We are

David Dowling(He/Him) founded Dancing in the District in 2013. He has appeared in Dance Magazine and served as the Director of Marketing for many Arts Organizations in Washington, D.C.. He has published a book of children’s poetry, written music for dance and worked alongside countless artists and dance companies in the DC/MD/Va area in scoring, projection and video work. Dancing in the District was founded to support the field of Modern Dance in Washington, D.C. and the greater DMV area. Why Modern Dance? Modern Dance is a field of progressive, fearless individuals who don’t shy away from being themselves. The research, discovery and strength of body and self is at its core. Modern Dance is a medium that does not spoon feed you, but will challenge you. it is also a medium where anyone can participate and create a platform for their cause. The original goal of DITD was to showcase local artists through film. As the years went on, it slowly expanded to include Dance Reviews, which became a dire necessity for the community, (as the Arts were slowly pushed to the background by trying political times) and Artist Talks. Today, the website hosts Artist Interviews, Dance Reviews, Dance News and Media. It has also expanded into other mediums of dance from West African, to Ballet to Bharatanatyam and theatre. After all, Dance is diverse. Welcome to Dancing in the District. The online dance magazine!

Ashayla Byrd (she/they), is a blossoming dance writer, artist, and administrator living, breathing, writing, dancing, metro-ing, and be-bopping in Washington, DC. She supports dance communities by creating brave spaces for queer, Black, and/or Brown bodies to witness and be in fellowship with one another and amplifying their voices. Ashayla’s dancing and writing both serve as modalities that make the intangible eternal, to make the stories that both she and others have experienced last forever. Originally from Virginia Beach, Ashayla’s upbringing was inundated with arts of all kinds. They were born to parents that sang with the birds–true to the family name–and never shied away from kitchen dance parties. Ashayla studied vocal music and dance throughout their primary school years, cultivating a love of the written word simultaneously. They received their BA in Dance and English from Shenandoah University in May of 2021. Ashayla has always done entirely too much at once. Two days after graduating, they crash-landed in Washington, DC to begin their career as the multi-hyphenate storyteller they always dreamed of becoming. She is a dance journalist with publications in Dancing in the District, The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, and Memoirs of Blacks in Ballet. She has danced with professional artists including dani tirrell, Mark Caserta, Tiffanie Carson, Yoshito Sakuraba, Gesel Mason, and Anna María Alvarez. She aims to support dance communities in many capacities while also creating brave spaces for queer and BIPOC folks to witness and be in fellowship with one another.

Audrey Brown (she/her) is a mover and writer native to the D.C. region. While currently working in communications at a nonprofit in D.C., she gained experience in the nonprofit sphere from CityStep, a dance and community engagement organization based in New York City. Audrey spent much of her early life exploring the Washington performance scene, from small dance shows to the National Opera. Audrey has two degrees in English, from Trinity College Dublin and Columbia University. In addition, she holds an Irish Dancing World Championship title in the Dance Drama competition. She has Irish danced both competitively and in a performance capacity with various schools in the D.C., NYC, and Dublin, Ireland, areas since 2006–and if you name a pub in one of those cities, she can probably confirm that she danced there. She has also appeared performing in more respected venues like the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, and the White House.

Luisa Lynch (she/they)(@luisalynch)

Writer

Luisa Lynch (she/they) is a queer, mixed-race dance artist and educator based in Washington, D.C. In her work, practice, and life, Luisa reimagines dance through reclamation of the body, and aims to highlight intersectionalities of all identities and selves. She received a BFA in Dance from The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, PA under the direction of Donna Faye Burchfield, and has worked with choreographers from across the world such as Douglas Becker, Ani Gavino, Keira Hart, Curt Haworth, Marguerite Hemmings, Sarah Beth Oppenheim, Maya Triay & Mariona Jaume Camps, Katie Swords Thurman and Emily Wexler. Alongside collaborator Jadyn Brick, Luisa premiered her first professional work, Halo-Halo: Mixed-Mixed as an evening-length performance in INTERSECTIONS 2025 at the Atlas Performing Arts Center in Washington, D.C. Additional choreography credits include T2 Dance Company in Denver, CO. Besides performing and choreographing, Luisa is a dedicated dance and theatre teacher for children grades K-12 and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. She currently teaches with numerous arts organizations around the DMV area.

Juliana Pironti (she/her)(@julianapironti)

Writer

Juliana Pironti (she/her) is a 2025 graduate of American University, holding a BA in Dance with a minor in Marketing. Originally from Tampa, Florida (and she won’t shut up about it) the beach and sunshine are fundamentally a part of who she is. She is currently an apprentice at Dance Place, where she is honing her passion for dance accessibility and creating community spaces that foster creativity, connection, and laughter! As part of this role, she has also began her dance x writing journey, conceptualizing and executing a new artist interview series. Recently, she worked with the National Museum of Women in the Arts, supporting their digital engagement team to advocate for women and non-binary artists; intersecting her love for art with social advocacy. Her recent dance training outside of university includes summer programs at Gibney in New York and Ponderosa in Germany. Her love for dance has grown through many phases, spanning competitive dance, musical theatre, contemporary forms, and experimental theatre, and she can’t wait to see what other realms dance brings her to!

Lisa Traiger (she/her)

Writer

Lisa Traiger .(she/her) An arts journalist and critic since 1985, Lisa Traiger wrote the dance column for The Washington Post Weekend section from 1999 to 2014. She edited From the Green Room, Dance/USA’s online eJournal, from 2008 to 2022. As a freelance dance critic for The Washington Post her reviews appeared in the Style section from 1997-2006. Traiger’s pieces on the cultural and performing arts appear regularly in the Washington Jewish Week, where she has reported on Jewish drum circles, Israeli folk dance, Holocaust survivors, Jewish Freedom Riders, and artists from Ben Shahn to Rodgers and Hammerstein, Stephen Sondheim to Y Love, Anna Sokolow to Liz Lerman. Among the memorable dance masters she has interviewed are Sokolow, Merce Cunnningham, Paul Taylor, Twyla Tharp, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Bill T. Jones, Mark Morris, Ohad Naharin, Akram Khan, Suzanne Farrell, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, Misty Copeland, Raven Wilkinson, Alicia Alonso, Eiko Otake and Liz Lerman. Her writing can be found on The Kennedy Center blog, and in Montgomery Magazine, DCTheaterArts, Dance Magazine, Washingtonian, The Forward, Moment, Pointe, Dance Studio Life, Stagebill, Sondheim Review, Asian Week, Baltimore Style, New Jersey Jewish News, Bethesda Magazine, Ballet Review and Washington Review.

She is the recipient of multiple Simon Rockower Awards for Excellence in Arts Criticism from the American Jewish Press Association and the Maryland-Delaware-Washington, D.C. Press Association for Arts & Entertainment Reporting. Traiger earned an M.F.A. in choreography from the University of Maryland, College Park, and has taught dance appreciation at the University of Maryland College Park and Montgomery College’s Rockville, Takoma Park and Germantown campuses. Traiger served on the Dance Critics Association Board of Directors from 1991-93, returned to the board in 2005, and served as co-president in 2006-2007. A member of the advisory board of the Dance Notation Bureau from 2008-2009, Traiger served on the Wheaton Arts and Entertainment Advisory Board in 2023-2024 and on the board of Wheaton Arts Parade.

Previous Contributors

Sylvana Christopher (she/they), Sylvana Juliet Christopher is a D.C. dance reviewer, performer, educator and choreographer. She co-founded Glade Dance Collective in 2009. Christopher studied the art of performance and choreography with David Dorfman, Bebe Miller, and Nicole Stanton among others while earning her BFA from The Ohio State University. She has performed works by Holly Bass, Meisha Bosma, Lucy Bowen McCauley, Sarah J. Ewing, Nancy Havlik, Kate Jordan, Kelly King, Gesel Mason, Erica Rebollar, Juan Carlos Rincones, Melissa Saint Amour, Helanius Wilkins, and Cynthia Word. She has collaborated with many artists to create works including Grace Cannon, Christopher Creese, Olivia Goldberg, Betsy Loikow, Maggie Lockhart, Taariq Muhammad, Althea Skinner, and Samantha Sobash. She performed in Company E’s immersive site specific JFK tribute in the Grand Foyer of The Kennedy Center “(In)security”.

Luella Christopher, PHD (she/her), Is author of Pirouettes with Bayonets: Classical Ballet Metamorphosed as Dance-Drama and Its Usage in the People’s Republic of China as a Tool of Political Socialization, (Ph.D dissertation, School ofInternational Service, The American University, 1979, Washington, D.C. Archived at University of Michigan).