A three-day movement workshop designed for adventure-seeking creatives.
Break down your artistic boundaries through classes ranging from technique, composition, acting, contact improvisation, and conscientious abandon.
January 2-4, 2026
at Schwartz Center for Performing Arts, Dance Studio
Daily Schedule
FRIDAY, JANUARY 2
6:15-9:15PM
6:15-7:45pm* - Contemporary Modern Technique with Kristin O’Neal *($20 Drop-In)
7:45-9:15pm* - staibdance REP with George Staib & Faith Fidgeon
*($35 Drop-In Combo - both Friday classes from 6:15-9:15pm)
SATURDAY, JANUARY 3
10:00AM-5:00PM
10:00-11:30am* - The 90 Minute Moment with Anna Bracewell *( $20 Drop-In)
11:30am-1:00pm - Acting with Mary Lynn Owen
1:00-2:00pm - Lunch BREAK
2:00-4:00pm - Composition with George Staib
4:00-5:00pm - Active Recovery Training Session with Emma Faulkner
SUNDAY, JANUARY 4
10:00AM-4:30PM
10:00am-12:00pm* - Contemporary & staibdance REP with George Staib & Sarah Hillmer ($20 Drop-In)
12:00-1:30pm* - Microscoping & Telescoping Contact Improvisation with Kristin O’Neal ( $20 Drop-In)
1:30-2:30pm - Lunch BREAK
2:30-4:00pm - Blur the Edges with George Staib & Sarah Hillmer
4:00-4:30pm - Shared wisdom for the road home
*($35 Drop-In Combo - first two Sunday classes from 10:00am-1:30pm)
LOCATION: Schwartz Center for Performing Arts, Dance Studio
ADDRESS: 1700 N Decatur Rd, Atlanta GA 30322
Click for Parking Options
Meet the Teaching Faculty
staibdance Artistic Director
Born in Tehran, Iran, George Staib is of Armenian descent and has been living in the United States since the age of ten. He began his dance training at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in conjunction with the Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet, then went on to earn an MFA in dance and choreography from Temple University. Company credits include: Ann Vachon/Dance Conduit, Coriolis Dance Company, Gathering Wild Dance Company, and Paula Kellinger and Dancers. In addition, the fall of 2006 provided Staib the opportunity to perform with the José Limón Dance Company as a guest artist in their re-creation of Missa Brevis.
In 2001 Staib joined the dance faculty at Emory University where he teaches contemporary and ballet techniques, choreography, and a seminar created to examine the impetus and practice of consuming and making art. He serves as an adjudicator for and was an 18 year member of the executive committee for the American College Dance Association, and currently serves as a member of the Board of Trustees for Dance/USA. Since relocating to Atlanta, GA, Staib's work and teaching have been commissioned across the United States resulting in his recognition by Dance Teacher Magazine in 2014 as one of the top five dance educators in the country. As added service to the field, Staib is a contributing writer and critic for ArtsATL.
Staib is a two-time recipient of Emory’s prestigious Winship Award, taking him to Tel Aviv in 2011 to study Gaga, release technique with Iris Enez, and Jerusalem to conduct choreographic workshops. In 2016, Staib and the company were invited to Stockholm to perform and teach at Södra Latins and BalletAkadamien, and subsequently created new work for Saraceno Dance.
Since the founding of staibdance, he and the company have been awarded funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, City of Atlanta Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs, Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta, The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Emory University Research Committee, The Latham Foundation, The Imlay Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, The New England Foundation for the Arts, South Arts and The Vail Family Foundation.
In addition, staibdance curated and produced the first-ever Atlanta Multicultural Dance Festival, created a summer intensive in Sorrento, Italy, now in its 13th year and hosted a 10-part podcast series titled Secret Architecture: the process of process, that features culturally based artists from across the country.
