CO-FOUNDERS
For us, ballet is more than a physical art form, it is a life-long passion and artistic practice.
Adriana Gramly
Storyteller, visual artist, and co-founder of The Ballet Salon
Adriana is a Bolivian-American dancer and artist who received her ballet training with the Lawrence Ballet Theatre in Kansas. She received her fine arts education at the Rhode Island School of Design, where she was a company member of Fusion Dance Company, Brown University’s oldest student-run dance company. After earning a double BFA in Film/Animations and Textiles, she moved to New York where she works as a multidisciplinary storyteller and teaching artist, creating work inspired by childhood play and folklore. She was a Textile Arts Center Artist in Residence in 2021, and has a diverse background in community arts and nonprofit work. She also works in film and animation, with clients including Saturday Night Live.
Meiying Thai
Multidisciplinary artist, teacher, and co-founder of The Ballet Salon
Meiying is a Vietnamese-American dancer and artist. She trained for seven years at the School of American Ballet where she spent her childhood performing numerous children’s roles with the New York City Ballet at Lincoln Center. After suffering hip injuries, she pivoted to the visual arts, earning a BFA in Fine Arts at the Maryland Institute College of Art where she studied drawing, painting, and photography. She later returned to dance through her curatorial passion project, Cafe Telephone. Cafe Telephone was active from 2015-2021 and brought global dancers and visual artists together to create collaborative multimedia art salons that ranged from pop-up happenings to public film screenings. Her current work as both a multidisciplinary visual artist and teacher examines how artistic collaboration can cultivate human connection and inspire community building.
CHOREOGRAPHERS
We are proud to introduce the talented group of choreographers joining us for Season 1 of The Ballet Salon.
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Tiffany Mangulabnan / Choreographer
Dancer, choreographer, ballet teacher, and co-artistic director of konverjdans
Tiffany Mangulabnan (she/her) is a Filipino dancer, choreographer, teacher, and founding co-director of konverjdans. Born and raised in Manila, Philippines, she was a principal dancer with the Philippine Ballet Theatre until 2012, when she moved to NYC to dance as a soloist with BalletNext for four years under the artistic direction of former ABT and NYCB principals Michele Wiles and Charles Askegard. Since 2016 she has enjoyed a rich freelance career in NYC, performing with companies like Emery LeCrone DANCE, Claudia Schreier & Co., Gleich Dances, Trainor Dance, Terra Firma Dance, Indelible Dance, and several others. She currently dances at The Metropolitan Opera as well as with Gabrielle Lamb’s Pigeonwing Dance and the company she co-directs, konverjdans, for which she has choreographed a new work every season since 2017. As a performer, Tiffany has earned praise for delivering “the most intense moment [of a piece] . . in a thrashing solo” (The New York Times), and for showing “improvement and more depth of character with each performance” (Broadway World). Her choreography, meanwhile, has been described as “utterly captivating” (CVNC), “strange, touching, unique and quite beautiful” (Critical Dance) and “beautifully captur[ing] the struggles and tantalization of eternal beauty that women often face” (The Dance Enthusiast). Her choreography has been performed by konverjdans, Carolina Ballet, Woman in Motion Dance Co., Columbia Ballet Collaborative, Columbia Repertory Ballet, Barnard Dance/Columbia University, Moravian University and other institutions, and has been presented at venues such as New York Live Arts, Mark Morris Dance Center, Triskelion Arts, The Mark O’Donnell Theater, and The Kumble Theater in NYC, as well as at festivals such as Battery Dance Festival, Periapsis Open Series, CounterPointe, Carolina Ballet’s ‘Choreographer Spotlight Series’, the Women in Dance Leadership Conference in NYC, and Riverside Dance Festival in Vero Beach, Florida. Tiffany teaches advanced open ballet classes at NY Community Ballet and Peridance Center. She has been a teacher and guest choreographer at Barnard College/Columbia University and at The Joffrey Ballet School of New York, and has taught the Advanced Point & Variations course at SUNY Conservatory of Dance at Purchase College. She is also an experienced rehearsal director and choreographic assistant, assisting choreographer Caili Quan in her debut works for both New York City Ballet (Oct 2024) and BalletX (Nov 2022).
