Megan has been committed to expanding dance in Vermont since 2019, when she co-founded Lines Vermont Studio in South Burlington. Her desire to create more opportunities for adults to dance soon expanded into an even bigger vision: helping Vermont reach its full potential as a destination and incubator for high-quality dance. She was thrilled at the chance to bring this vision into focus at VDA. Previously, Megan served as Creative Director for the Let’s Grow Kids campaign, and as the Communications & Development Director for the Humane Society of Chittenden County. Megan is a graduate of the University of Virginia, the New York Academy of Dramatic Arts, Leadership Champlain, and the Women's Small Business Program.

Merrill Cameron (she/her) is a native Vermonter and Hinesburg resident who has been immersed in the performing arts in Vermont for most of her life! Currently the Studio Manager at Lines Vermont Studio in South Burlington, she is glad to have the chance to work with the Vermont Dance Alliance to further expand opportunities for dance in Vermont. Merrill is a singer, actor, and dancer, and has been part of the Vermont theater scene for a decade both on and offstage, working with community and professional theater companies such as Lyric Theatre Company, Opera Company of Middlebury, and more. One of her favorite roles has been music directing for a Theater for Young Audiences production with Lyric Theatre Company because she got to help bring the arts to hundreds of young kids, many of them first-time theatre-goers! Merrill graduated from the University of Vermont in 2016. 

Joy Madden is a choreographer, performer and bodyworker. She has performed throughout the US and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland. In 2001 she co-founded The Moving Laboratory, an innovative performing arts incubator in Boston, MA. She served as the Managing Director of Boston Dance Alliance from 2000-2003. Since moving to Vermont in 2007, her work has been presented by The Flynn Center for the Performing Arts, Burlington Dances, Arts Riot, The Burlington Fringe Festival, UVM, and The Philly Fringe, among many others. In 2014 and 2015, she served as Community Mentor for Stephan Koplowitz’s online course, Creating Site Specific Dance and Performance Works, by California Institute of the Arts. Joy is the current President of the VDA Board of Directors.

Nicole Ullman (she/her) lives in Rutland. She is a mom of three. She is serving as the Secretary for the Vermont Dance Alliance. At the start of 2022, Nicole joined with other dancers to form the Marble Valley Dance Collective. This group is working to bring high quality dance experiences; classes, workshops, and live performances, to the Rutland County community. Nicole holds a MA in Dance and Dance Education from Teachers College, Columbia University.

Mary Chris DeBelina is a choreographer, dancer, educator and the previous executive director of the Vermont Dance Alliance. Mary Chris dances regularly with Willow Wonder and Hannah Dennison, and is a Principal Guest Artist with Boston-based Juventas New Music Ensemble. Her choreography was part of Juventas’s 2020 presentation of Shell & Wing David Biedenbender, which won the 2020 American Prize Ernst Bacon Award for the Performance of American Music. She has also presented her choreography at Phantom Theater and The Barn.

Mary Chris is a passionate educator with a focus on creative dance with children. She teaches in Vermont at the Contemporary Dance and Fitness Studio and Montpelier Senior Activity Center. In 2005, MC founded the Hopkins Center’s Children’s Creative Dance Program at Dartmouth and taught every class until 2012 when her family relocated to Philadelphia. As a faculty member at Dartmouth she was fortunate to perform with, and choreograph for, the Dartmouth Dance Ensemble and was a frequent guest teacher. In Philadelphia, MC met Keila Cordova and was introduced to Dance for PD. She attended the Teacher Training Workshop in Brooklyn in 2013 and taught movement for Parkinsons classes for two years in Philadelphia.

MC (b. 1982) was raised in Chicago, IL. She studied Biology and Dance at Dartmouth College (B.A. 2005) and combined her two passions at Sarah Lawrence College receiving an MFA in Dance (2008). Her thesis work focused on the links between science and art. After having four children, MC is excited to be finding her way back to dance again. MC can be found dancing in Montpelier, Vermont, hiking up mountains or folding mountains of laundry. MC finds dance in everything and currently her biggest inspirations are her four tiniest dancers.