Staib’s most recent accomplishments include promotion to the rank of Professor of Practice at Emory University, engagement as an educator with ImmerseATL, recognition by the Atlanta Regional Commission as an Arts Leader of Metro Atlanta, and in the summer of 2022, Staib served as a faculty member and choreographer for the American Dance Festival in Durham, NC.
Photo by Daylilies Photography
Anna Bracewell is an Atlanta based dance artist. She was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia and began her dance training at an early age at Decatur School of Ballet. While continuing her classical training at DSOB, she trained, and went on to graduate from DeKalb School of the Arts where she studied under the legendary Pamala Jones-Malave. Anna later received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance from the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia. Since 2012, she has had the deep pleasure of being a member of staibdance, under the direction of George Staib, where she is a dancer, collaborator and teacher. Anna was also a member of Core Dance from 2012-2020. As a Dance Artist with Core Dance she performed in theaters, museums, public spaces, and festivals across the United States, France, Spain and Israel. In her time with Core Dance, Anna had the opportunity to move and create original works with notable artists such as Niv Shienfeld & Oren Laor (Tel Aviv), Germana Civera (France/Spain), Frank van de Ven (Amsterdam), Amanda K. Miller (Germany/U.S.), Isabelle Saulle & Adolfo Vargas (France), Leslie Scates (U.S.), D. Patton White, Lori Teague and Sue Schroder (U.S.).
In her years of dancing professionally in Atlanta, Anna has also created and collaborated with local artists Blake Beckham (The Lucky Penny), Joshua Rackliffe, Erik Thurmond and Catellier Dance Projects!. Anna was recognized as “Best Dancer” in Atlanta by ArtsATL in 2018 and has been internationally recognized in her collaborative work with: Association Manifeste (Toulouse, France) in which she performed in several public corner spaces across France and the U.S., and in her work with Niv Shienfeld and Oren Laor performed in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Photo by SJR Photography
Dr. Emma Faulkner graduated in 2015 from Emory University’s Doctor of Physical Therapy program and went on to complete her Residency in Orthopaedic Physical Therapy at Mercer University in 2017. In 2018, she became a board certified Orthopaedic Clinical Specialist (OCS).
Emma is the owner of TriHealth Physical Therapy and is a founding partner in Atlanta Dance Medicine. She is a lead physical therapist for multiple professional ballet and modern dance companies in the Atlanta Metro. Emma is also an adjunct faculty member in Emory University’s Department of Theater and Dance where she teaches Experiential Anatomy. She participates actively in dance medicine research and presents frequently at local, national, and international conferences. Her areas of research include conditioning and cross training programming for dancers, weightlifting for dancers, POTS in dancers, and screening tools for predicting injury risk across different genres of dance.
Photo by Synapse Photography
Faith Fidgeon is a dance artist currently residing in Atlanta, Georgia. Faith graduated from University of North Carolina School of the Arts in 2022 with a BFA in Contemporary Dance and a minor in Arts Entrepreneurship. Faith has recently danced in staibdance's premiere of ARARAT, Shen Wei's premiere of Summary at the American Dance Festival, and a collaborative choreographic work with Fly on a Wall. In addition to stage performance, they have danced in circus performances, museum exhibitions, short films, and with Alliance Theater’s Theater for the Very Young. Faith’s current movement practices include countertechnique, release technique, contact improvisation, yoga, and bouldering. Conceptually and aesthetically, they are interested in blurring the lines of theater and dance, repetition, duration, satire, and how performance shows up in our everyday lives.
Photo by SJR Photography
Sarah Hillmer has 20+ years of experience in the professional dance world as a dancer, rehearsal director, assistant to choreographers, stager, educator, creator and arts administrator.
Her company credits include the Atlanta Ballet, glo - as a founding member, and staibdance. Sarah served as a Rehearsal Director at the Atlanta Ballet from 2013-2019 where artistic relationships with Twyla Tharp and Helen Pickett were forged. Sarah staged work for Twyla Tharp at Royal Winnipeg Ballet & Atlanta Ballet, and her work as a stager and assistant for Helen Pickett have taken her to Alberta Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Boston Ballet, Dutch National Ballet, Kansas City Ballet, New York Theatre Ballet, Oklahoma City Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, Scottish Ballet, Smuin Ballet, UArts and UNCSA.