Juri Onuki / Choreographer
Creator, performer, and movement consultant
Juri Onuki is a choreographer, movement director, and yoga teacher originally from Japan who has been living and working in New York City since 2006. Her work has been shown in New York City, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Japan. She frequently collaborates with artists from different mediums including music, visual and performance art, theater and film. Her unique style of movement is evidenced in the wide range of works she has contributed. Onuki has worked with Luca Guadenino for “ We Are Who We Are” (HBO), Marina Abramovic, Jean Coleman, Charlotte Hornsby, and Leslie Cuyjet. Commercial credits include Ralph Lauren, Vogue, GQ, Coach, Uniqlo, GAP and H&M. Her music videos and live set collaborations include The Chainsmokers, Blood Orange, Maggie Rogers, Caroline Polachek, Lola Young, SOPHIE, and Gus Dapperton.
Photo by Jenna Elizabeth
Donna Salgado / Choreographer
Dance artist, choreographer, director of CONTINUUM Contemporary/Ballet, teacher, and creative
Donna Salgado is a performing artist and choreographer working in New York City. She is the founder of Continuum Contemporary/Ballet. Continuum aims to expand the role of creativity in ballet by engaging in processes that encompass experimentation, collaboration, new vocabularies, and design. Donna’s choreographic honors include being selected as a choreographer for the National Choreographers Initiative 2024, being named a State Individual Artist Fellow in Choreography in 2025, and presenting her work at the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival for 3 seasons. Continuum has been programmed by Bryant Park’s Summer Dance Series, the Newport Dance Festival, Vermont State University, the 92nd St Y, and the Ballet on the Beach Dance Festival, to name a few. Her commissions include the Columbia Ballet Collaborative, Counterpointe Festival for Women Choreographers, Latin Choreographers Festival, Newport Contemporary Ballet, Sierra Nevada Ballet, Princeton University Ballet, and the Harvard Ballet Company. In 2025 she was awarded a Gibney Dance Center Rehearsal Space Residency and she is a two-time recipient of residencies at the Sky Hill Farm Studio, and has participated in a creative retreat at Kaatsbaan Cultural Park. Donna holds an MFA in Dance Performance from SUNY Purchase and a BFA in Dance Performance from Towson University. She’s studied at summer programs at ABT, CPYB, and Lines Ballet. She has performed professionally with the José Mateo Ballet Theatre, Eglevsky Ballet, Rebecca Kelly Ballet, Connecticut Ballet, Dances Patrelle, Thomas/Ortiz Dance, David Fernandez’s Some Dance Company, Deborah Lohse’s ad Hoc Ballet, and Marika Brussel, among other independent choreographers. During her performing career she’s also danced in works by George Balanchine, Paul Taylor, Gabrielle Lamb, Edwaard Liang, Amy Seiwert, and Juanjo Arques in his work created for NYU’s Center for Ballet and the Arts. She’s performed as a principal guest artist and in commercial work, and, at home in her own work, has performed with her company, Continuum, since its inception. Donna has devoted her life to finding where the worlds of ballet and learning intersect. Through her certifications in Pilates and Floor-Barre, and participating in the teacher training at the Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet under Marcia Dale-Weary, she teaches Ballet with a commitment to pedagogical understanding, anatomical knowledge, and technical clarity. She has been a faculty member for the School at STEPS, the Gelsey Kirkland Academy, and the Joffrey Ballet School. In 2023, she was extended a leadership position at José Mateo Ballet Theatre as an Artistic Associate where she led and rehearsed a company of 21 professional dancers in Boston.
TEACHER IN RESIDENCE
Our Season 1 company teacher holds our ballet classes and acts as a company rehearsal director.
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.
COMPANY DANCERS
Adriana Gramly
Alexandra Glass
Alexis Kriegh
Amanda Li
Amy Iwanowicz
Chelsea Melone
Christy Motta
Deedee Jiang
Gabriella Buga
Kaitlyn Stubbs
Kennedy Castelli
Kerry Blanchard
Kira vom Eigen
Lydia Murray
Meiying Thai
Sabrina Appleby
Sara Long
Sarah Ory
Synead Cidney Nichols
Taylor Chen
Victoria Romulo
CLUB BALLET SALON
Annie Casey
Ashley Zhou
Caroline Patnode
Evelyn Luu
Jac Kerames
Kassie Iwinski
Sabrina Kim
GUEST SPEAKERS
Our season 1 guest speakers are inspiring professionals exploring the art form of ballet through lenses such as writing, design and academia. They will lead talks at our monthly artist salons, gatherings for shared inspiration, conversation and connection.
ARTISTIC COLLABORATORS
Multidisciplinary artists who have joined us to create The Ballet Salon's artistic vision along the way.