Guest Faculty

Kimberly Uphoff Spencer began her training at the Newcomb School of Ballet in Killeen, Texas, with Renee Gillenwater and Margaret Newcomb. She continued her studies as a scholarship student at the Kirov Academy of Ballet in Washington, D.C., where her teachers included Jacqueline Akhmedova, Alla Sizova, Nikolai Morozov, Adrienne Dellas, Vladimir Djouloukhadze, Ludmila Morkovina, and Anatoli Kucheruk.

She also trained with Michael Bjerknes at the American Dance Institute in Rockville, Maryland, and attended multiple summer intensives with American Ballet Theatre in New York.

At age 16, Kimberly joined Boston Ballet II and went on to dance with Boston Ballet for twelve years. Her classical repertoire included Swan Lake, La Bayadère, The Sleeping Beauty, Romeo and Juliet, Don Quixote, Giselle, Cinderella, La Sylphide, La Fille mal gardée, and The Nutcracker.

Kimberly also performed extensively in works by George Balanchine, including The Four Temperaments, Serenade, Symphony in C, Symphony in Three Movements, Coppélia, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, La Valse, Stars and Stripes, Ballo della Regina, and Divertimento No. 15.

Her repertoire further included Harald Lander’s Études, Antony Tudor’s Dark Elegies, Jerome Robbins’ Fancy Free and Antique Epigraphs, Jiří Kylián’s Symphony of Psalms, Petite Mort, and Falling Angels, Bronislava Nijinska’s Les Noces, and Vaslav Nijinsky’s Afternoon of a Faun. She also performed works by choreographers including Jorma Elo and Helen Pickett.

In addition to her performing career, Kimberly has taught ballet, repertoire, and character classes through the American Dance Institute’s summer intensive.

Kimberly has been part of the BalletCorps studio community since its opening, taking class with Daniel Blake and becoming familiar with the school’s students, environment, and approach to training. She is pleased to share the depth of her professional experience and her enduring love of ballet with BalletCorps dancers.

Maddy Werner began her dance training at the Reif Center in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, where she studied for nine years, most notably under the direction of Daniel Blake. During that time, she performed original works by Blake, collaborated with James Sewell Ballet, and danced roles including the Dew Drop Fairy and Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker.

At age 15, Maddy was accepted into Houston Ballet’s Ben Stevenson Academy Summer Intensive. She was subsequently offered a full scholarship to the academy’s year-round program, where she trained for two years and performed in The Nutcracker with Houston Ballet. She also attended Orlando Ballet’s summer program and was offered a traineeship.

At 18, Maddy joined Lexington Ballet, where she performed leading roles in The Nutcracker and Cinderella. An injury brought her professional performing career to an early close, and she soon began teaching as head ballet instructor at Diamond School of Dance in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

Maddy later earned a degree in law enforcement and served for nearly four years as a patrol officer and field training officer with the South Lake Minnetonka Police Department. Throughout that chapter of her life, she continued teaching ballet as a guest instructor throughout the Minneapolis–Saint Paul area.

In 2021, Maddy returned to dance education full-time at North Ballet Academy. She has also served as Artistic Director, producing and staging full-length classical ballets including The Nutcracker, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Giselle.

As a former student of Daniel Blake, Maddy brings a unique connection to BalletCorps. She understands firsthand the influence that thoughtful, rigorous teaching can have on a young dancer and is proud to share her knowledge, experience, and love of classical ballet with the next generation.

Megan Lynch is a company artist with American Midwest Ballet. She began her training at Minnesota Conservatory for the Arts under Tammy Schmidt and continued at Ballet Blake under Daniel Blake.

With American Midwest Ballet, Megan has performed in productions including Momentum, The Nutcracker, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Her repertory has included original choreography by Ray Mercer and Erin Alarcón, as well as Sing, Sing, Sing! from Bob Fosse’s 1978 production of Dancin’. She also teaches during the school year through American Midwest Ballet School and Bloom Dance Studio.

Megan has attended summer programs on merit scholarship with American Ballet Theatre, Ballet Austin, Utah Ballet, Kansas City Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, BalletX, and Burklyn Ballet Theatre.

At Burklyn Ballet Theatre, she has taught ballet, pointe, and seminars; restaged ballets; and performed roles including Odile in Swan Lake, Romantic Girl in Graduation Ball, Cinderella in Cinderella, Princess Florine in The Sleeping Beauty, and Dulcinea in Don Quixote.

She has also performed in original works including Oliver Green-Cramer’s Five Reveries, an excerpt from Johnathan Tabbert’s Why Our Walls, and Sarah Tallman’s Won’t You Be My Neighbor.

In 2023, Megan graduated from the University of Utah as an Outstanding Senior in the Department of Dance. She earned a BFA in Ballet and a BA in History, completing undergraduate research focused on Southeast Asia.

While at the University of Utah, Megan performed roles including Kitri in Don Quixote, Princess Florine and Little Red Riding Hood in The Sleeping Beauty, and appeared in Suzanne Haag’s Ornaments and Alejandro Cerrudo’s Second to Last, staged by Pablo Piantino.

