PERFORMANCE NEWS
New Leadership Roles Highlight Creative Expansion
2025.11.09 – Author, Executive Director, Julieane Cook
Danceworks Performance MKE is proud to announce the launch of new Artistic Coordinator positions within the professional company. These roles were created to offer company members meaningful leadership experience in both artistic and administrative areas, while supporting the broad scope of performance initiatives for emerging and established artists.
The 2025–2026 season is co-led by Artistic Director Christal Wagner in collaboration with the newly appointed Artistic Coordinators:
Zoe Mei Glise
Katelyn Altmann
Cuauhtli Ramírez Castro
Ashley Ray Garcia
This structure fosters a collaborative and sustainable creative environment, empowering each coordinator to take part in the visioning, planning, and execution of DPMKE’s growing body of work. The expanded creative team reflects DPMKE’s commitment to innovation, mentorship, and equity in the arts.DPMKE maintains a strong commitment to celebrating the diversity of Milwaukee’s arts community, creating work with curiosity and rigor in collaboration with its skilled performers, community members, and a wide range of local nonprofits and performance groups.
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
Christal Wagner
Christal Wagner (she/they) is an Alumna of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee dance department (BFA) where she is also adjunct faculty. She is a screendance artist and has produced work as a cinematographer, performer, editor and director for Joe Goode, Josh Halverson, Maria Gillespie, Danceworks Inc, Milwaukee Dance Theatre Network, Milwaukee Opera Theatre, UWM Dance, The Saint Kate Arts Hotel, The Cactus Club, and Li Chiao-Ping Dance where she was a 2020 SEED Creation Fund grant recipient. Christal is the artistic director of Danceworks Performance MKE and has danced for Your Mother Dances, Gina Laurenzi Dance Project, Dawn Springer Dance Projects, Skylight Music Theatre and spent 14 years as a company member with DPMKE. Christal is a cofounder of the music and dance trio Cadance Collective, co-creating pieces through processes where music and dance are worked on simultaneously through improvisational practices and original soundscapes. In 2020 Christal Wagner became the Saint Kate Art Hotel’s FIRST artist in co-residence. She is the recipient of 8 Wisconsin Jerry Awards for her work in musical theatre and has choreographed over 20 musicals in the city of Milwaukee. Christal’s mission is to support and elevate the voices of her community, collaborators, and fellow artists.
ARTISTIC COORDINATOR
Development and Partnerships
Zoe Mei Glise
Zoe Mei Glise (she/her) is a movement-based artist born in China and located in Milwaukee, WI. She is Danceworks’ Development and Partnerships Artistic Coordinator and dances professionally with Danceworks Performance MKE (DPMKE), Wild Space Dance Company, and Gina Laurenzi Dance Project (GLDP). Zoe earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Contemporary Dance Performance and Choreography from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where she worked with artists including Daniel Burkholder, Mair Culbreth, Parijat Desai, Emma Draves, Yumelia Garcia, Maria Gillespie, Gina Laurenzi, Marina Magalhães, Caitlin Mahon, Tatiana Malinkine,Dan Schuchart, Christal Wagner, and Joe Goode, with whom she created “Real Words”, a dance film supported by an NEA grant that was presented at the North Central American College Dance Association (ACDA).
Previously, Zoe has danced and performed professionally with Madison Contemporary Dance, Nova Linea Contemporary Dance, and Studio K Flamenco, and has presented her individual works nationally and internationally at the Emergence Festival (Chicago, IL), Dance for Hope MKE (Milwaukee, WI), National Conference on Undergraduate Research (Bozeman, MT), Get It Out There (Milwaukee, WI), and at the Centre National de la Dance (Paris, France) as part of the Camping Residency.
Zoe has furthered her training through intensives with Joffrey Ballet (New York, NY), Wasatch Contemporary Dance (Provo, UT), Bandaloop (San Francisco, CA), Stewart/Owen Dance (Asheville, NC), Nova Linea Contemporary Dance (Waukesha, WI), and the Minnesota Conservatory for the Arts (Winona, MN). In fall of 2025, she was one of four artists selected to create work for the Wisconsin Dance Council’s Emerging Artist Mentorship Program. Most notably, in September 2024, Zoe premiered her debut evening-length work, “Uncommon Ground”, which blended her two passions–dance and rock climbing.
ARTISTIC COORDINATOR
Creative Programs
Cuauhtli Ramírez Castro
Cuauhtli Ramirez Castro (he/they) is a Mexican performing artist and dancer. They studied Performing Arts at the University of Guanajuato having a multidisciplinary approach, combining contemporary dance and acting techniques in his training. They have performed at the International Cervantino Festival (2016), as well as the Guanajuato International Film Festival (2015). They graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with a BFA in Contemporary Dance Performance and Choreography (2021). During their time in Milwaukee, they have performed and collaborated in works by Maria Gillespie, Emma Draves, Bernard Brown, Li Chiao Ping, Joe Goode, Mair Culbreth, Amanda Lee, Cedar Becher, etc. In 2023 They were one of eight artists selected to co-create work for Dance for Diversity, an screen dance project by Elizabeth Roskopf with the intention of uplifting the voices of bipoc artists. They currently dance with Danceworks Performance MKE and Wild Space Dance Company.
ARTISTIC COORDINATOR
Operations & Production
Ashley Ray Garcia
Ashley Ray Garcia is a dancer and choreographer from Michigan. She received her BFA in Dance Performance and Choreography from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. During her time at UWM, she has worked with Maria Gillespie, Simeone Ferro, Mair Culbreth, Daniel Burkholder, Anthony “YNOT” Denaro, Melissa Anderson, Dani Kuepper, Dan Schuchart, Caitlin Mahon, and Marina Magalhães. Through her love of traveling, she has had the opportunity to perform in France, Germany, Denmark, Belgium, and the Czech Republic. Garcia has shown work at Central de La Danse (Paris, France), ACDA and Get It Out There MKE (Wisconsin), Collage Dance Festival, and RAD Fest (Michigan). In April 2024, she directed and choreographed her own evening-length performance, For The Wolves. She has always had a passion for creating community and supporting dancers in her independent projects. At the end of 2024, she was selected by the Wisconsin Dance Council as one of three to present work for the Emerging Artist concert at the beginning of 2025.
Her most recent works have been choreographed on Wild Space Dance Company, Danceworks Performance MKE Company, and Fable Dance Company. Ashley is currently a company member and has collaborated with Wild Space Dance Company, Danceworks Performance Company, and various freelance artists and projects. In the summer of 2025, she joined the faculty at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp to teach modern technique, pre-pointe, modern rep, and composition/improv workshops. She has also taught workshops and master classes in Michigan, Wisconsin, France, and the Czech Republic. Garcia enjoys choreographing, performing, and improvising, and looks forward to gaining knowledge through both exploration and experience. She is also a published author of her poetry book, Forget-Me-Not, which has been featured in various dance performances.
