Sept 9 - Dec 10 Fall Semester
Oct 14 - 15 No Class
Nov 25 - 26 No Class

Jan 6 - May 20 Winter/Spring Semester
Jan 19 Festival Style Workshop with Kate Spanos
Jan 20 - 21 No Class
Feb 17 - 18 No Class
Mar 4 No Class
Mar 17 No Class
Apr 21 - 22 No Class

June 3 - 24 Summer Workshop Series

Emma Nelson, PT, DPT grew up as a competitive dancer in the Boston area and found her passion for performance. After an injury took her away from the stage, she was drawn towards the rehabilitation process to return to dance. Emma received her Doctorate in Physical Therapy from Creighton University in 2014 and has been working as an outpatient orthopedic physical therapist in the Greater Boston area since then. She is also an active volunteer with the Boston running community and enjoys perfecting her baking skills!

Jackie O'Riley spent her formative dance years in the Irish set dancing community in Boston, MA.  Over the past 20 years, she has ardently sought out old-style or traditional step dancing, sean-nós dance, and set dancing and is now a respected performer and teacher, with a unique repertoire that includes older steps she’s collected from masters and field footage, and original material she’s composed.  

Jackie performs and teaches in the US, Canada, and Ireland, was an original member of the touring sean-nós dance show Atlantic Steps, and in 2018 performed at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin as part of Na Píobairí Uilleann's production, "The Sound of Ireland".  She founded, directs, and teaches O’Riley Irish Dance, a unique, non-competitive dance program for kids and teens now in its 14th year, is the co-recipient of a 2017 and 2022 grant for choreographers through the Boston Foundation, and a co-recipient of a Mass Cultural Council Fellowship in Choreography in 2021.

In 2019 she co-released a debut, first-of-its-kind visual album, From the Floor.  Above all, she believes in prioritizing musicality in dancing, being a part of the wider musical and traditional community, and maintaining the joy that drew her to the tradition in the first place.

Originally from the Shenandoah Valley, Catherine Marafino Brice is a percussive dancer who has made Annapolis her home since 2012. She specializes in old-style Irish step dancing, Sean-Nós dancing, and American tap.   

Catherine began Irish step dancing and tap dancing as a child, and as a teenager learned from Emily Oleson and Matthew Olwell of Good Foot Dance Company.  During college, she built a small repertoire of American flat-footing and clogging steps, and later learned a handful of Cape Breton and Prince Edward Island patterns from Helen Bergeron.  She has melded these percussive dance forms into her own unique style.

Catherine has a long love-affair with traditional steps, but she is most impressive for her ability to improvise them.  Among dancers in Washington and Baltimore, she is highly regarded for her aptness to devise new dances that are musically and choreographically entertaining.

Catherine holds an MSN from Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing and works as a neonatal nurse in Annapolis and Baltimore.

St John’s Arlington
74 Pleasant St., Arlington, MA
free street parking
near 67, 77, 350 bus

Alton Street Dance Arlington
348 Mass Ave, Arlington, MA
free street parking
near 67, 77, 350 bus

First Church Cambridge
11 Garden St., Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA
meter street parking
Harvard Square red line & buses