NOTICE: strobe lights/strobe effects will be used within this performance.

CURE-8 CHOREOGRAPHER BIOS

Devontae Brown

Devontae Brown is an Oklahoma City-based choreographer, dancer, and teaching artist whose work is rooted in a lifelong love of movement, storytelling, and the performing arts. His artistic journey began at an early age through school-based activities and grew into a deep passion for dance, musical theatre, music, and the ways performance can connect people to one another and to the world around them.

Trained in step, jazz funk, hip hop, and contemporary, Devontae brings a versatile movement vocabulary to his work. His experience extends across dance, musical theatre, live performance, and arts education, allowing him to approach choreography as both a physical and storytelling practice.

As an artist, Devontae is interested in work that creates connection, invites reflection, and gives audiences space to experience something beyond themselves. His choreography often explores identity, community, human behavior, and the world we share, blending movement with music and visual storytelling to create work that is both expressive and intentional.

Through choreography, performance, and teaching, Devontae continues to explore the power of the arts to move people, challenge perspectives, and create meaningful moments of connection.

Rebekah wallace garrett

Rebekah Wallace Garrett is a choreographer based in Oklahoma. Since graduating from the University of Central Oklahoma in 2017 with a Bachelor of Arts in Dance Education, she has dedicated herself full time as an artist, dance maker, and community builder.  Rooted in the belief that dance is for everybody, Rebekah has developed curriculum and choreographic practices for creative arts programs across central Oklahoma. Guiding weekly dance classes in community centers and schools keeps Rebekah constantly engaged in the choreographic process for hundreds of dancers of all ages and abilities.
Using contemporary movement and gestural storytelling, Rebekah’s choreography aims to connect performers and audiences in ways that encourage community, kindness, and laughter.  This is reflected in her work for the Oklahoma Contemporary Dance Festival in 2025 titled “Secret Stories” a 7-minute piece developed in an 8-hour collaborative workshop creatively led by Rebekah with inspiration from Nancy Drew Mystery PC Game soundtracks and creative stories from the perspectives of goblins and fairies. She’s also proud of her dance work “Any Color You Like”, a contemporary piece created for the Northwest Optimist Community Dance program that Rebekah Wallace Garrett developed in January 2024 through OKC Parks. This multi-generational performance used colorful costumes and creative character play to express a lively children’s story about the colors of the rainbow getting along; it was presented at the Calderon Dance Festival in 2026. Rebekah dances with people across Oklahoma through the programs of Northwest Optimist, RACE Dance Collective, and Prairie Dance Theatre. Recently branching into the world of professional choreography, Rebekah is excited to continue sharing her creative work and growing as an artist.

riley hall

Riley Hall is a performer and choreographer based in Oklahoma City. She strives to create equitable environments that encourage risk-taking while exercising a growth-based mindset. She is an honors graduate from the University of Central Oklahoma (UCO), where she simultaneously earned two bachelor's degrees: a B.F.A in Dance Performance and a B.A. in Arts Administration. Currently she is working towards the completion of an MBA. While attending UCO, she had the opportunity to perform with the Kaleidoscope Dance Company across Oklahoma and in nearby states. She enjoyed working with choreographers such as Hui Cha Poos, Terrill Mitchell, Alexandra Beller, Maree ReMalia, Tina Kambour, Mike Esperanza, and Alexander Olivieri. Her training was extremely well rounded throughout her time in the program with her favorite styles being modern, jazz, and aerial. She has choreographed and presented works in the university’s student choreography shows and capstone performances, the Oklahoma Contemporary Dance Festival, and now here with Cure-8. Most recently, Riley has worked with Frontier City as an entertainer, Mysterious Minds, and Legendz Entertainment. She is currently working with RACE Dance Collective and will be performing in one of their upcoming shows. By continuing to audition as well as exploring the world through movement she hopes to forever learn and grow in her abilities while always taking the opportunities such as this to share stories and make others feel.

