Artistic Director
Mikayla Reine Archambeau teaches and dances ballet with verve and insight earned from a rigorous formation. In her teaching, Mikayla inspires students to push their limits, combining a deep level of experience and technical detail with empathy and love for the art form. Before her young professional experiences dancing Giselle and The Nutcracker with the corps of the Kansas City Ballet, Mikayla learned from dancers such as Alecia Good-Boresow, Paula Weber, and Peter Pawlyshyn over six years at the Kansas City School of Ballet. Over two summers at the Alonzo King LINES Ballet in San Francisco, she studied with Meredith Webster, Carmen Rosenstraten, and Alonzo King. Preceding the latter program, she studied at the Washington School of Ballet with Kee Juan Han and Kristy Windom. Mikayla’s return to the world of dance follows a long hiatus, during which she has honed skills vital to her work as an arts executive. After an abrupt departure from dance following her success in Kansas City, Mikayla graduated summa cum laude from Phillips-Exeter Academy in New Hampshire and Pomona College in Los Angeles. She now leads a mid-sized digital marketing company, First Page Sage, as Chief Operating Officer. When not dancing or working, Mikayla studies classical violin, gardens, and spends time with her husband, a professional violist, their daughter Aurelia, and bluetick coonhound Shasta, who fancies herself a singer.
Music Director
Violist Geoffrey Baker Archambeau is known for bringing together fine artists for superb interdisciplinary performances in new places. Prior to joining Amherst Ballet as Music Director, he and his wife Mikayla Archambeau produced highly-regarded programs with Conway Fine Arts, collaborating with accomplished musicians, actors, and dancers. Highlights included string quartets by Antonin Dvorak with an ex-Hollywood director in a horse barn in Conway, dramatized readings with a working New York actor alongside music by Franz Joseph Haydn and Béla Bartók at Three Sisters Sanctuary in Goshen, and Bach and Ballet at Hawks and Reed Performing Arts Center in Greenfield. During the pandemic, he produced innovative concerts in California and Pennsylvania which included ‘Concerts in the Park’ in Oakland – a series of public readings of string quartets during the pandemic – and ‘Music At Ethical,’ a series at the Ethical Society of Philadelphia touching on questions of our time. Geoffrey’s distinguished career has included concerts with world-class artists and orchestras in both Europe and the United States as a violist, violinist, and conductor. He studied at the Peabody Conservatory, the Yale School of Music, Northern Illinois University, the Eastman School, and the Monteux School with Joseph DePasquale, Jesse Levine, Ludovic Morlot, Richard Young, and the Tokyo and Vermeer quartets. In France, he performed in masterclasses given by violinist Gérard Poulet and violist Tasso Adamopoulos.
Teaching Artists
Madeleine Bonn began her classical ballet training at the age of 2 at the Royal Academy of Dance in California, and continued at the San Francisco Ballet on full-scholarship, where she was a recipient of the Rosalie Helman Merit Award for outstanding achievement. Her background includes the Vaganova method, Balanchine technique, Bournonville, Spanish/Russian character dance, modern, contemporary, and neo-classical. She was a principal dancer with José Mateo Ballet Theatre in Cambridge, MA, for 14 years and has also performed abroad in Romania and Mongolia. Bonn holds a teaching certification from American Ballet Theatre National Training Curriculum, and received an award from the Amherst Cultural District for her choreography in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. As a teacher, Bonn focuses on fostering confidence and self-esteem in her students, encouraging them to find their own voices through experimentation, music appreciation, phrasing, classical technique, and artistic expression.
Hannah Kennedy Wright has been dancing in the Pioneer Valley since the age of 3 at East Street Ballet and the Academy of Ballet Arts, with Charlotte Doyle, Noble Barker, Katherine Bervera, Barbara Kauff, Irina Vakhromeeva, Carlos Molina, and Donna Bonasera. At UMass, Hannah took advanced ballet classes with Tom Vacanti and Rodger Blum and performed with the 5 College Dance Departments and Alive with Dance. During her junior and senior year at UMass, Hannah taught students of all ages at Amherst Ballet and set choreography from Le Corsaire for upper school students. After graduation, Hannah spent 6 months in Key West Florida in a Hospitality Management Program with Hilton Hotels, where she continued dancing and guest teaching at Coffee Mill Dance Studio. Since returning to Amherst in 2020, Hannah has enjoyed taking and teaching classes while encouraging strength and confidence through dance.
