ABOUT GARET&CO

Our Mission

Led by Garet Wierdsma, Garet&Co is a professional contemporary dance company based in Northern CT working to strengthen and celebrate the contemporary dance community in their local region.

Garet&Co's mission is to create a safe, sustainable and uplifting space for local dancers to train and perform at the highest level of contemporary dance. Garet&Co has created a home for contemporary dancers, where dancers can gain both training experience and paid work opportunities in a positive environment, while being supported as both dancers and humans.

Garet&Co’s choreographic work dissects emotions on the stage, dealing with themes of struggling mental health and the search for peace within chaos. Pulling from her own experiences first and then collaborating conceptually and in movement with the dancers, Garet hopes that her work gives audiences the opportunity to fully experience the joy, devastation, and catharsis of contemporary dance. Garet strives to create art that comes from a place of personal truth; work that is both guttural and beautiful. Garet&Co believes that art changes the world, and the company is passionately and actively working to be generators of light. Inspired by her own experiences, both positive and negative, in the dance world, Garet works to create safe and positive environments where art and humanity can be at the forefront.

Garet&Co has performed across the Northeast, most notably at Jacob's Pillow, Symphony Space, Ailey Citigroup Theatre, The Warner Theatre, Dixon Place, and TADA Emerging Artists Theatre.

Press

Check out these beautifully written articles highlighting Garet&Co's Work!

Garet&Co. dancers ponder process of making friends in latest performance

Garet&Co writes season’s ‘Epilogue’ this Saturday

Inside Dance Podcast Interview

The Creators: Sitting down with Garet Wierdsma

Sun shines on Garet&Co's ‘ECLIPSE’

Local Dance Company Inspires Audiences with Emotional Performances

Garet&Co unveils new works June 9

Garet&Co: Out of the box, into the round

Principal & Pro Members

About Garet

Student Members

Apprentice Members

Meet the
Generators of Light

About Garet

Meet the Founder

Garet Wierdsma is a dance artist from New Hartford CT, and is the creator and director of the beloved contemporary dance company Garet&Co. Garet graduated with high honors from NYU Tisch with a BFA in Dance and a minor in Business in 2021.

Garet's accolades include her selection as the Choreography Fellowship Recipient for Sacred Heart University in January 2022 and being chosen as a young choreographer for Young Choreographers Festival 2022 in NYC. Garet's work has been invited to perform at a multitude of festivals and shows across the Northeast, including performances at the following prominent venues: Jacob's Pillow, Symphony Space, Ailey Citigroup Theatre, The Warner Theatre, Dixon Place, Chesterwood, and TADA Emerging Artist Theatre. In addition to Garet's artistic experience, she also spent 2.5 years working in sales and marketing at Dance Media on all of their brands (including Dance Magazine), where she gained valuable experience in the business side of the dance industry.

Garet's goal through Garet&Co is to give back to her community and her home state through cultivating a sustainable and strong dance community, offering valuable and positive opportunities for the dancers and audiences of her local region. Through Garet&Co, Garet has successfully and single-handedly produced numerous professional dance performances, and has held countless open community classes- all of which have been filled to the brim with passionate dancers and inspiring energy.

When not serving as a director, choreographer, or professional dancer, Garet also spends much of her time as an educator. Garet teaches students of all ages; from babies, to high school and college, to adults. Garet's role as a teacher and authority figure in the classroom is a position she takes extremely seriously. She is constantly working to better herself for her students and create environments where all dancers have agency, feel valued and respected, and can express themselves through the magic of dance.

