Faculty Profiles
Tara Repsher (Director) holds a BFA in dance performance and education from Towson University. She received her early training from Patricia Bartholomew at Stage Door Studio. Her teaching experience covers many genres of dance such as ballet, modern, jazz, pointe, lyrical, musical theatre and tap. While performing with the Towson University Dance Company she was asked to perform in a restaging of Martha Grahams "Panorama". Tara was recently the company director and dance teacher at Meade Senior High School in Maryland for five years. Her choreography has been seen at the Maryland High School Dance Festivals, Northampton Community College, and Walt Disney World. She currently teaches dance at The Lehigh Valley Charter High School for the Performing Arts and is adjunct faculty in Muhlenberg College’s dance department.
Alexandra Reekie (Assistant Director) holds a BA in dance and media & communication from Muhlenberg College. Her work has been showcased at the American College Dance Festival and in the Philadelphia Fringe Festival. In addition to MCDC, she currently teaches ballet, modern, lyrical, jazz and tap at Dance Fusion Performing Arts Studio and is director of Fusion Dance Company, a professional contemporary dance company.
Stephanie Flackman, from Montville, NJ, has been studying dance for 16 years with intensive training in jazz, tap, ballet, pointe, lyrical, and modern. She performed in the 2008 Master Choreographers faculty concert and a 2007 Ashleigh Edwards benefit at Muhlenberg. Stephanie taught beginner and intermediate tap for MCDC, and was a substitute teacher for advanced ballet and jazz, in 2007 and 2008. Stephanie's prior recognition includes All American Talent Awards National Miss All American Dance 2004 and National First Place Soloist 2005 for Ticket to Broadway. She choreographed "All That Jazz" for the NJ Teen Arts Festival and was featured in an instructional pointe video, Sleeping Beauty, produced by Hoctor Dance.
She has danced in Las Vegas, Universal Studios Hollywood, and Walt Disney World as well as at fundraisers for the International Red Cross, PSAHPERD, and the Joanne Marie Cardillo Foundation for Music Therapy. She studied tap with Tapaholics founder and star, Mike Minery, the "tapping Justin Timberlake." Stephanie credits her passion for dance to legendary studio director, Miss Kelly Allen, and she looks forward to sharing this passion as she continues teaching for MCDC.
Lynn Lisella is a sophomore dance and communications double major at Muhlenberg College. Lynn is from Peekskill, NY and has studied ballet, modern, jazz and tap for more than 12 years. She previously held positions as an assistant ballet and jazz instructor and head counselor at a theater camp. Lynn performed in many semi-professional productions including Godspell, A Christmas Carol and Peter Pan. During her first year at Muhlenberg, she danced in both fall and spring semester Informal Concerts and in Oklahomaat the PA Playhouse in Bethlehem. She will also be performing with the Muhlenberg Community JazzTap ensemble under the direction of Shelley Oliver this year.
Mary Jean Stack is from Great Falls, VA and began her ballet training at the age of three at the Margaret Haddad Studio of Classical Ballet. At the age of twelve she was accepted to the Kirov Academy of Ballet in Washington DC (formerly The Universal Ballet School). Here she studied with Ludmila Morkovina for five years. She graduated from the academy in 2007 receiving an artistic degree. She has also completed various summer programs, some with scholarships, at the Harid Conservatory, The Kirov Academy, Washington Ballet, Pittsburg Ballet Theatre, Kattsbaan, The Russian Ballet Society in Scotland, and The Royal Ballet of Flanders in Belgium. She attended the Kennedy Center Ballet Master Class series in 2006 and was taught by ballet greats from American Ballet Theatre and the Bolshoi Theater.
In 2008 she was awarded the Nicholas Legat and Nicolaeva Legat Memorial Scholarship by the Russian Ballet Society allowing her to attend on full scholarship the society’s two week summer course in Scotland. In addition, she has completed her examinations by the society through the soloist exam in which she earned honors with distinction. In 2009 she performed in Before They Fall, choreographed by Meredith Rainey, in Muhlenberg’s Faculty show as well as the gala at ACDFA. She has performed in the Muhlenberg Faculty performance s in 2008 and 2009 and guest performs with the Margaret Haddad Studio of Classical Ballet. Mary Jean is now a junior and is looking forward to her second year of teaching for MCDC.
Maggie Griffin is a junior completing a double dance and psychology major. This is her second semester working with MCDC along with participating in the student and faculty dance concerts at Muhlenberg. She plans to continue teaching after college and is excited to be working with such a committed and hard-working community dance program.
Ashley Taylor is a senior Dance major, English minor at Muhlenberg
College. She has performed in several student choreographed pieces
there, as well as in three faculty pieces including works by Charles O.
Anderson, Kathleen Bibalo, and Sarah Carlson’s piece Gathering Soul.
Recently, Ashley performed in Ten Tiny Dances and Spider Dance for Carlson. This summer she attended the American Dance Festival and
performed with the Japanese company H. Art Chaos, as well as in a
dance theatre piece choreographed by Rosie Herrera. Ashley teaches intermediate and advanced modern for MCDC.
Joyce Pencek Yoder is a former professional member of the DanceGing Company where she danced several original classical and contemporary works and lead roles in their productions of The Nutcracker and The Sleeping Beauty,choreographed by company founder Margo Clifford Ging. While performing classical repertoire with the Ballet Theatre of Scranton, she received a scholarship to the PA Governor's School for the Arts, participated in several Russian ballet seminars with Alla Sizova, Irina Kolpakova, and Dimitri Nechayev of the Kirov Ballet, and furthered her dance education at the Pennsylvania Ballet School.
Over the years, she has studied with numerous well-known teachers and choreographers. She has appeared in featured dance roles with Pennsylvania Youth Theatre in their productions of Wizard of Oz, Babes In Toyland, Snow Over Bethlehem, Narnia, and Alice In Wonderland. She also served for the past two years as choreographer for Trexler Middle School’s musical productions of Once on This Island Jr. and Cinderella. She earned her BA in Fine Arts/Dance and Elementary Education from Cedar Crest College and has been a member of the Muhlenberg College Community Dance Center faculty since 2002. |