Elizabeth Kerr

Elizabeth Kerr is a choreographer living and working in Oklahoma. After graduating from the University of Central Oklahoma in 2010 with dual bachelors degrees in Dance Eduction and Dance Performance, she danced professionally with RACE Dance Collective and Perpetual Motion. Along with dancing at the professional level, she led the dance department at Bishop McGuinness Catholic High School.  

Elizabeth’s choreographic work often highlights human exeperiences and stories that are dark and uncomfortable. She strives to dig deep into moments that people often overlook in order to bring forth a strong voice to those unspoken for. Her full length work, Ad Infinitum presented in 2015 showcased over an hour of choreography, taking the audience through the levels of Dante’s Inferno. 

Presenting her next work in Cure-8, she hopes to bring awareness to the lack of support for postpartum mothers and the mental struggles they face. Elizabeth hopes to go on to create her own immersive dance company in the near future. 

sophia smith

Through choreography, education, and performance, Sophia Smith creates accessible, empowered, authentic environments for future generations of dancers and choreographers.

Sophia began training in dance at age 3 at a small studio in her hometown of Charlotte, NC, before training in the academy at Charlotte Ballet beginning in 2016. At age 13, Sophia was accepted into the renowned University of North Carolina School of the Arts, and spent four years training in the High School program under Dean Susan Jaffe, performing soloist roles in several classical ballets, and originating works by Grady Bowman (Before We Go) and Julia Eisen (Sound Waves).

Sophia received a BFA in Ballet Pedagogy from the University of Oklahoma School of Dance, with concentrations in American Sign Language and Lighting Design. While at OU, she performed works by George Balanchine,  William Forsythe, Jiří Kylián, Penny Saunders, and Yuri Yanowsky; and toured with the School of Dance to Colorado Springs, CO, performing featured roles on two occasions. In 2025, Sophia danced in the World Premiere of Rena Butler’s pas de deux Tsela, and danced “Puck” in A Midsummer Night's Dream choreographed by Glenn Edgerton and Michael Bearden. 

Sophia choreographs in contemporary and ballet styles, exploring sound, light, and visual architecture to create narrative works that allow our stages to reflect our world. She is best known for her full-length ballet The Sacred Veil, which premiered in May 2025 in collaboration with Windsong Chamber Choir and world-renowned composer Eric Whitacre. This ballet was restaged at Inspiration Point Center for the Arts in April 2026. 

As a lighting designer, she has crafted nearly a dozen works for University of Oklahoma and Human Creature Dance Company, and has worked on numerous other productions in electrics roles. Sophia is pursuing a certification to teach Dance for Parkinson’s Disease through the Mark Morris Foundation, and was a recipient of the 2025 Juli Busken Memorial Scholarship and the 2016 President's Volunteer Service Award.

Sophia is excited to step into her next chapter as the Access & Enrichment Manager for Princeton Ballet School | American Repertory Ballet beginning in October, 2026. She would also like to thank RACE Dance Collective for the opportunity to present in CURE8, and for their invaluable work in our community.

CURE-8 PERFORMING ARTISTS

  • Adrian Palomino

  • Amiyah Underwood

  • Angelo Normand

  • Ava Concaicao

  • Blakely Arledge

  • Eliza Thompson

  • EMMA PALMA

  • Hai Lam Huynh

  • Haley Fort

  • Hannah Mucha

  • Jayden Livingston

  • Joseph Sao

  • Jules Straughn

  • Kansas Mansker

  • Kelsey Chapuis

  • Katie Brophy-Chronister

  • Kathryn Rosenberg

  • Leo Carter

  • Lyanna Saito

  • Mackenzie Carron

  • Meegan Hertensteiner

  • MIA JENSEN

  • Morgan Lingerfelt

  • Yazlyn Saenz

Cure-8 is presented in partnership with Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center and is made possible through a grant funding from OK Let's Dance, an initiative of the Kirkpatrick Family Fund. 


THANK YOU CURE-8 DONORS!

Larry Kegwin
Andrea Lodico
Justin Poos
Melissa Scaramucci
Ellen Gifford
Nicole Poole
Emily Claude