Megan has also performed internationally in Incheon, South Korea, under the direction of Oleg Vinogradov, and in Tokyo, Japan, with the University of Utah’s Character Dance Ensemble.

In addition to her performing and teaching work, Megan is a member of the National Dance Education Organization and is certified in Progressive Ballet Technique and Pilates Mat.

As a former student of Daniel Blake, Megan shares a direct connection to the teaching lineage and values of BalletCorps. She is proud to contribute to a studio environment that asks dancers to work with focus and intensity while supporting their safety, confidence, and enjoyment of the art form.

Logan Pachciarz is the Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Moving Arts. He began his formal dance training at the Franklin School of Performing Arts and Nashville Ballet before launching his professional career at age 15 as a member of Twyla Tharp’s dance ensemble, Tharp!

During the ensemble’s acclaimed national tour, Logan performed in the premieres of Tharp’s Sweet Fields, Heroes, and 66. He later continued his training at the North Carolina School of the Arts under Ton Simons, Fernando Bujones, and Warren Conover.

At age 18, Logan joined Boston Ballet II and was soon promoted to the main company. During his time with Boston Ballet, he performed works by choreographers including Rudi van Dantzig, Christopher Wheeldon, and Ben Stevenson.

In 2001, Logan joined Kansas City Ballet, where he danced for fifteen seasons. His extensive repertoire ranged from classical works including Giselle and Romeo and Juliet to modern and contemporary works such as Jardi Tancat, Dark Elegies, The Catherine Wheel Suite, and The Moor’s Pavane.

Among his most celebrated roles with Kansas City Ballet was the title character in Michael Pink’s Dracula, a role he shared with fellow artist Anthony Krutzkamp.

In 2013, Logan and Krutzkamp founded the Kansas City Dance Festival to create new performance opportunities and bring an ambitious professional dance series to the Kansas City community. Logan later became Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Moving Arts, where he continues to support the creation, development, and presentation of dance.

At BalletCorps, Logan shares the depth of his professional experience as a performer, choreographer, director, and educator. His work with students reflects a commitment to strong classical training, artistic exploration, and a thoughtful, healthy approach to the development of young dancers.

Kei Han Lee is a composer, interdisciplinary artist, and multi-instrumentalist whose creative practice is grounded in a deeply rooted DIY spirit. While their formal background is in music, Lee is driven by a continuous, tactile impulse to make—whether building musical landscapes, assembling digital art, or constructing physical crafts and garments.

For Lee, music is not an isolated discipline, but one expression within a lifelong practice of hands-on creation, experimentation, and acquiring new skills.

This ethos shapes their compositional work, which draws from classical forms while resisting the genre’s rigid conditioning and exclusionary conventions. Lee creates intimate, collaborative compositions that invite listeners to move, reflect, and engage regardless of background or formal training.

Movement of the body and mind is inseparable from Lee’s understanding of music. When composing, they experience the music itself as a form of dance. This perspective bridges the abstract and physical, as well as the sonic and visual, and directly informs their creative process.

Chamber music remains central to Lee’s work because of its leveling effect: every voice carries equal weight, and the whole cannot function without the creative input and individuality of each performer.

Their compositions are realized both through collaboration with other musicians and through self-produced projects in which Lee writes, performs, records, and produces each instrumental line. In either setting, every part is treated as an autonomous creative presence in conversation with the others.

Lee’s music balances mathematical architecture with melodic instinct. Shifting time signatures and number-based systems shape its rhythm and structure, while lyricism emerges naturally from their experience as a violinist. Complexity is revealed gradually, offering deeper layers to those who seek them while retaining immediacy and emotional resonance.

Lee holds a Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Music Studies from Berklee College of Music, where they developed skills in production, recording, music technology, and music business.

They also hold a Bachelor of Arts in Music and Communication from Boston College, where they trained in composition, performance, and ensemble work.

Lee currently lives and works in the greater Chicago area.

Taryn Pachciarz was born in Kansas City, Missouri, and received much of her training on full scholarship at the Kansas City Ballet School and the School of American Ballet. While at SAB, she performed the role of Waltz Girl in George Balanchine’s Serenade for the school’s annual workshop.

Taryn joined New York City Ballet as a member of the Corps de Ballet, performing in numerous works by George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins. Her repertoire included Stars and Stripes, Jewels, Symphony in Three Movements, West Side Story Suite, and The Cage.

She later returned to Kansas City Ballet, where she performed for thirteen seasons. Her featured roles included Myrtha in Giselle, Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Wendy in Peter Pan, Russian Girl in Serenade, and leading roles in Balanchine’s Theme and Variations, Rubies, and Diamonds.

Her repertoire also included The Nutcracker, The Four Temperaments, The Sleeping Beauty, Jiří Kylián’s Petite Mort, Twyla Tharp’s In the Upper Room, William Forsythe’s In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated, and James Kudelka’s The Man in Black.

Taryn has also originated roles in works by choreographers including Matthew Neenan and Annabelle Lopez Ochoa.

As a guest artist within the BalletCorps community, Taryn brings the perspective of a dancer shaped by two of the country’s leading ballet companies and by a career spanning classical, neoclassical, and contemporary work. BalletCorps looks forward to welcoming her into the studio as future programming and artist availability allow.