ARTISTIC & EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR 
Sarah Najera joined MOMENTA in 1999 and has worked as a dancer,  choreographer, costume designer and matinee director.  Sarah also co-founded MOMENTA Repertory Ensemble (MRE) and served as Artistic Director for many MRE projects, including Innovation/Collaboration, Collective Psyche, Moving in Parallel and Principles of Dance.  In 2020, upon the retirement of MOMENTA’s Co-founder and Director Stephanie Clemens, Sarah stepped in as the Artistic and Executive Director.  Outside of MOMENTA, Sarah has a strong background in Latin and Spanish dance and has performed with Mosaico Dance Troupe, Sones de Mexico, El Ballet Folklórico Revolución, Soul y Duende, and the resident dance company of Universidad de Morelos in Cuernavaca, Mexico. As a costume designer,  Sarah has created costumes for MOMENTA, MRE, Aerial Dance Chicago,  American Opera Group, 13Carat Productions, Roosevelt University, Pleasant  Home Foundation, and the Historical Society of Oak Park and River Forest.

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR
Teresa Deziel is an alum of both the Academy of Movement and Music as well as MOMENTA. Teresa traveled to Austria in 2007 with MOMENTA to perform as part of Young Tanzommer. She has duel Bachelor of Science degrees in Dance and Art from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as well as a Bachelor of Art Degree in Advertising Art Direction from Columbia College Chicago. While at UW-Madison she participated in several college dance conferences, spent a month in Brazil dancing at the Universidade Federal da Bahia, and attended the Dance Education Laboratory at the Harkness Center for Dance in New York City. After graduating, she traveled to the World Dance Alliance-America’s conference in Vancouver to perform with Li Chiao-Ping Dance and Jin Wen Yu.

SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER
Connor Cornelius (she/her) grew up in Oak Park, IL with MOMENTA and is a choreographer and the social media manager. Connor was also the Artistic Director of fall MOMENTA 2021. Locally, Connor has also choreographed the Oak Park and River Forest High School’s (OPRF) musicals and the 2023 Illinois High School Theatre Festival’s All-State production. She also directs her own performance project company, GRIT, and has produced three evening length concerts. Connor was nominated for a 3Arts award along with being selected as one of two artists commissioned for Going Dutch 2018 and 2017. In 2016, she was commissioned to choreograph for Simantikos Dance Chicago and selected for the Delve showcase. In 2015, she was selected as one of four choreographers for Dance Chance Redux: 6.0 and chosen as one of ten finalists for Met Dance’s Emerging Choreographer competition. That year, Connor was also chosen as one of four choreographers for DanceWorks Chicago’s DanceMoves choreography competition. At the 2013 American Dance Festival, she was chosen to perform in Martha Graham’s Helios as well as present her choreography in the student concert. Connor has choreographed and danced as a company member for Cerqua Rivera Dance Theatre and Project Bound Dance for two seasons each and served as DanceWorks Chicago’s Administrative support for three years. Connor currently teaches, designs lights and stage manages for Intuit Dance. Connor was honored as the Presidential Scholar of the Department of Dance at Western Michigan University, where she graduated in May 2014 cum laude with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in dance. 

ACCESSIBILITY ADVISOR
Ladonna Freidheim, founder of ReinventAbility, is passionate about inclusion, dance, science, and joy! She is a classically trained dancer and experienced arts administrator. After a progressive disability ended her ballerina life, Ladonna recovered from surgeries at the Rehabilitation Center of University of Illinois UC, where she was introduced to disability culture. While Ladonna is able to get around with the assistance of leg braces and a cane, it is her wheelchair that allows her to continue dancing. She is forever indebted to Alana Wallace, founder of Dance>Detour, for training her in the art of wheelchair dance. In 2014, Ladonna founded ReinventAbility, to promote and realize inclusion in the world of dance, and in the world at large, by enriching perceptions of disability and inspiring joy! Ladonna is a company dancer with MOMENTA and also shares her skills as a grant writer and a board member.

CO-FOUNDER
Stephanie Clemens began her dance studies when a neighbor, the great Adolph Bolm suggested to her mother that she begin to take classes with Lila Zali at the Highland Playhouse in Los Angeles. As a child she made her stage debut with The Ruth St. Denis Concert dancers and then continued her dance studies with Maria Kedrina, Michael Panieff, Robert Rosselat, Gene Marinaccio, and at the San Francisco Ballet School.  She attended Juilliard in the late fifties; there her teachers were Anthony Tudor, Alfredo Corvino, Lucas Hoving, José Limón and members of the Graham Company. She has performed on the West Coast with The American Concert Ballet and The Cosmopolitan Opera Company and in the Midwest as a guest with Chicago Contemporary Dance Theatre. She is the owner and director of The Academy of Movement and Music in Oak Park and is the former director of MOMENTA, a Performing Arts Company that has been actively involved in the reconstruction of works by Doris Humphrey. She appeared as a soloist with MOMENTA in New York and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., during 1989-90, performed a one-woman concert of St. Denis solos in summer, 1993, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and in 1994 at the Harold Washington Library in Chicago. Since 1988 she has worked on reconstructions of works by St. Denis, Doris Humphrey and Eleanor King with Karoun Tootikian, Ernestine Stodelle, Letitia Ide and Eleanor King. She is a founding member and was executive director of the Doris Humphrey Society and is a founding member and director of the Tidmarsh Arts Foundation. She served on the board of the Oak Park Area Arts Council for more than ten years. In 2000, she received an award of recognition from the American Library Association for her efforts in producing six videos documenting the work of Doris Humphrey. In 2001, she was awarded a Ruth Page Award for Lifetime Service, received the Oak Park Area Arts Council’s Joseph Randall Shapiro award, and in 2007, an Arts Entrepreneurship award for Lifetime Service from Columbia College.  Stephanie has served on the Dance Panel for the Illinois Arts Council and on the Awards Committee for the Chicago Dance and Music Alliance. In 2010 Stephanie acted as producer for MOMENTA for a one hour documentary on the life and work of Loïe Fuller.