Sarah is the Founder & Director of ImmerseATL, a training & mentorship program that serves dancers at pivotal stages in their ever-evolving journey as artists through the Artist Program and the ImmerseATL Collective.
As a choreographer, Sarah has been commissioned to create work for Atlanta Ballet’s Wabi Sabi, Backside of the Tent Productions, Emory Dance Company and Admix Project. Sarah has been a co-collaborator with George Staib on two productions; fence in 2019, which was funded by a grant from the New England Foundation for the Arts, National Dance Project, and Dido & Aeneas in 2023, a collaboration with the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra.
As an arts administrator, Sarah currently serves as Executive Director for staibdance. During her 6-year tenure she has planned and managed 7 national tours, 2 world premieres, annual workshops, an annual 2-week summer intensive in Sorrento, Italy, (MC)2-Atlanta’s first multi-cultural dance festival, as well as a docuseries based on (MC)2 and a podcast series, Secret Architecture: the process of process.
Additionally, Sarah serves as Business Operations Manager for Windmill Arts, an organization dedicated to the advancement of new work in the arts.
Photo by Daylilies Photography
Kristin O’Neal is a performer, teacher and choreographer residing in Atlanta, GA. She teaches varying levels of contemporary modern technique, movement improvisation and contact improvisation at Emory University and leads classes at Core Dance in Decatur for the professional Atlanta dance community. Kristin’s technique classes include a deep investigation into how one’s body operates within a movement framework that invites curiosity, discovery and always one’s relationship to space and time. She earned her MFA in Dance from Hollins University/ADF where she began her research of solo performance and character creation. These solos have been shared in theaters, studios, and gymnasiums from Florida to Maine, including Ohio. Kristin is the Outreach Coordinator for National Water Dance (since 2011) and has been a proud affiliate of the Bates Dance Festival since 2007.
Photo by Christina J. Massad
Mary Lynn Owen is an award-winning playwright and actor from Atlanta, GA. Her work embraces both the classical and contemporary, and with a history of over seventy-five professional productions, her highlights include leading roles in The Glass Menagerie, Wit, Six Degrees of Separation, Kimberly Akimbo, Cabaret, Twelfth Night, Our Town, La Vida es Sueño, Blood Wedding, The Little Foxes, and Knead, her one-woman show which had its world premiere at The Alliance Theatre. Her plays have been produced by The Alliance Theatre, Aurora Theatre, and Alabama Shakespeare Southern Writers Festival and developed by Seven Devils Playwrights Festival, The Barter Theatre, Theatrical Outfit, Actors Express, and the Sewanee Writers Conference where she was recently in residence as a Tennessee Williams Scholar in Playwriting. She is a finalist for the O’Neill Conference, the American Blues Theatre Blue Ink Award, and the Dramatists Guild National Playwriting Fellows, and her residencies include Cottages at Hedgebrook, Hambidge Center, and The Eugene O'Neill Foundation. She is a longtime faculty member of Emory University and Oxford College where she has taught Acting Fundamentals, Physical and Vocal Improvisation, Oral Interpretation of Scripture and Sermon (The Candler School of Theology) and where she currently co-teaches Taller de Teatro en Español - Theater Workshop in Spanish.
Photo by David Clifton-Strawn
Pricing
Full Workshop: $325
Saturday | Sunday Package: $240
This package includes the FULL schedule on both January 3 & 4, 2026Single Drop-in Class (Friday, Saturday & Sunday): $20
Combo Drop-in Class (Friday, Sunday) $35
* = denotes classes available for drop-in in the schedule.Please note: All Root Theory purchases are final. No refunds will be given.
“I felt so incredibly welcomed as soon as it started, and left feeling like I had a new tool box for experimenting with movements.”