Kristin joined the VDA Board in 2022. Her life with dance began at the age of 3, and she never looked back. She moved to Vermont for the first time to attend law school, returning years later once she had begun her career. While she does not currently reside in Vermont, she lives across Lake Champlain in Plattsburgh where she remains deeply passionate about dance within Vermont.

Julie Peoples-Clark, originally from Baltimore, MD, has been a go-go dancer in a cage in a night club, a showgirl in Atlantic City, a backup dancer for Richard Marx, a magician’s assistant, a teeny bopper in 3 John Waters’ films, a tap dancing book on television, a hoofer on 42nd Street, a tribe member with lots of Hair and a professional modern dancer. She is well versed in the work of Rudolf Laban, Irmgard Bartenieff and Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen’s Body-Mind Centering. Julie is an Artist in Residence/Full Time Lecturer in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of Vermont. Her areas of expertise are Contemporary Dance, Musical Theatre Dance, Somatics, Yoga and Pilates. Her spoken word, choreographic work and SoulStories® somatic workshops have been presented though out the United States and abroad. She created and facilitated dance programs for D.A.R.E. America, the US Drug Enforcement Agency’s Educational Foundation, Champlain Valley Services’ Adult and Youth Bridging Programs and UVM’s Liberal Arts in Prison Program. Julie is certified in Peak Pilates and holds over 2000 hours of yoga certifications including Goddess Yoga Flow, Bikram Yoga and Yoga for the Special Child. She hold a 200 hour integration certification in Ayurvedic medicine from the Ayurvedic Center of Vermont. Most importantly, she is a mother to an angel, Ella the Great and an incredibly active young boy Emanuel Blessing.

Sonia Plumb grew up in rural Vermont, migrating to Connecticut to attend Trinity College in Hartford, CT where she received her B.A. in Theater and Dance. From there she  launched her dance career traveling between Hartford and New York performing, choreographing and teaching. She launched Sonia Plumb Dance Company as a 501(c)(3) in 1991.  Sonia has collaborated with puppeteers, actors, musicians, singers, composers, videographers, photographers, digital artists, scientists, educators, and dancers throughout New England, nationally and abroad. She taught at CREC Academy for the Arts half-day program in Hartford, CT, a magnet highschool ranked #1 nationally for many years. Sonia was one of nine artists to receive the National Artist Community Legacy Award (2015) and has thrice received the Connecticut Office of the Arts Fellowship for Artistic Excellence. In 2023 Sonia returned to Vermont to assist her aging parents and reconnect with her roots. Sonia has one son who is the apple of her eye and keeps her laughing when things get a little too dark.

Paul Besaw is Professor of Theatre & Dance in the School of the Arts. He came to UVM in 2006 as the founding faculty member and director for the Dance Program and led the Program in the creation of a dance minor (2010) and dance major (2019). He teaches courses in choreography, dance history, performance, among others, and co-created/team-teaches an interdisciplinary class on the “mind-body problem” with faculty members in neuroscience and religion. Paul was awarded the University of Vermont’s Kroepsch-Maurice Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2010. During his time at UVM, he has served in a variety of academic leadership positions.

Paul is a choreographer, theatre-maker, and performer. His primary interest is in the development of original performance works that integrate collaboration across art forms. His work has been presented throughout the United States and abroad, at a wide variety of places, venues, and sites. He is a founder, leader, and active member of Dance Tramp, a Vermont dance/theatre collective, and also performs and creates work with sloDance in Lincoln, Nebraska.

In 2016, Paul was a Visiting Professor in the School of Drama at the Korea National University of Arts in Seoul, Korea. He has also been a tenure-track faculty member at Catawba College (North Carolina) and California State University, Sacramento (California). He has served on the Board of Directors for the American College Dance Association (ACDA) since 2007, currently on the Executive Committee as Vice President for Elections & Board Affairs. Four of Paul’s dances have received Gala Honors at regional ACDA conferences; in 2023, his original work The Undertaker Waltzes In, featuring UVM student performers, was selected for the ACDA National College Dance Festival at the Carpenter Performing Arts Center in Long Beach, CA. He received his BA in Theatre from Keene State College and his MFA in Dance from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro.