The Practice:
A Dance Educator Program
July 11-18, 2027
in Sorrento, Italy
A reboot for active teaching artists who are hungry to reconnect, reimagine and reignite their practice.
Early Bird Deadline: Friday, March 19
General Deadline: Friday, April 9
→ the program
Designed for active teaching artists and experienced dance educators who have a regular physical and creative practice, the six-day program includes daily physical practice sessions designed for experienced movers and a platform for redesigning creative practices for increased sustainability, more fruitful collaboration, and personal delight.
Creative practices focused on writing, dancemaking, pedagogy, or administrative structures can all benefit from the broad principles offered. Set in southern Italy–an environment that prioritizes beauty, curiosity, and restoration–participants will work with internationally renowned faculty and Program Guide Leah Cox to examine the habits that shape how we move, teach, create, and structure our work in order to discover new possibilities.
This is a chance to step away, get back into your body, and rebalance—with time and space to engage deeply with your practice, in an environment that prioritizes beauty, curiosity, and restoration.
→ the schedule
Sunday, July 11 | Welcome reception at Grand Hotel Hermitage overlooking the Bay of Naples and Mount Vesuvius
Monday, July 12 - Wednesday, July 14 | Classes, creative practice, roundtable discussion
Thursday, July 15 | Group beach excursion to Conca Del Sogno Beach Club.
Transportation, entrance to the beach, sun beds, umbrellas, and lunch included
Friday, July 16 - Sunday, July 18 | Classes, creative practice, roundtable discussion
Monday, July 19 | Hotel checkout & departure
The program includes six days steeped in physical practice and creative inquiry, giving you the opportunity to reconnect somatically while also examining how you structure your teaching and creative work.
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Morning Class: Movement with Summer Intensive Students | 1.5 hours
Begin the day with stimulating exploration of your senses, physical awareness, and embodied practice alongside staibdance summer intensive students. Led by international faculty, this class gets you moving, sensing, and responding—an opportunity to return to the immediacy of your own body. Dance Educators are welcome to engage through observation or full participation, based on your level of comfort.
Late Morning Class: Faculty-Only Class | 1.5 hours
The second class invites you to reconnect somatically and engage at your own pace, moving beyond familiar patterns and into deeper inquiry, nuance, and physical discovery.
Afternoon Session: Process & Research | 2.5 hours
Led by Program Guide Leah Cox, these sessions will allow you to wonder your way to increased awareness in order to evolve new ways of working that inspire you to keep returning to your creative projects with delight and enthusiasm. Through individual and collective explorations, participants will develop a project or topic of interest using a unique approach to Mary Overlie’s Viewpoints and Laboratories designed by Leah for application in a variety of contexts.
The on-site schedule includes two curated round-table discussions with International teaching faculty and one free day with a planned group beach excursion to Conca del Sogno Beach Club.
→ the application
The program is application-based and limited to 12 participants, creating an intimate environment for focused exploration, meaningful exchange, and individual attention.
Please note: a non-refundable deposit of $750 is due within 3 weeks of acceptance
→ tuition
Package A — Double Room
Early Bird Rate: $3,200 | Full Tuition Rate: $3,450
Includes: Double Room accommodation for 8 nights at Grand Hotel Hermitage
Daily breakfast & six group dinners included.
Tuition does not include airfare, lunches, 4 of the 8 evening dinners or alternative travel arrangements. A non-refundable deposit of $750 is due within 3 weeks of acceptance.
Package B — Single Room
Early Bird Rate: $3,850 | Full Tuition Rate: $4,100
Includes: Single Room accommodation for 8 nights at Grand Hotel Hermitage
Daily breakfast & six group dinners included.
Tuition does not include airfare, lunches, 4 of the 8 evening dinners or alternative travel arrangements. A non-refundable deposit of $750 is due within 3 weeks of acceptance.
Package C - Housing not included
Rate: $1,900
Housing is the responsibility of the dance educator to self-book.
Daily studio transportation can not be guaranteed.
Tuition does not include airfare, housing, lunches, dinners or alternative travel arrangements. A non-refundable deposit of $750 is due within 3 weeks of acceptance.
Additional add-ons for purchase:
Dinner at Grand Hotel Hermitage | €35/evening for a 3 course menu
Private Evening Boat Trip - Details to be announced upon acceptance
→ the creative guides & teaching artists
staibdance Dance Educator Program Guide
Craetire
Leah Cox (she/her/hers): lead creator and performer in Group Therapy; co-founder of
makegroup with Kristen Osborn, a collective dedicated to using live performance to
bring people together in uncommon ways. In addition to making and performing, Cox is
a nationally-recognized educator and program innovator. She is currently an associate
professor at The University of Texas at Austin and the creator of two experimental
workshops. The first, Failure Collective, is an interdisciplinary, intergenerational
workshop that explores the creative possibilities that arise when we embrace failure and
work in unfamiliar contexts. Intelligent Bodies, Creative Minds offers a paid cohort of
dance professionals the opportunity to apply and extend their expertise to projects
beyond the field of dance. Cox’s previous programs are noted for creating mutually
beneficial partnerships between performing arts organizations and institutions of higher
education. These include the Bard College/Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company/New York
Live Arts partnership and the ADF/Bard College partnership, both of which Leah created
and directed. Her teaching was featured in the Bill T. Jones documentary, A Good Man,
which aired on PBS nationwide. Dance Teacher Magazine celebrated Cox with a feature
story in May 2016.
Cox’s previous projects and positions include: dancer/collaborator in Liz Lerman’s
Wicked Bodies; Dean of the American Dance Festival; Education Director for New York
Live Arts; member of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, first as a company member,
then as the inaugural education director; member of the New York Dance and
Performance Awards (The “Bessies”). She frequently serves as an adjudicator for the
American College Dance Association. Her choreographic work has been presented at
Bard College, the Cool NY Festival, DUMBO Dance Festival, the Museum of Art and
Design (NYC), and the 92nd Street Y.
Photo by Jim Lafferty
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 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 12th 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 has performed in theaters, museums, public spaces, and festivals across the United States, France, Spain and Israel. In her time with the company, Anna has had the opportunity to move and create original works with notable artists such as Niv Sheinfeld & 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 Schroeder (U.S.). In addition to her collaborations with Core Dance, Anna is able to practice her work with outreach through the Dynamic X-Change Healing Arts Program in pursuit to ignite the creative spirit and actively encourage participation and conversation by and with communities.
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.org 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 Sheinfeld and Oren Laor performed in Tel Aviv, Israel.
photo by Daylilies 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 staibdance’s Executive Director. During her 5-year tenure she has planned and managed 6 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.
sarahjhillmer.com
photo by Daylilies Photography
A graduate of Aleph High School of Arts and the Maslool Dance Training Programme in Tel Aviv, Nimrod Poles began his career with the Batsheva Ensemble (artistic director: Ohad Naharin) in the 2013/2014 season. From 2014 to 2017, he worked with choreographers like Sharon Vazanna, Miquel G. Font, Maya Popova and, in the season of 2017/18, was a guest dancer with Graz Opera Ballet (artistic director: Jörg Weinöhl). From 2018 to 2019, he danced with Theater St. Gallen in Switzerland (artistic director: Beate Vollack) in pieces by Felix Landerer, Yuki Mori and Beate Vollack. From August 2019 to June 2021, he danced with Tanz Linz (artistic director: Mei-Hong Lin) at Landestheater Linz. Since July 2021, Nimrod has been based in Graz, collaborating with Anouk van Dijk/Falk Richter, Emanuele Soavi, Sebastian Weber, Theater Bonn, Wang Ramirez, Eva-Maria Schaller/ImPulsTanz and Kunsthaus Graz, among others. As of August 2025, he’s a member of Ballett Graz under the artistic direction of Dirk Elwert and since August 2023, he is a certified Countertechnique teacher.
Photo by Marija M. Kanižaj : Oper Graz
Monique Jonas began dancing with the Chance to Dance programme before training at the Arts Educational Schools London. She completed her training at Rambert School, and received her Masters Degree from The London Contemporary Dance School.
Monique recently played the role of Juliet in Mathew Bourne’s Romeo and Juliet, which toured internationally in 2024. She joined New Adventures in 2019 and has performed across multiple productions in that time. She, however, started her career with Richard Alston Dance Company as an apprentice in 2016 and toured extensively, both nationally and internationally with RADC, until their final performance in 2020. She is currently touring in Dickson Mbi’s Company’s new produc:on of TELLUS and BlacBrik’s new produc:on, The Brown Suite.
Additionally Monique founded her own dance company, Jona Dance in 2019. She has been choreographing, movement directing, teaching and producing work both online and in person. Jona Dance have created for Ballet Black, Miller Harris, Reebok and London Fashion Week to name a few. She premiered her work PLEXUS on National Youth Ballet at Sadler’s Wells Theatre in 2026, Within Each Border in Barcelona in 2025 and a Co-commission at The Royal Ballet and Opera titled Giselle: Portals of Passage in 2026. She most recently movement directed for Edem Wornoo’s Sci-fi - fantasy short film End Of Play which premiered in 2025 and Stage Stars, the new BBC documentary set at Tring Park.
Her podcast Candid Convos with Jona Dance is in its fourth season and was recently Highly Commended at the Independent Podcast awards.
Monique is also a guest artist with Chance to Dance at The Royal Ballet and Opera, a guest contemporary tutor at London Contemporary Dance School, Fabric CAT, Laban CAT, English National Ballet’s Ballet Futures, Artistry Youth Dance and more.
Over the years, Monique has worked with Rambert Dance Company, Ben Duke, Agudo Dance, Vidya Patel, Liam Francis, Clod Ensemble and commercially on the Brit Awards (2021) BBC Drama; The Pursuit of Love (2021), The Marvels (Disney 2023), The REGIME (HBO, 2024) Jamie Cullum, Kae Tempest, and Kylie Minogue.
photo by Gaby Conn Photos
Gavriel Spitzer graduated from the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance in 2000 and was a dancer with the Batsheva Ensemble and the Batsheva Dance Company from 2000-2008. In 2009 Gavriel joined Suzanne Dellal productions, working with choreographers Barak Marshall and Renana Raz. He has been a member of the Gaga teaching staff since 2002, teaching both Gaga and repertoire by Ohad Naharin both in Israel and abroad. Gavriel has also been the stage manager of the Batsheva Ensemble since 2012 and in 2019 became the Ensemble's rehearsal director. Gavriel was one of the teachers at the Ido Portal Israel facility and has been a therapist in the Ilan Lev method since 2008.
Photo by Ascaf Abraham
Oliver Robertson (He/Him) is a movement artist, researcher and practitioner currently based in Geneva, Switzerland. Interested in contemporary floorwork, Oliver’s movement style takes inspiration from martial arts, capoeira, breakdance and acrobatics, and more specifically how the combination of these can create unique ways of moving that no longer fall into any of these boxes.
Since graduating Northern School of Contemporary Dance in 2019, Oliver gained his MA whilst on a placement program with James Wilton Dance company, performing multiple full length works across Europe. Continuing his work with James Wilton Dance where he has taken the role of Education Manager, teaching workshops to schools, universities and dance companies across the UK and European countries such as Italy, Germany, Sweden & Romania. Oliver has taught and choreographed on behalf of himself at various companies across Europe, such as Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s Ballet du Grande Theatre Genéve. Aside from teaching, Oliver has danced for music artist Fred Again as part of his US tour visuals, toured the UK and Egypt performing and rehearsal directing for Northern Attitudes Dance Company, as well as choreographing his own commissions for Youth Academies and Dance Companies across Europe.
Frequently asked questions
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All classes & rehearsals take place in the these two studio locations:
Sant'Agata Studio: Istituto Comprensivo Pulcarelli-Pastena
Via Reola, 80061 Massa Lubrense NA, ItalySorrento Studio: Liceo Scientifico G. Salvemini
Via Parsano, 80067 Sorrento NA, Italy -
The best airport to book your flights to and from is Naples International Airport (NAP).
staibdance is able to provide group transportation flights booked in accordance with this timeline:
Flight must arrive at Naples International Airport (NAP) by 2:30PM on Sunday, July 13, 2025. From the United States, this will mean departing on Saturday, July 12, 2025.
staibdance must receive confirmed flight details from Dance Educator by June 6, 2025. After June 6, 2025 we will not be able to guarantee inclusion in the group transportation provided between the airport and hotel.
We are unable to provide transportation for flights booked outside of this timeline.
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If you prefer to book your own accommodations outside of Hotel Montana, here are a few of our recommendations:
1) Grand Hotel Hermitage
Contact: Renato Antonetti, info@hermitagesorrento.com
Please contact italyprogram@staibdance.com with questions.