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Wellspring Instructors

Michael Miller, Wellspring's Artistic Associate, has been teaching, choreographing and performing with Wellspring since 1991. He began his movement studies as a competitive gymnast in Royal Oak and went on to explore music and dance at Western Michigan University. He taught Modern and Jazz Dance technique at the university from 1992-2000. In 1995, he received an Irving S. Gilmore Foundation Emerging Artists Grant to study with the Joe Goode Performance Group in San Francisco, and in 2000, he received the grant a second time to study with Jan Erkert at Columbia College in Chicago. From 2001 to present, he has been working with Wendy Rodgers, a professor at UC Riverside, making and performing dances in San Francisco and New York City.

Rachel Miller started dancing at the age of 7 and went on to train with Southold Dance Theater as a member of their training company. She performed with the University Dance Company at Ohio State where she studied as a dance major. She then resumed teaching, choreographing and professionally performing with the Southold Dance Theater. Rachel began dancing with Wellspring in 2001. Recently, she studied in Prague with the Batsheva Dance Company of Israel where she received high honors for her choreography. In 2005, she received an Irving S. Gilmore Emerging Artist Grant to choreograph and perform a new evening-length work titled "Prose In Motion". Rachel also is an Aerial Artist for ZFX Flying in Louisville, and performed at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas in 2006.

Francesca Pileci-Bates received a BA with Honors in Creative Arts and earned her MA in Dance Studies from the LABAN in London. As a full-time member of the professional performers' union British Equity, she danced with Dance Company 7, a modern dance company based in London. Since coming to the U.S., Francesca has danced with companies in Michigan and Ohio. Performance credits include London Theaters, BBC Television, ITV, Channel 4, Music Hall and Opera House. Choreography credits include Eastern Michigan University's dance program, NDEO and MAPSA. Francesca joined Wellspring as a company member in 2005. Francesca also has a Post Bachelor Certificate in Dance and is certified to teach K-12 dance in the public schools.