Principal Members

Kyleigh Olivier

Kyleigh began dancing at the age of three in Massachusetts and trained in a variety of
styles, including ballet, jazz, tap, contemporary, modern, hip hop, and pointe. She
graduated summa cum laude from The Hartt School in May of 2021 with a BFA in
Dance and a concentration in Ballet Pedagogy, along with a Business Management
minor. While she was training at The Hartt School, Kyleigh had the opportunity to
perform repertory by multiple prominent choreographers, including Martha Graham,
José Limón, Merce Cunningham, Jules Perrot, Gabrielle Lamb, and Lar Lubovitch.
Kyleigh is also honored to have received the 2019 Elena Delvecchio Rusnak Dance
Education Scholarship and the Hartt Dance Division Senior Outstanding Achievement
Award while pursuing her BFA degree. In her time at The Hartt School, Kyleigh
discovered her passion for teaching dance and community outreach as she worked with
diverse groups of students in her internships. She is also grateful for her opportunity to
serve as Dance Director of the Prism Project in 2020, leading movement activities for
children with exceptionalities. Kyleigh has been teaching at Connecticut Dance
Academy since 2019 and has greatly enjoyed helping the talented and ambitious
students to continue to grow in their technique and artistry. She is excited to join
Garet&Co again in its fourth season and continue to dance alongside many talented
artists as the company grows!

Evie Sondag

Evie Sondag is originally from Norman, Oklahoma and began her dance training at Modern Dance Arts. She continued her training at Webster University in St. Louis where she had the opportunity to participate in guest artists residencies with Gregory Dawson, the Limón Dance Company, Ballet Hispánico, and Abby Z and the New Utility. She also studied abroad in Accra, Ghana to learn about traditional Ghanaian dance and contemporary African dance. Evie graduated summa cum laude in December of 2022 with a BFA in dance, receiving departmental honors. While finishing her degree, she performed one season as a company member of MADCO (the Modern American Dance Company). In 2023, Evie relocated to Connecticut, where she had the privilege of joining Garet&Co Contemporary Dance. This past Summer, she moved to NYC, but she is thrilled to be continuing with Garet&Co as a principal member for the company’s fourth season!

Jessica Winter

Jessica is ecstatic to be joining Garet&Co as a principal member for her second season. She has been dancing professionally since 2016; traveling the world on cruise ships as part of the main stage entertainment team, performing in musical theater productions with Mark Milovats, Exit 7 Players, and K and E Theater group and dancing in modern works with Eclipse Dance Company. In addition, Jessica has performed pieces by esteemed professionals including Jim Cooney, Ron Tassone, Heather Carpenter, Ori Flomin, Nicholas Petrov, and Douglas Bentz. She has an endless desire to continuously learn and grow, which led her to complete a Doctorate in Occupational Therapy, a Bachelor's of Fine Arts Degree in Dance, an Associate's Degree in Business Management, and an adaptive dance teacher program provided by the Boston Ballet School. When not dancing her heart out, Jessica enjoys spending time with her family, her cute pup Yoda and her 3 guinea pigs.

Professional Members

Emma Brockett

Emma has been dancing since the age of 7, training at a local studio in various styles including jazz, tap, ballet , lyrical, modern and contemporary and started dancing competitively when she was 13. Emma discovered a strong passion for ballet early on in her teens and was excepted into the Joffery summer program at age 16, and a year later at 17 she was accepted into the trainee program at New England Ballet Theatre in Connecticut under the direction of Victoria Manning. Post-High School, she went on to join New England Ballet Theatre professional company as a Demi-Apprentice. With NEBT she got to dance in shows like “Cinderella” and “Fantastic Toyshop,” choreographed by Rachael Gnatowski, and guest pieces such as “Painted Lady” choreographed by Jacob Taylor, and has performed in NYC at the Alvin Ailey Theatre in Gnatowski’s piece “B-side” and understudied for Saki Morimoto’s piece “Focus Point.” Recently she joined Garet&Co’s contemporary company as a Professional member furthering her contemporary training. She’s danced in many pieces by Garet Weirdsma such as “bodieshatewoman,” “Everyday&Everynight” and “Heal for me,” performing at locations including Dixon place in New York City, Warner Theatre in Torrington and Battel Chapel in Norfolk. Emma began teaching and choreographing at 15, and has continued to teach at many established local dance facilities. She loves to work with kids and watch them grow as dancers each year and wants to continue teaching in her future and leading the next generation to greatness and is looking forward to continuing her dance career.

Sydney Champagne

Professional member Sydney Champagne is originally from New Hartford, CT, and has been dancing for over 18 years. As a teen, she served as captain for the competitive dance team at D.A.N.C.E. by Kristin for several years, while training in ballet, lyrical, tap, and jazz. She then began to expand upon her dance journey at Central Connecticut State University (CCSU) as a dance education major with a specialization in entrepreneurship. There, she dances and choreographs for the CCSU contemporary dance company, Dancentral, also serving as its president. During the week, she teaches dance to students ages 4-17 at the Alyce Carella Dance Center in West Hartford, CT, and Dream Believe Achieve Dance in New Hartford, CT. Sydney adores making meaningful connections with audience members, peers, and students. It is imperative to her that she takes dance education beyond just learning dance techniques to integrate real-world skills like resilience, empathy, self-concept, and creativity. When she is not dancing, Sydney enjoys practicing yoga, hiking, reading, cooking, making art, and spending time with her kitties!

Josalyn Cipkas

Josalyn Cipkas is a Dancer, dance teacher and choreographer from a small town in CT. She began dancing at the age of 4 and trained in various styles including ballet, modern, contemporary, hip hop, acro, and jazz. She has performed at weddings, fairs, community centers for fundraisers, business conventions and competitions. She has been teaching at various studios in CT since she was 17 and continues to do so today. She choreographs mainly for competition, and has placed in top 3 with her choreography. Just recently she has joined a professional Dance company, Team Leggo, generation 11–which focuses a lot on commercial dance and performances. As a Dance Educator, creating a safe space for students is one of the most important things she likes to establish, she believes having a positive environment for kids to be themselves through dance and movement is essential for them to grow not just as dancers but as people. She is very excited and grateful to be apart of Garet&Co this season and gain new experiences and getting to dance with new people and create unforgettable memories.

Layla Foley

Layla Foley is a college sophomore working towards her degree in psychology. One fun fact about her is that she loves cheesy romance novels and movies. She began her dance career when she was eleven years old at Connecticut Dance Academy, where she quickly found that dance was her happy place and was a part of their competitive dance team for six years. During her junior year of high school, she was asked to participate in Garet&Co's original "and sometimes I wish" film. She went on to perform that piece at various locations and venues, such as So You Think You Can Choreograph in Saratoga Springs, NY, and for Creative Performances at Dixon Place in New York City. Some more of her favorite performances were "Big God" at Young Choreographer's Festival and Garet&Co's first full company show, "ECLIPSE," in 2023. This year will be her third official season with Garet&Co, and she is so honored to have the opportunity to perform as a Pro member and so incredibly excited for all to come!

Tatyana Johnson

Professional Member
Tatyana Johnson began dancing at the age of three at Connecticut Concert Ballet. Since
then, she has trained with multiple teachers including Jane Levin, and Susannah Marchese. She has spent some time ballroom dancing; and found herself enjoying swing and salsa the most. In 2020, Tatyana was able to keep dancing by being apart of the first online Broadway Dance Center summer program; where she focused on Musical Theatre dance and quickly fell in love with the style. In early 2021, she was thrilled to become apart of Dimensional Dance in
Hartford, where she participated in the premiere of “Prudence Crandall and Sarah Harris:
Whole Souled Women.” Since then, Tatyana has worked with the 78 Dinner Theater, and Sonia
Plumb Dance Company. In January 2024, she began studying as a trainee with Boston Dance Theater. She is very excited to be taking part in the fourth season of Garet&Co.

