Ginger Chapman

Ginger began her dance training in middle school and continued through college (ballet and modern dance in Graham, Cunningham, and Nikolais technique), trained and performed in experimental improvisation in Barcelona Spain in the mid-70s, and with Susan Matheke at ACES Educational Center for the Arts (Viola Farber technique) from the late-90s through 2010’s. She has danced with Annie Sailer on and off over the years and joined the company in 2023.  Ginger is an architect and worked at Yale for close to 30 years in many roles, from Director of Planning & Construction at the School of Medicine to Director of the Yale Office of Sustainability.  In that role she provided leadership and management to ensure the integration of sustainable principles and practices across the university with building planning, design, and construction as a focus of her responsibilities. No longer at Yale, she currently is focused on advocating for measures to address climate change.  She is a member of Third Act CT, Citizens Climate Lobby and serves on the New Haven Climate Emergency Task Force.  She is a member of the board of directors of New Haven Ballet and co-president of the board of the New Haven / Leon Sister City Project and is recently a grandmother.

Becky Cline

Becky was a dance teacher and coordinator for 35 years at Neighborhood Studios, a non-profit performing arts school in Bridgeport, CT. She coordinated and taught dance in a program for students with disabilities, a satellite program of The Alvin Ailey School called The New Vision Program. She taught with a team of artists at Head Start, and ran a ballet program at Waltersville School. She taught creative movement and coordinated NS teachers for The Lighthouse Program as well. She also taught in programs in New Haven, Branford and Hamden.

Her studies began with Roger Atkinson who danced with Ballet Russes de Monte Carlo. She studied with Marina Svetlova, Kenneth Melville and Anton Dolin at Indiana University. At Skidmore College she studied with Juan Anduze and Melissa Hayden.  She graduated from The School of the Harford Ballet’s Teacher Training Program now part of Hartt School of Music. 

She danced with The Hartford Ballet Chamber Ensemble, Pat Catterson and dancers, The Hyannis Ballet Company, Dancers in Concert, and with Annie Sailer. 

Becky is retired and enjoying dancing, her children and grandchildren, as well as travel. She has been studying Hawkins technique with Annie since 2012. She is very happy to be part of this wonderful group of dancers. 

Lynn Cooley

Lynn Cooley began dancing during college at Connecticut College and after graduation attended the American Dance Festival, then in residence at Conn College. During graduate school at the University of Texas at Austin, she performed and taught modern dance as a member of Invisible, Inc., led by choreographer Dee McCandless. While completing graduate school at Yale, Lynn took classes and performed with Annie Sailer. After a long hiatus from dance packed with postdoctoral training in Baltimore, joining the faculty at Yale and raising two daughters with her husband Ted, Lynn was thrilled to reconnect with Annie upon her return to New Haven. More than ever, dancing with Annie is pure joy! When not dancing, Lynn is a professor of genetics at Yale Medical School and the dean of Yale Graduate School.

Sandra Kopell

Sandra Kopell has a BFA from The School of Visual Arts, an M.A.L.S. in Dance and Movement Studies from Wesleyan University, and is a graduate of the B.K.S. Iyengar Yoga Teacher Training Program.
In the last millennium she was Choreographer-in Residence at Oddfellows Playhouse Youth Theater in Middletown, on the Dance Faculty at Eastern CT State University and the Hammonasset School. She is the recipient of a CT Commission on the Arts Individual Fellowship for Choreography, participated in the Jacob’s Pillow Residency for Emerging Artists, and was a CT Commission on the Art Master Teacher.
After a long hiatus from dancing she is now studying Modern Dance with Annie and Laurel Lynch and Ballet with Ruth Barker. She and her husband have an adult daughter.

Yoko Kawai Kurimoto

Yoko is a dual-passionate individual, seamlessly blending the worlds of architecture and dance. Hailing from Osaka, Japan, her journey began at the tender age of three when she enrolled herself in ballet classes unbeknownst to her mother, igniting a lifelong love affair with movement. Trained in modern ballet, classical ballet, and jazz dance, Yoko's dance has been a constant source of energy and creativity, fueling her personal and professional growth.

Since 2013, she has had the privilege of dancing under the guidance of Annie Sailer, a choreographer renowned for her space-focused approach. Annie’s work, exploring the relationship between bodies and spatial elements, profoundly inspired Yoko. By studying the way dancers interact with and perceive space, Yoko gained a unique lens for understanding how architecture can impact human experience.

As an architect, Yoko's focus lies in creating spaces that promote well-being. Drawing inspiration from her dance experience and Japanese spatial culture, she approaches her designs from the perspectives of someone who perceives and interacts with their environment physically and emotionally. A lecturer at Yale School of Architecture, principal at Penguin Environmental Design, and co-founder of Mirai Work Space, Yoko is dedicated to transforming spaces into transformative experiences.

Elaine O’Keefe

Elaine O’Keefe began her modern dance training with Andrea Olsen in Northampton, MA, in 1981.  After moving to CT she joined Annie Sailer’s Dance group in New Haven, studying and performing with Sailer from 1983-1986, again in 1990-1991, and from 2013 to the present. Recent performances with the Annie Sailer Dance group include structured and improvisational pieces at the New Haven Armory and Erector Square as part of the Artspace City-Wide Open Arts Studios program. O’Keefe has a graduate degree in public health from the University of MA at Amherst and an extensive career in the public health profession, particularly HIV/AIDS, centered on advancing progressive policies and human rights causes. She recently retired from the Yale School of Public Health where she held dual positions as Executive Director of the Office of Public Health Practice and Executive Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS.  Prior to Yale she was the Health Director for Stratford, CT for 14 years, and the AIDS Director in New Haven during the early days of the epidemic. She advocated for and established the first authorized needle exchange program in CT, in the face of immense opposition, providing drug users access to sterile injection equipment to protect them from acquiring HIV or passing it to others when the epidemic was raging in New Haven.  She is a principal organizer of Dance for Life, a major AIDS event in New Haven that enlisted celebrated dancers from New York City, and New Haven choreographers and dancers, in a fundraiser to support compassionate health care for people with AIDS at a time when the disease was highly stigmatized. She is also an accomplished writer having authored numerous documents and published articles on HIV/AIDS and other public health topics. O’Keefe believes health is a basic human right and she has advocated for that cause throughout her life.