Toni McElrath has danced with the Noumenon Dance Ensemble, University of Minnesota Dance Company, St. Olaf Dance Company, Central Illinois Ballet Company, and more. His dance experience encompasses not only classical ballet, but also modern, contemporary, jazz, and tap, and he has facility in acrobatics and yoga as well. Toni speaks French, Spanish, and English, and plays oboe, piano, and clarinet. He completed his doctoral work at UMass in the spring of 2025, previously having worked in education and on visual arts and movement therapy. Toni has been teaching and choreographing with Amherst Ballet since 2024. He brings to his work a dedication to helping
others reach success in an environment of trust, care, and growth.
Jenny Sieruta is a dance artist, educator, and mother. She holds a BFA from The University of Massachusetts, where she performed works by Fritha Pengelly, Terese Freedman, Jen Rosenblit, Robert Battle, Trisha Brown and Doug Varone. She has taught and performed throughout Western Mass, Chicago, San Francisco, and New York. Jenny has taught modern, composition, and yoga as a visiting artist at Mount Holyoke College and Keene State College. She has danced professionally with Meghan Frederick, Barbie Diewald, Katie Martin, Kate Martel, and Molly Fletcher-Clark.
Aidan Klingsberg is a cellist based in Amherst, Massachusetts. He is earning a Master’s Degree in Cello Performance at UMass Amherst in the Graduate String Quartet program, having completed a Bachelor of Arts in Cello Performance and English Literature from UMass Amherst in Spring 2025. His teaching philosophy includes a rigorous focus on technical fundamentals to prepare students for success in their repertoire and ensemble playing. An experienced private teacher in the valley, Aidan also taught group cello classes for elementary school students at Arlington Public Schools in Fall-Winter 2024 and coached youth chamber music in the summers of 2024 and 2025 at Burnside Music Festival in Arlington, Massachusetts. Aidan has performed with Hampshire Choral Society, Amherst College Symphony Orchestra, Keene Chamber Orchestra, UMass Symphony Orchestra and Opus One ensembles, Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival, NEC Youth Symphony, and Northeastern Senior and Junior District orchestras.
Thea Weinbeck is a violinist based out of Amherst, Massachusetts. Currently at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, she is pursuing a Master of Music in Performance, where she is in the Graduate String Quartet Program. An avid chamber musician, Thea has performed with the Zodiac Chamber Music Academy & Festival and the Lawrence Chamber Music Festival. She has given solo performances across the United States and France. Notable performances include a senior recital given at Lawrence University, and a performance on Northwest Focus Live on Classical King 98.1. Thea has performed with the Umass Symphony Orchestra, where she served as concertmaster and principal second violin. Thea received a Bachelor of Music from Lawrence University in 2025, where she studied Violin Performance and completed minors in Art History and String Pedagogy. Her recent teachers include Elizabeth Chang and Wen-Lei Gu. As a teacher, she is passionate about collaboration and helping her students develop a strong sense of musicianship while building a strong foundation for their playing.
Pianist Amy Rose began teaching and performing as a teenager in 1976 while studying with Harry Franklin, renowned former head of the music department at Carnegie Mellon University, who traced his musical genealogy to Hungarian pianist, composer and conductor Franz Liszt. After graduating from the University of Michigan School of Music with a Bachelor of Music degree in 1980, Amy began to integrate elements of the Taubman Technique into her lesson plans, studying with Joseph Gurt at Eastern Michigan University. She also explored other influential methodologies including Suzuki, Orff-Kodaly, Dalcroze Eurythmics, and the movement-based techniques of Phyllis Weikart. After moving to Amherst in 1984, Amy helped start the Valley Piano Teachers Association and received her Music Ed. certification K – 9 from the University of Massachusetts in 1990. Amy is the founder, manager, pianist and flutist of the band Klezamir, an Amherst-based group delighting audiences with a mix of klezmer music along with classic rock, jazz and contemporary tunes since 1986. She is honored to work with Jim Armenti, Brian Bender, Keith Levreault and Downtown Joe Blumenthal. Amy has also performed and learned with many other musicians, including a classical flute and guitar duo, a Javanese Gamelan, a country western band, a South American band, an Arabic Music Ensemble and several other klezmer bands. She currently plays Klezmer, Classical, Baroque and Brazilian Choro.
Board of Directors
As a non-profit organization, Amherst Ballet relies on the active participation of its Board of Directors. You can contact us at board@amherstballet.org.
Dana Alhaffar
Casey Beebe
Kelly Bernatzky
Mary Hannah Henderson
Mia Pope
Katherine Power
Brokk Toggerson
Wei Zhang