Mack Longley

Mack Longley, originally from Southington, Connecticut, started their dance training at the
Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts during their high school years. She was introduced to
dance there, studying under Alexa Melonopoulos-Fleury, Jeanne and Thomas Giroir, Linda
Burns, and Kim Stroud. Their education at GHAA included Cunningham, Vaganova, ballet,
Graham, and Laban/Bartenieff techniques. Mack graduated this past spring from the University
of North Carolina School of the Arts and has received a Bachelor of Fine Arts, majoring in
Contemporary Dance and minoring in Arts Entrepreneurship. Their dance education at UNCSA
has included training in Cunningham, West African, Limón, and Countertechnique. Mack also
worked for UNCSA’s ArtsitCorps, a community engagement organization that provides arts
instruction and integration to K-12 students and senior citizens in the Winston-Salem
community.
Throughout their dance journey, they’ve had the privilege to perform works by Merce
Cunningham, Alwin Nikolais, Stephen Pier, Fredrick Earl Mosley, Jose Limón, Ming-Lung Yang,
Yvonne Rainer, and Jim Vincent. Mack has a passion for social justice dance theater and has
interned with the Justice Dance Performance Project in Hartford, Connecticut, under artistic
director and founder Judy Dworin. Mack has also started their career as an educator at the
Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts Full Day, teaching ballet, modern/contemporary, street
jazz, ballroom, and dance composition. She hopes to continue a dance career through
performance, choreography, and community arts education and curation.

Cassie Lorom

Cassie Lorom is a dancer and teacher born and raised in Western Massachusetts. Cassie has been trained locally. Over the past 18 years, Cassie has earned experience in ballet, pointe, lyrical, contemporary, jazz, modern, acrobat, tap, musical theater, and hip hop. Cassie performed in Albany Berkshire Ballet’s Nutcracker for 7 seasons. In 2015, Cassie was honored to earn the role of Clara. The following year, Cassie was cast as a pointe soldier. In 2020, Cassie received the Miss Dancer’s Image scholarship. Cassie has choreographed and taught at her home studio over the past years as both an assistant and lead teacher. She has been a professional member with CT based contemporary dance company, Garet&Co for the past 2 seasons. Cassie has performed around CT and NYC many times with Garet&Co in 2022, 2023, and 2024. She is honored to have danced in several Garet&Co produced shows, such as ECLIPSE, Interior, Arts Alive at Chesterwood, the 2023 Film Festival, Epilogue, and the 2024 Artist’s Showcase. She has also had opportunities to perform various dance festivals, such as Hartford Dance Festival, 5X5 Dance Festival, Dance Bloc NYC Festival, and Eclectica. This year, she will be completing her junior year at Westfield State University as a Health Science major, with minors in Gerontology, Biology, and Chemistry. Cassie aspires to become a Dermatology Physician Assistant. Cassie is thrilled to continue training and performing with Garet&Co in Season 4!

Tori Mattie

Tori Mattie is from New Haven, CT and has been dancing for over 15 years. She grew up dancing at Wendy’s School of Dance where she trained in ballet, tap, jazz, lyrical, hip hop, and musical theater. In 2017, she toured with DanZa Competition and Intensive as a member of the Z-Crew, assisting classes in various styles with faculty members such as Jaclyn Walsh, Bill DeRicco, Sarah Jo Fazio, and Angie Sellers. Tori then attended Wheaton College in Massachusetts where she earned her BA in Theater and Dance Studies as well as a BA in English. There, Tori joined the Wheaton College Dance Company under the direction of Cheryl Mrozowski and instruction of Andy Taylor-Blenis and Leticia Guerrero. During her senior year, Tori danced in Wheaton’s revival of “The Game,” originally choreographed by Diane Arvanites and reset by Andy Taylor-Blenis. Tori was also a member of Wheaton’s tap dance group, Tap Out Loud, and served as Co-Captain of both Tap Out Loud and the Dance Company. Throughout her college dance career, Tori had many opportunities to choreograph in different styles of dance, and since graduating in 2022 she has been invited back each season as a guest choreographer. Currently, Tori teaches at Dance Central, and she is incredibly excited to be back with Garet&Co for their fourth season and to dance with such a talented and dedicated community of artists.

