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silver linings choreographers
BRET COPPA (Choreographer, Rabten Numinous) is from San Pedro, California. He danced with Atlanta Ballet 2 for one season before joining Atlanta Ballet as a Company apprentice. This is Coppa’s first season as a Company member. Some of his roles with Atlanta Ballet include Gaston, The Beast, Rat King, Russian, Nephew, Arabian and Red Man. He is a graduate of University of North Carolina School of the Arts, where he has performed many principal roles; including Solor in La Bayadere, Principal Male in Donizzeti Variations, Waltz Boy in Serenade, The Poet in Les Sylphides and Cavalier in The Nutcracker. Coppa got his start at San Pedro City Ballet, then moving to Peninsula School of Performing Arts under the artistic direction of Roberto Almageur. During his training in the Los Angeles area, he performed as a guest artist in California, and danced roles throughout the country. He has also competed in the Prix de Lausanne twice, and he was a finalist in 2015. In 2017, Coppa went to St. Petersburg, Russia, where he received his teaching certification in the Vaganova method. DARIAN KANE (Choreographer, Dr. Rainbow's Infinity Mirror) is from Northern California, and has been a Company member of Atlanta Ballet for three seasons. This is her first year choreographing. She has been drawing for as long as she has been dancing, so she imagines her dances as fluid sequences of individual drawings in which any one moment could stand alone. Kane is influenced by pop composer Joe Hawley and film composer Danny Elfman, and by film directors Wes Anderson, Tim Burton and Quentin Tarantino. She begins with her classical dance training and builds upon it, imbuing her pieces with the whimsy and quirkiness of her cinematic influences. KEATON LEIER (Choreographer, La Forme du Vent), originally from Canada, grew up in the small city of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Leier started studying ballet at a later age, and he joined the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School in 2013. After graduation from the school in 2016, he then moved on to dance with Houston Ballet’s second company for one year. Joining the ranks of Atlanta Ballet for the 2017|2018 Season, Leier is now commencing his fourth season with the Company. His most recent highlight was premiering The Nutcracker Prince at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Some more highlights include dancing Gurn in La Sylphide, as well as the lead in Liam Scarlett's Vespertine. Dancing with the Company over the years, Leier has enjoyed performing works from Alexander Ekman, Johan Kobborg, Liam Scarlett, Yuri Possokhov, Dwight Rhoden, Ricardo Amarante, Yury Yanowsky and Craig Davidson. Though he experimented with choreographing some in school, this is Leier's first time choreographing professionally, and he is looking forward to exploring this opportunity. GUILHERME MACIEL (Choreographer, This Bitter Earth) reconciles his career as a dancer and choreographer since 2014, when he assumed the position of resident choreographer of the Grupo Jovem Paulista in Brazil, his native country, where he created amateur projects and choreographies for competitions. In 2016, after winning the Outstanding Choreographer Award in the Youth America Grand Prix final in New York, he was invited to participate in the 2017 edition of the "Creative Workshop for Young Choreographers" at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, Russia, where he created For a Sweeter Look and performed his award-winning work Shelter. Maciel joined Atlanta Ballet as a dancer in the 2019|2020 season and his creation for the Silver Linings program is his first work as a choreographer for the Company.
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