcoatl, a legendary Mayan figure, and is excited about collaborating with Reshotko on the research of ancient Puebloans for "Kiva." He has danced with SOD since 2000. He has taught in SOD's Building Community Through Dance program since 2003.

Lara Hayes-Giles is originally from Denver, where she studied with the Jan Justis Dance Company and Colorado Repertory Dance Company. She has recently relocated to Colorado after 10 years of dancing in New York City. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in dance from the New York University Tisch School of the Arts. She has taught dance, theatre, creative movement and art and performed her own work throughout the country. She has performed with many choreographers in New York, including Doug Varone, Ann Carlson, Gus Solomons, Jr. In addition to SOD, she is working with Dirty Laundry Dance Company, Hannah Kahn Dance Company and Third Law Dance Theatre, and on her own choreography. She has performed and taught for SOD since 2003.

Melissa Plotnick started dancing at two and a half. She has studied modern dance, ballet, tap, jazz, hip hop and lyrical dance and has won numerous competitions and awards. She has interned with David Taylor Dance Theater and Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Company, and she danced at Marymount Manhattan College for one year. She currently dances with Hannah Kahn Dance Company and joined SOD in 2004.

Becky Sievers is a native of Southern California. She has been studying dance since she was eight years old and dancing professionally since she was fourteen. She earned her BFA in dance from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She has studied with the Royal New Zealand Ballet and at the Laban Center in London, England. She has performed with the Santa Barbara Civic Light Opera, the Santa Barbara Dance Theater and the Donna Sternberg Dance Company (Los Angeles). In Denver she has performed with the Off Center Dance Collective and currently dances with the Hannah Kahn Dance Company. She is a massage therapist at Healthmark Integrative Healing Center. Becky joined SOD in 2001.

William Starn is a graduate of Naropa University with a BA in Dance and Music. William’s teaching and performing career has spanned over 20 years and is very diverse: ballet companies (Fort Wayne Ballet, Indianapolis Ballet Theatre, Boulder Ballet); modern companies (Kim Robards Dance, SPEAKING OF DANCE), professional theatres, cruise ships, theme parks, video and film. He has studied and performed with Phyllis Lamhut, Robert Joffrey, Maria Grande and Richard England. William served as Artistic Director of Ballet Nouveau Colorado from 2000-2002, where he choreographed major ballets :Firebird, Nutcracker, Swan Lake, Paquita, and also presented his own work. William has danced and taught for SOD since 1996.

Jennifer Thompson Thompson has a B.S. in Marketing with minors in Dance, French and Arts Management from Miami University in Oxford, OH. Since moving to Denver five years ago, she has performed with SPEAKING OF DANCE, Third Law Dance Theatre, No Name Dance Company, Off Center Dance Collective and Gravity Works. Jennifer studies with Hannah Kahn and is a member of her Board of Directors. Prior to living in Denver, Jennifer performed in her home town of St. Louis with Burning Feet Contemporary Dance, ATREK and Dance Detour. She has performed and taught for SOD since 2000.