Dani Medvedovski

Dani Medvedovski is a 22-year old creator and performer interested in exploring movement and cultivating performance to challenge artistic norms and expectations. Her recent work “SPeCCY Face”, debuted in Muhlenberg College’s Dance Emerge concert and performed in the Dance Bloc NYC Festival at Dixon Place, questions audience presumptions of what makes performance valuable and examines the tendency to over-analyze dance work in academia. Accepted into Muhlenberg College’s Reset: New Dances and the American College Dance Association’s Northeast Conference, her work “a performance” compels viewers to re-evaluate theater etiquette and their role within the performance space, disturbing the common distinction between performer and audience member. As she moves into her post-graduate phase, Dani seeks to generate art in dynamic creative environments - expanding, experimenting, and engaging with movement’s place within society. Outside of these artistic pursuits, she can be found playing her plastic green recorder, solving a puzzle, or making a Video Star. Dani is incredibly excited to be working with such motivated and talented artists in Garet&Co and looks forward to a wonderful season!

Tiffany Oltjenbruns

Tiffany Oltjenbruns grew up in Woodstock, Georgia, where she began her formal dance training at the Atlanta Academy of Ballet and Dance. Then, she graduated Summa Cum Laude from Brenau University, where she earned a B.A. in Dance with a concentration in Pre-Physical Therapy. During her time at Brenau, she had the opportunity to work with several esteemed guest artists, including Jennifer Archibald, Joshua Blake Carter, Autumn Eckman, Nicholas Palmquist, Allyne Gartrell, and Jesse Zarritt. She was honored that her academic and dance achievements were recognized by being named Provost Scholar and the Outstanding Senior Dance Major. Alongside her studies, Tiffany danced with the Gainesville Ballet Company, where she played notable roles such as the Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker and Tinker Bell in Peter Pan. Tiffany's interests extend beyond performance; she is deeply invested in the choreographic process and has created works across various dance styles and levels. Her passion for teaching is equally strong, as she is committed to educating the next generation of dancers. Tiffany has been teaching dance for nearly seven years now. Currently, Tiffany teaches ballet and jazz at Ekklesia School of Ballet and contemporary, ballet, and pointe at The Dance Center of Old Lyme. Her professional dance career began with Ekklesia Contemporary Ballet, where she is now in her second season. Tiffany is also thrilled to join Garet and Co., where she looks forward to new artistic collaborations and performing opportunities.

Caitlin Quinn

Originally from Windsor Locks, CT, Caitlin started her professional training at the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts where she majored in Dance. Caitlin then went on to earn her BFA in Dance at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. During her time at Mason’s School of Dance, Caitlin has been a part of 21 student choreographed pieces and performed in Robert Battle’s Mass. During her collegiate career, she has had the opportunity to learn various repertory from Mark Morris, Lar Lubovitch, Doug Varone, and others. Additionally, she has trained at the Hartt School, the Ailey School, Bounce! and at the Mark Morris Dance Group. Caitlin has performed and choreographed with various companies in CT. She was appointed as the Assistant Choreographer of the 78 Dance Company, under the direction of Ervis Nallbani, and performed in CONNetic Dance’s “The Nutcracker Suite and Spicy,” under the direction of Carolyn Paine. Caitlin has also had the honor to perform several works with Dimensional Dance, under the direction of Ruth Vesenka Lewis, such as “The Story of Ruth” and “Whole Souled Women.”

Noor Taweh

Noor Taweh is a CT-native who attended Evjen Academy of Performing Arts as a student from age 13 where she trained in contemporary, ballet, modern, jazz, and lyrical.She continues her work as a teacher and choreographer for Evjen Academy, which she adores! In college, she was a choreographer for and member of the UConn Dance Company for four years. She is thrilled to be a part of Garet & co for her second season and is so happy to have dance continue to be a large part of her life as she completes her medical degree.