2025-2026 Master Class Series
Master classes will take place on the first Friday of September through November 2025 and February through April 2026. Find the bios of all our instructors below. Please contact Ixchel to register for Master Classes - 970-980-8425 or frcballet@gmail.com. These Master Classes are sponsored by D.A.N.C.E. and Fort Fund. Huge thank you to these organizations for their support of this program!
Madeline Jazz Harvey is a dance educator, choreographer, and performer specializing in classical and contemporary ballet. She began her performance career at age fourteen as an apprentice with Charlotte Ballet. In 2010, Madeline joined Carolina Ballet Theatre where she served as a principal dancer, resident choreographer, and outreach coordinator. She became a member of IMPACT Dance Company in May 2020. Madeline has been teaching and choreographing since 2006 in a variety of community and collegiate settings. In 2007, she was the youngest recipient of the New York Choreographic Institute Fellowship Award. She was appointed as Instructor of Ballet at the University of South Carolina in 2015 and became Assistant Professor of Dance at Colorado State University in August 2017. Madeline holds a BA and Professional Training Certificate in Dance from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and an MFA in Choreography from Jacksonville University. Recent projects examine the artistry of parenting through dance. She is currently working in collaboration with psychologist Zeynep Biringen to test the efficacy of dance intervention for enhanced emotional availability during pregnancy and postpartum. Her research investigates play as a paradigm for choreographic process and is centered on community engagement.
Kathy Vreeland was the Founder and Director of the contemporary ballet company, Reformation Dance Company, since 2017, which initially formed in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and has since relocated to Denver, Colorado. For ten years prior, Kathy proudly served as the inaugural Founder, Artistic Director and Choreographer to the only professional ballet company in the state of Wyoming, Ballet Wyoming, which was originally formed as Ballet 7220 in Laramie, Wyoming. She owned and founded Laramie Dance Center in 2005-2013 in Laramie, Wyoming. She is the 2019 Wyoming Arts Council Choreography Fellowship recipient and a National Endowment for the Arts Grants panelist. She recently choreographed for Reverie Dance Company, located in Denver.
David Taylor has been professionally involved in the Colorado dance community for the past fifty-three years. He began choreographing in 1976 and since then has created over one hundred original works. In 1979, he founded the David Taylor Dance Theatre, for thirty-two years one of the Rocky Mountain Region's most well-known and respected dance organizations, and Denver’s original contemporary ballet company. Mr. Taylor is also an authority on dance history and sacred dance and he continues to conduct workshops and lecture demonstrations on these subjects for both statewide and national organizations. Currently, he also serves as the Artistic Director Emeritus and an upper level ballet program faculty member at Denver Ballet Theatre, teaching ballet technique and dance history. Mr. Taylor founded his new company, the Zikr Dance Ensemble, in 2009. With a roster that features some of the nation’s finest ballet-trained and contemporary dancers along with a totally unique repertoire, the company has been met consistently with standing ovations and critical acclaim.
Sarah Tallman - Recently retired from a 22 year professional performance career, Sarah Tallman is currently serving as Ballet Master and Associate Choreographer for Wonderbound, Denver’s premier contemporary dance company. She spent 15 years performing with Wonderbound and has danced in over 30 original works by Artistic Director, Garrett Ammon. Her technical prowess and artistic development over that time was guided by President, Dawn Fay. She has performed alongside musicians, poets, mentalists, and visual artists.
An accomplished choreographer, Sarah has created several works for Wonderbound in collaboration with Denver based musicians and visual artists. She has created works for Oklahoma City Ballet, Burklyn Ballet Theatre, Western Arkansas Ballet, University of Northern Colorado, Kent State University and Denver School of the Arts. Sarah is guided by the humility that permeates the human spirit. She believes art and the stimulus of music and movement can awaken the senses by exploring the complexities of being human. The simple things that make Sarah smile include twinkling lights, and the color orange. She resides in Denver with her loving husband, and their pets.
Christina Bargelt was born and raised in Denver, CO where she dedicated her childhood to the performing arts. She began her ballet training at age three at Academy of Classical Ballet under Carla Parks and Ixchel Levendosky, her violin training at age five through the Suzuki Method under Heather Gruis, and her professional singing career with the Colorado Children’s Chorale at eight.
In her teen years, Christina continued her ballet and jazz training at Denver Dance Center under Kris Kehl, Jill Oliver, and Terrell Davis. She was given multiple opportunities to perform principal and soloist roles in Jill Oliver’s Thrive Ballet productions and competed in the Denver Ballet Guild Young Dancers Competition and Youth America Grand Prix Semi-Finals. She also attended summer programs at Joffrey Ballet School, Ballet West, and Colorado Ballet.
Christina went on to study ballet and ballet pedagogy at University of Utah’s internationally esteemed Ballet Program under notable faculty members Jay Kim, Maggie Wright Tesch, Christopher Alloways-Ramsey, Sharee Lane, Melissa Bobick, Dr. Melonie Buchanan Murray, Pablo Piantino, Jan Fugit, Jennie Creer-King, Richard Wacko, Justine Sheedy-Kramer, and Dr. Kate Mattingly. She gained further experience in jazz, modern, choreography, and character dance throughout her undergraduate experience and performed in over six productions ranging from classical ballet to post modern dance. She graduated in May of 2019 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Ballet (Pedagogy Emphasis), a Ballet Teaching Certificate, and a Minor in Violin Performance.
Post graduation, Christina worked at Boulder Body Wear honing her skills as a professional pointe shoe fitter under Amy Kenney’s tutelage. She also danced professionally with Reformation Dance Company as a Soloist for the 2019-2020 season originating featured roles in two of Kathy Vreeland’s contemporary ballets: Witch and Go West. Christina joined Ballet Ariel as a company dancer for the 2021-2022 season where she has performed featured and corps de ballet roles in Coppelia, The Nutcracker, Bournoville’s Konservatoriet, Tale of Molly Brown, and An American in Paris.
Christina is an ABT® Certified Teacher, who has successfully completed the ABT® Teacher Training Intensive in Pre-Primary through Level 3 of the ABT® National Training Curriculum, in order to further support her passion for providing ballet students with a strong and safe foundation. She continues to build her leadership experience volunteering for her sorority, Kappa Kappa Gamma, and remains a sought after teaching artist in Colorado and beyond.