Artists and Collaborators

Mary Barton

ARB Ballet Master and Resident Choreographer | ARBW Coordinator and Ballet Master

MARY BARTON received her training at the Washington School of Ballet and participated in summer courses at SAB and Joffrey Ballet School. Her professional experience began at Washington Ballet, dancing soloist and principal roles with the company while still a student. At age 18, she joined the Oldenburg Staat Ballet as Principal Guest Artist. After performing in Europe, she returned to the US and joined the Dayton Ballet as Principal dancer. In 1986, Ms. Barton joined the Joffrey Ballet, where she performed many of the company’s leading roles. She was chosen by Robert Joffrey for the role of Clara in the world premiere of his new Nutcracker. While at Joffrey, she performed a variety of roles in their extensive repertory. Ms. Barton danced as a principal dancer with the American Repertory Ballet from 1993-2004. Some notable roles include Sugar Plum Fairy, Cinderella, Titania, Emily in Our Town, and leading roles in Balanchine's Serenade, Rubies, and Concerto Barocco. While under the direction of Septime Webre, she performed the role of Odette/Odile in Swan Lake and Juliet in his Romeo and Juliet. Ms. Barton has been on the faculty of the Princeton Ballet School since 1993, and is one of the primary teachers of the Summer Intensive. She is also a member of the ballet faculty at the Lewis Center of the Arts at Princeton University, and in the Musical Theatre program at Rider University. She is listed in the “Who’s Who of American Teachers.” As a director,she has helped restage Romeo and Juliet and Our Town on other companies around the US. Her choreography has been presented by ARB, Rider University, The Outlet, Teamwork Dance, and Princeton University Ballet, as well as the annual school productions of Princeton Ballet School.

Christopher Chambers

Lighting Designer

Christopher S. Chambers has a MFA from the University of Conneticut and has designed for many theatre, dance and opera companies including: North Shore Music Theatre, The Cape Playhouse, Connecticut Repertory Theatre, Curtain Call Inc., Boston College, Montclair State University, Sufffolk University, Dramatics NYC, Gallery Palyers, Mount Washington Valley Theatre Company, Resort Players, Boheme Opera of New Jersey, Manchester Ballet, Ram Island Dance, Dance Connecticut and The University of Hartford.

Peter C. Cook

Stage Manager

Peter C. Cook has been stage manager for American Repertory Ballet and Princeton Ballet School productions for over 35 years. Peter has also stage managed tours for the Martha Graham Company and Phillip Glass. He is an award winning and widely published photographer, with two books to his credit: Great Houses and Gardens of NJ and Cottages and Mansions of the Jersey Shore. For the past few years, he has worked with artist Howard Siskowitz on a collaborative project, Double Take: A Portrait Project.

Michelle Ferranti

Company Wardrobe Manager

Michelle Ferranti has designed costumes for many dance companies and choreographers including San Francisco Ballet, American Repertory Ballet, Introdans, Rebecca Kelly Ballet, Dusan Tynek Dance Theatre, Jody Sperling’s Time Lapse Dance, Battleworks, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Edwaard Liang, David Parsons, Chet Walker, and many others. She was a resident designer and adjunct faculty member at Marymount Manhattan College for twelve years. She received her BFA from Marymount Manhattan College and her MA from Rutgers University. She has also authored several articles and book chapters on various aspects of design, beauty culture, and American cultural history.

Matthew Keefe

Operations Manager | Resident Choreographer

Matthew began dancing at age 19 while a student of the University of New Mexico. His early inspiration to dance came from the late Tim Wengerd of the Martha Graham Dance Company and Matthew went on to perform with several ballet, modern and opera companies including The Lynda Martha Dance Company, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Fort Wayne Ballet, Boston Ballet2, Charleston Ballet Theater, Louisville Ballet, Ohio Ballet, the move, Ballet Met Columbus, Minnesota Opera and the James Sewell Ballet.

A choreographer of over 40 ballets, his work has won awards from the Regional Dance America and was selected for the Ballet Builders Showcase in New York. Matthew received an MFA in Dance from the University of Iowa in 1999.

Equally at home in the artistic, production and administrative realms of dance; Matthew has served as the Interim Artistic Director of Ballet Quad Cities for the 2006-07 season, founder and producer of “The Studio 2A Choreography Project” in Minneapolis, Development Associate/Special Events Manager at George Street Playhouse, and part time faculty member for the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. Matthew also serves as Vice Chair on the Dance/USA Board of Trustees. He is married to former ARB dancer Brittany Fridenstine-Keefe.

Victoria Miller

Lighting Designer

is a New Hampshire native, who currently resides in NYC. After getting a BA in Theatre Design and Technology at Plymouth State University she went on to earn an MFA in Lighting Design from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. She lights theatre and dance through out the tri-state area and New England. She gives her thanks and love to her Mom, Dad for their unconditional support.

Kathleen Moore

ARB Company Teacher

Kathleen Moore trained with Dame Sonia Arova and Thor Sutowski at the Alabama School of Fine Arts
(ASFA) and attended summer intensives at the School of American Ballet and the American Ballet Theatre (ABT) School. She graduated from ASFA as a Presidential Scholar in the Arts and moved to NY to join ABT II in 1980. Invited by Mikhail Baryshnikov to become a member of the corps of ABT in 1982, Ms. Moore was appointed soloist in 1988 and Principal dancer in 1991. Her work included roles across the classical, dramatic, modern and contemporary repertory. Agnes de Mille, Twyla Tharp, Mark Morris and other respected choreographers created roles for her and she was a member of the premiere tour of the White Oak Dance Project under the direction of Mikhail Baryshnikov and Mark Morris in 1990. Ms. Moore has appeared in several dance documentaries, the Herbert Ross movie Dancers, and was interviewed on The Charlie Rose Show. Ms. Moore began teaching for Princeton Ballet School in 1993 as a guest teacher and has worked with ARB since 2006. She has also taught master classes at Princeton and Wesleyan Universities.Ms. Moore is certified to teach all levels of ballet through the ABT® National Training Curriculum.

Ron Nilson

Technical Director

Lauren Parrish

Production Manager

Lauren holds a B.A. in dance from Sarah Lawrence College. She has been lighting shows in and around New York City since 2006, and touring domestically and internationally with dance companies since 2008. She has stage-managed for Battleworks, Keigwin + Co., Susan Marshall & Company and TAKE Dance. Her lighting design has been seen at the Ontological-Hysteric Theater, The Chocolate Factory, Manhattan Theater Source, Symphony Space, and Dance Theater Workshop. Lauren is the Technical Director of the New York Neo-Futurists, the Production Manager/Lighting Designer for DanceNOW NYC, and the Production Stage Manager for Youth American Grande Prix at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center.

Kirk Peterson

Guest Choreographer

Kirk Peterson had a distinguished career for 17 years with American Ballet Theatre as principal dancer, choreographer, Artistic Director of ABTII, Ballet Master, Principal Character Artist and as Master Teaching Associate. Peterson was also Artistic Director of the Hartford Ballet for five years. As a choreographer, Peterson has created over 50 ballets including new versions of The Firebird and Le Sacre du Printemps. His choreography has been seen with San Francisco Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet, Washington Ballet, Cincinnati Ballet, Atlanta Ballet, BalletMet, San Francisco Opera and The Royal Ballet School. He is a specialist in re-staging the full-length classical repertoire such as Giselle, Don Quixote and The Sleeping Beauty. He was nominated for the prestigeous Prix Benois de la Danse in Moscow for Othello, created for Alberta Ballet. Peterson was resident choreographer for Cincinnati Ballet for six years and he is also a repetiteur for the Antony Tudor Ballet Trust. ARB restaged Peterson's Glazunov Variations for the 2010-2011 Season and The Eyes That Gently Touch for the 2011-2012 Season.

Gina Ricca

ARB Costume Manager

Gina Ricca has been with ARB since 2003. She combines a decade of experience as an international fashion designer with formal education in costume design from Indiana University - School of Music, as well as fashion design from The Fashion Institute of Technology, NYC.