MARCY AUERBACH has been dancing since she was a little girl. She attended the Fine and Performing Arts High School in New Jersey where she learned and performed ballet, jazz, and modern dance. During college, she was vice-president of a student-led dance group where she fundraised, performed, and choreographed, while obtaining her bachelors degree in Biology. In Boston she danced with Kelly Donovan & dancers, and more recently, performed in San Francisco's Carnival with Tania Santiago. While a grad student in NYC, she co-founded Danza Washington Heights in Northern Manhattan, under the partnership of DanceNOW[NYC], producing outdoor dance events while promoting local artists, and building relationships with the community. Marcy is a virologist and yogi. She joined High Release in 2010 and is grateful to be dancing again.

KIMBERLY BAXTER began dancing in 1989, studying modern, jazz, ballet, African and improvisational technique with Pamela Trokanski in her hometown of Davis. She performed with the Pamela Trokanski Dance Theater, Momentum Dance Company, and in student productions at San Francisco State University and UC Davis. She co-founded, choreographed for, and performed with Blueprint Dance Company between 2003 and 2007. She joined High Release in 2007.
Works choreographed for High Release: Sleepless (2008), Flock (2010)

VIRGINIA BOCK grew up in New Zealand where she studied ballet and modern dance from an early age and taught dance in various schools and communities. She attended the New Zealand School of Dance in Wellington, performing and choreographing with the student company and receiving her diploma in dance teaching. Virginia is a full-time mother and part-time freelance writer, and lives in Santa Clara with her husband and two young sons. Virginia joined High Release in the fall of 2006.
Works choreographed for High Release: Arioso (2007), Play Nice (2009), Obscured (2009), Give (2010), Live a Little (2011)

NATASHA CARLITZ began her dance training thirty-five years ago with Grace Butler, a former Nikolais dancer, and performed as a child and young adult with CHORD (Children's Original Repertory Dance) and SMDC (the Saturday Morning Dance Company). She has attended dance workshops in London, Amsterdam, and Maine, including three Pilobolus workshops with company founder Jonathan Wolken.

For the past 20 years, Natasha has choreographed and performed around the Bay Area. From 1998 through 2005 she danced with and choreographed for High Release Dance, producing major works for more than a dozen company performances; she is happy to re-join the company in 2011. In addition, Natasha's work has been seen in ODC San Francisco and sjDANCEco productions, as well as a wide variety of festivals and studio concerts. Natasha staged concerts of her own work in 2002 (San Jose) and 2005 (Palo Alto).

In fall 2005, Natasha founded the Natasha Carlitz Dance Ensemble, which performed for the first time in 2006 with the internationally acclaimed California Guitar Trio. Since 2009, the company has produced an annual season in San Francisco (at the Cowell Theater and ODC Theater) as well as appearing in concerts throughout the region. In 2010, NCDE was invited to represent the United States at the Egyptian International Modern Dance Festival, during which Natasha led a modern master class with Egypt's national dance company and NCDE presented evening-length concerts in Cairo and Alexandria. Watch for NCDE's next concert in April 2012.
Works choreographed for High Release: Surface Tension (1999), Linear Transformations (2000), Post-Op (2000), Mercury (2001), Portrait with Purple Hat (2001), From a Confined Place (2001), Plurality (2002), Circulation (2004), Luna (2005)

JULIE DEBELL first started dancing locally with Judith Komoroske in 2000. Here, she learned Modern technique and participated in an improvisational performing group. Julie continued dancing throughout college, taking Modern dance classes and performing whenever she could. She also took advantage of the opportunity to choreograph, something she found both challenging and rewarding. She graduated in 2010 from UC Santa Cruz with a B.A. in American Studies. She is now pondering where life will take her next, hopefully including abroad. She is passionate about working with children and plans to be professionally involved in education in the future.
Works choreographed for High Release: Wa Habibi (Beloved) (set on High Release dancers, 2011; originally choreographed and performed in 2010)

ELENA GRINDLEY has danced for twenty years in Menlo Park. She has studied with Ronnie Brosterman and Gail Abrams at Scripps College and holds a degree in Creative Arts from San Jose State, where she studied with Gary Masters. Elena has performed in Claremont, Los Angeles, Berkeley, San Jose State, San Jose City College, Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, DanceVisions, and her grandparents' living room. She has delved into modern, ballet, hip hop, capoeira, West African, Middle Eastern, and funk. Elena joined High Release in fall 1999. Dance 'til we die.
Works choreographed for High Release: 30 Movements to Fake Counts (2001), Goodnight (2001), Living Room Reverie (2001), Disconnect (2002), Day Sleeper (2002), Sweet Dreams (2003), Lamenting (2006), Winding Down (2007), Stages of Grief (2008), Ringtail Antics (2010), A Stroll Down Memory Lane (with Lisa Navarro, 2011)

ELAYNE GROECHEL studied ballet, modern and jazz with Roland Butler, Darlene Garlutzo and Cleo Parker Robinson, and attended the University of Utah and Weber State University as a dance major. Elayne lives in Sunnyvale with her husband and three children, and after a twenty year hiatus is thankful to be dancing and performing again.

