Dancers

Emily Kessler (Director/Choreographer) is a multinational dance-based artist who was raised in the United States and Switzerland. She graduated from SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Dance, earning a BFA in Performance and Composition and a minor in Art History. While at school, she had opportunities to work with Stuart Singer, John Heginbotham, Nejla Yatkins, Tom Weinberger, and Sarah Mettin. Emily also studied abroad at Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts in Singapore, where she apprenticed with local dance companies RAWmoves and Frontier Danceland. Since graduating, Emily has had the pleasure of performing work by Elena Bajo, Doug Varone, Jee Eun Ahn, and Matthew Westerby Company among others. She recently has danced for Debbie Mausner, as a Guest Artist with A-Y/Dancers, and a Company Member with Bryce Dance Company. Emily created POGO in early 2020 as a means to deepen her artistic collaborations and to create dance past the traditional stage setting. Emily is a specialized practitioner of the GYROTONIC® Method and is based in Brooklyn, NY.

Sienna Blaw (Rehearsal Director) is a queer dance artist born and raised in Austin, TX. From a young age, they were exposed to movement as a means of creative personal expression. The sense of community and communication that that practice imbued has never left them, and Sienna now finds a deep interest in collaborative dance practices and processes with fellow artists in New York City and beyond. While completing their BFA in Dance at SUNY Purchase, Sienna had the great pleasure of dancing works by Merce Cunningham, Hannah Garner’s 2nd Best Dance Company, Doug Varone, and Trisha Brown, among others. Since graduating from SUNY Purchase in 2017 Sienna has performed with Pam Tanowitz Dance in their “New Work For Goldberg Variations”, and in the repertory of Merce Cunningham, Doug Varone, and Hannah Garner’s 2nd Best Dance Company. They have performed Contact Improvisation scores at MoMa, and at Park Avenue Armory. Sienna is a co-founder of A-Y/dancers, a collaborator with BIRDHOUSE under the direction of Raven White, and a collaborator with POGO Dance Projects under the direction of Emily Kessler.

Rachel Gill is a New York City-based dance artist. Currently, she is performing with Maya Lee-Parritz Projects, Amanda Krische (AMMA), & POGO. She has previously danced with I-Ling Liu, GREYZONE, Keerati Jinakunwiphat, and Ambika Raina. Rachel has performed in venues such as The Public Theater, BAM Fisher, and The Shed. She is a 2016 graduate of SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Dance and received a BFA in Dance Performance, summa cum laude. Additionally, she studied at Amsterdam School of the Arts in the Modern Dance Theater Department and Springboard Danse Montreal (2016). Rachel has always had a love for film and began exploring the relationship between movement and film in 2020. She directed, shot, and edited her first short film VENERIS in 2021.

Chelsea Enjer Hecht is a Mongolian-American Brooklyn-based dance artist and licensed massage therapist from Minnesota. She graduated from SUNY Purchase with a degree in dance performance and minor in arts management, then Pacific College of Health and Sciences' school of massage therapy. She has had the honor of creating, collaborating and performing dance for film, installation, fashion and the stage with artists including A-Y Dancers, Adam Barruch, Catherine Tharin, GREYZONE, Shannon Gillen Lipinski, MeenMoves, Troy Ogilvie, POGO Dance, Amber Sloan, Nathan Trice, Megan Williams, and Ellis Wood. She has created and presented work collaboratively at NewSteps by Chen Dance Center, Soaking WET by West End Theatre, POGO in the Park, Made by Women Festival by Dual Rivet, and guest taught for Midday Movement and Peridance Center.

Connor Speetjens originally from Greensboro, NC, graduated from the UNCSA high school contemporary program in 2013. From there, she went on to study at the SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Dance, and during her third year, spent a semester abroad at Codarts in Rotterdam, NL. Connor graduated summa cum laude with a BFA in Dance Performance in December 2016. In her training she has performed work by Helen Simoneau, Juel Lane, Emory LeCrone, Twyla Tharp, Sarah Mettin, Iker Arrue, Ohad Naharin, Alexandra Beller, Bobbi Jene Smith, Mark Caserta, and Maxine Doyle. She joined Gallim Dance as an apprentice in September 2016 and danced as a full-time company member from May 2017 until June 2018. She worked with Patrick O’brien Dance Collective from 2018-2019, and has performed as a freelance artist for Kayla Farrish, Matilda Sakamoto, and Janessa Clark. In January 2020, Connor rejoined Gallim in re-staging Andrea Miller’s Whale, which the company toured to San Jose State University, and which was set to perform at BAM Fischer in March 2020. She also began working more closely with POGO Dance in residency for a new work, titled Alpenwerk. Since lockdown, she has taught at the Gallim Summer Zoom Intensive, participated in POGO in the Park, a socially distanced show in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene Park, and has been exploring her own physical and creative practices outside of their usual structures.

Other recent dance collaborators of POGO include: