h  e  l  l  o  !

 

Michelle Burns began dancing under the direction of Rachel Brady at the Creative Dance Studio in Alton, IL. In 2016, she jumped further into the corn fields towards the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to receive her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance and Psychology Minor.

 

In her time there, she immersed herself in many avenues such as:

teaching dance

yoga teacher certification

choreography

memory research

dance for camera and video editing

theories of psychotherapy

art promotion as the Krannert Center Student Association President

and finally performance, in works by Renée Wadleigh, Rebecca Nettl-Fiol with Melanie Bales, Ohad Naharin with choreographic reconstruction by Omri Drumlevich and Zina Zinchenko, and many more.

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In her final year, Michelle’s self-choreographed thesis solo, an echo of a rerun, was selected to perform in the Informal Concert at ACDA. Most recently, Michelle's video work glasshouse: a collaborative performance film was selected to show in the Illini Student Film Festival.

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Michelle is a James Scholar Graduate and recipient of University Honors, also known as Bronze Tablet, meaning she finishes her time at Illinois in the top 3% of the College of Fine and Applied Arts Graduating Class Of 2020.

 

In the Fall of 2020, Michelle will attend Naropa University in Colorado to pursue a MA in Somatic Counseling: Dance/Movement Therapy, as well as continue to move and make.