SUSAN LEFTWICH The love of dance has characterized Susan’s dance "career"--from taking ballet, tap, and jazz classes every day after school, to leading the high school dance team, to taking dance classes with the dance majors at the University of Texas and San Jose State University. Susan taught Jazzercise for 5 years in the 1990s but rediscovered her love for dance at Dance Connection and Zohar dance studios. Currently, Susan is a middle school language arts and history teacher who also teaches dance as an elective. She teaches worship dance workshops and leads and performs with her church dance team. Susan joined High Release in 2009 as a way to challenge herself creatively and to reward herself for surviving breast cancer.
Works choreographed for High Release: Gathering the Pieces (2011)

I-HENG MCCOMB started school when she was 4 years old and never left. In kindergarten, she wrote in her Me Book that she wanted to be a "mommy and a teacher" when she grew up, so three children and a few thousand students later, here she is. What she didn't foresee then was that somewhere around the turn of the millennium, she would start dancing regularly (Zohar Dance, and later DanceVisions) and never stop. I-Heng joined High Release in 2006.
Works choreographed for High Release: Pieces of Grace (2008), Jekyll Jekyll Hyde! (2009), Woven in Smoke (2011), Tired of Sleeping (2011)

KAREN MCWILLIAMS began her performing "career" with the Santa Clara Vanguard Drum and Bugle Corps, and in the process brought home two International Championship medals. While a student at the University of Santa Clara, she finally took a dance class, and has since been performing with whomever would let her on stage, including Ariel Dance Company, the Valley Dance Theatre, and the Vanguard Alumni Corps, which performed at the DCI Championship Finals in Madison, Wisconsin in the summer of 2002. She was one of the founding members of High Release in 1994. In real life, Karen is sometimes a technical writer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and always a mother of three. She also keeps busy creating custom wedding dresses and dance costumes.
Works choreographed for High Release: Statuary (1996), Like Sisters (1997), In the Garden of Souls (2002), Improvisation on Walking and Falling (2005)

ELIZABETH MULLER has been dancing since she was 4 years old. She trained in jazz technique with Reginald Ray Savage before moving to Paris in 1997. While living in France, she fell in love with a Salsa dancer and soon began performing professionally with him. She returned to the US in 2005, and in 2009 began dancing with Kat Worthington. Soon after, she joined Copious Dance Company, and performed in their premier performance of "Taka" in 2009. She joined High Release Dance Company in 2010.

LISA MARIA NAVARRO has taught, trained, and performed worldwide. Lisa was on scholarship at Steps on Broadway in NYC. She trained in various styles with instructors such as Frank Hatchett, Cecila Marta, Anne Marie Garvin and Debbie Allen. She has worked with such artists as Snoop Doggy Dog, Chaka Khan and Santana. She was a dancer in two films, "Matrix 2" and "Shut Up and Dance". During the 2001 European tour of West Side Story, she was part of the dance ensemble. She has performed with Culture Shock SF, Kinsei, U Dance Electra and many other Bay Area Dance companies. Lisa is a certified pilates instructor and runs her own studio in Palo Alto, California. Lisa feels blessed to be able to live and share her passion.
Works choreographed for High Release: Serenity Prayer (2011), A Stroll Down Memory Lane (with Elena Grindley, 2011), Searching for Home (with Jen Costillo, 2011)

TRACEY STANELUN began ballet lessons as a little girl, and nurtured her skills in the family living room, dancing and singing along with recordings of Broadway musicals. She performed through high school with the State Ballet of Rhode Island, and discovered modern dance at Smith College where she received a BA in Dance. In Boston she performed in works of Peggy Brightman (Choreodance), Nicola Hawkins, and Marcus Schulkind, and appeared on stage with Click and Clack The Tappet Brothers (of Cartalk fame). Tracey moved from New England to the Bay Area in January 2010 and at the same time joined High Release Dance.

ERIKA TINGEY started studying dance at age 6 with Grace Butler, and continued through college where she studied with Libby Nye and Risa Steinberg, former members of the Limon dance company. In 1994 she graduated from Mills College with an MFA in Choreography, and went on to dance with Jennifer Brightbill and the Pneuma Dance Company. For a year she was a performing member of the San Francisco Taiko Dojo. Her work has been seen in High Release, DanceVisions, and Choreographers' Collective performances, as well as the Marin 21st Century Dance & Music Collaboration and "Assemble Emotion," an AIDS fundraiser in San Francisco. Erika joined High Release in 1999.
Works choreographed for High Release: Helix (2001), Intent (2003), Ebb Tide (2003), Scratched (2005), Passing Through (2005), Infrequent (2007), Whispers (2007), Dernier Cri (2008), Balancing Act (2009), Embrace the Crumbling World (2010)