Adriana Gramly
Storyteller, visual artist, and co-founder of The Ballet Salon
Meiying Thai
Multidisciplinary artist, teacher, and co-founder of The Ballet Salon
TEACHER IN RESIDENCE
Our Season 1. company teacher holds our weekly ballet classes.
Emily Cardea / Teacher in Residence
A native of New York City, Emily Cardea began studying dance at Studio Maestro under Francois Perron, Deborah Wingert and Marina Stavitskaya. Additionally, she attended Professional Performing Arts School and School of American Ballet, where she trained with teachers such as Peter Boal, Garielle Whittle, Katrina Killian and Darci Kistler. At age eighteen, she began dancing with Orlando Ballet, where her repertoire included roles in The Nutcracker, Giselle, Carmen, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Swan Lake. She has also performed and acted Off-Broadway, and in numerous dancing guest roles in both theater and television. Cardea has danced with NYC-based companies such as Tom Gold Dance, Woman in Motion, and MorDance, and is currently in her fourth year as a dancer with The Metropolitan Opera. Her repertoire at The Met Opera includes La Traviata, Aida, Tannhäuser, Turandot and The Magic Flute. Most recently, she made her Santa Fe Opera and Dallas Opera debut as a principal dancer in the original cast of Louisa Muller’s La Traviata.
REHEARSAL DIRECTOR
Our Season 1. Rehearsal Director continues the rehearsal process once the work is set.
Olivia Lipnick / Rehearsal Director
Born and raised in New York, Olivia Lipnick is a multidisciplinary creative, dancer, and the rehearsal director for the Ballet Salon. Olivia began her ballet studies at just three years old at Ballet Academy East. She trained professionally from age nine at the School of American Ballet where she performed children’s roles in New York City Ballet productions including The Nutcracker, Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, Coppelia, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Her training also includes summer intensives at Chautauqua, CPYB, Boston Ballet, and Pacific North West Ballet and performance experience in children’s roles with ABT. She ultimately completed her training under Darla Hoover at BAE, before joining Boston Ballet II in 2011. She continued her professional career at the Washington Ballet in DC, where she was a company dancer from 2012-2020. At the Washington Ballet, Olivia performed a diverse range of both classical and contemporary repertoire including Balanchine’s Serenade, Petipa’s Swan Lake, Twyla Tharp’s Nine Sinatra Songs, and Ashton’s The Dream. Beyond ballet, Olivia is a multidisciplinary creative working in textiles and photography. She is also a passionate traveler, and advocate for rescue animals, having fostered many kittens since 2019. Olivia’s photography has been shown in independent exhibitions and published in the Washington Post and she is the designer of Shayna Made A Lot, a New York based line of hand knit/crochet homegoods and jewelry.
GUEST SPEAKERS
Our season 1. guest speakers are inspiring professionals exploring the art form of ballet through lenses such as writing, education, and film. They will lead talks at our monthly artist salons, gatherings for shared inspiration, conversation and connection.
Cory Lin Stieg / Speaker & Salon Producer
Producer, writer, and editorial storyteller
Cory Stieg studied dance at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. She writes extensively about dance for such publications as Dance Magazine, Dance Teacher, and Pointe. She interviewed dancers from American Ballet Theatre and New York City Ballet for the photography book, The Art of Movement (Black Dog & Leventhal, 2016). Cory's background in dance and media led her to co-produce two documentaries about ballet. Ten Times Better, available to stream on PBS American Masters, tells the story of “a dance pioneer’s amazing odyssey” (New York Times). About Face: Disrupting Ballet is a feature-length documentary about Asian American dancers who push the ballet world to jettison offensive racial tropes from the stage.
Tristan Grannum / Speaker
Ballet dancer, dance educator, and arts leader
Tristan Grannum is a professional ballet dancer, dance educator, and arts leader dedicated to advancing diversity, equity, and access within classical ballet. A Brooklyn native, Tristan began his formal ballet training at age 14 at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School for Performing Arts and Manhattan Youth Ballet. His commitment led to year-round training with the School of Pennsylvania Ballet and Dance Theatre of Harlem, where he participated in outreach performances that deepened his belief in the transformative power of dance. Tristan has received full scholarships to prestigious summer intensives, including the Harid Conservatory, San Francisco Ballet, Joffrey Ballet of Chicago, and Charlotte Ballet. In 2017, he earned first place in the contemporary ballet category at the Royal Dance Grand Prix in Beijing, China, under the direction of Nadege Hottier (Premiere Division). Professionally, Tristan has performed with Brooklyn Ballet, Ballet Austin, Dayton Ballet, and the Black Iris Project, interpreting works by choreographers such as George Balanchine, Gerald Arpino, Septime Webre, Stephen Mills, Marianna Oliviera, and Tan Dao. As an educator, Tristan has taught nationally and internationally, including at Canada’s National Ballet School during the International Association of Blacks in Dance Festival. He holds teaching certifications from the Mark Morris Teaching Artist Training Program and the American Ballet Theatre National Training Curriculum (Primary-Level 3). He currently serves on the faculties of Brooklyn Ballet and the Mark Morris Dance Group. Tristan’s leadership in arts education is evident from his tenure as Associate Artistic Director at the Brooklyn Center for the Arts, where he established over 15 dance programs within NYC public schools. In 2021, he was named an Emerging Dance Leader through Dance/USA’s DILT program under the mentorship of Peter Boal (Pacific Northwest Ballet) and was selected as a National Visiting Fellow at the School of American Ballet for the 2021–2022 cohort. In 2025, Tristan was accepted into the New York Foundation for the Arts’ Incubator for Executive Leaders of Color. Currently, Tristan serves as Director of Community Engagement and Rehearsal Director for Brooklyn Ballet, where he continues to build inclusive pathways for young dancers and supports the company’s mission to reflect the diversity of its community on stage and in the studio.
ARTISTIC COLLABORATORS
Multidisciplinary artists who have joined us to create The Ballet Salon's artistic vision along the way.