ARTISTS
Creative Director .
Choreographer
Susan Vishmid
Susan Vishmid is Freaks With Lines Artistic Director and Executive Producer. Susan began her early training at the Westside School of Ballet and through scholarships continued training at the Pacific Northwest Ballet School, San Francisco Ballet School and The Rock School. Ms Vishmid danced with the Pennsylvania Ballet, Santa Fe Opera, San Diego Opera, Chicago Festival Ballet, Napoles Ballet Theater, California Contemporary Ballet, City of Angels Ballet, California Riverside Ballet, Key West Ballet, Coast City Ballet and San Gorgonio Ballet. Susan had the privilege of working with some of today's most esteemed choreographers including Kenneth von Heidecke, Nicola Bowie, Jodi Melnick and Kitty McNamee in Samson & Delilah, Aida, A Masked Ball, Romeo & Juliette, Capriccio and La Traviata respectively.
Susan is also a certified yoga and Pilates instructor. Susan is a USC alumna (cum laude) with a BA in Communication and Philosophy.
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Photography by Pete Black
Photography by Pete Black
Choreographer .
Co-Producer
Sadie Black
Sadie Black is a freelance artist from and based in Los Angeles. She dances currently with Barak Ballet, Clairobscur Dance, Luminario Ballet and Raiford Rogers Modern Ballet. She has been a guest artist, dancing principal roles in The Nutcracker with Pamela Hayes Classical Ballet, Southern California Ballet Theater, & Pacific Dance Center. She trained with Riverside Ballet Arts, Houston Ballet Academy, and the School of American Ballet. She has been a company dancer with Texas Ballet Theater, Columbia City Ballet and Los Angeles Ballet.
Sadie is a choreographer and ballet teacher for students of all ages including adults and a yoga, barre and fitness teacher. She created a barre fitness class, “Ballet Fit Body” which she currently teaches at Equinox. Sadie is also a ballet coach for students competing at Youth America Grand Prix and other several dance competitions
Photography by Pete Black
Production Manager
Eric Friedlander
Eric Friedlander is the production manager for Freaks With Lines, and despite having the grace and movement vocabulary of an errant hippopotamus, he has steadily co-piloted various spreadsheeting, process improvement, and marketing initiatives since FWL's founding in 2018. Additionally, he has contributed to the company artistically with stills and videos from behind various lenses.
Following a decade successfully blending corporate management and freelance artistic endeavors, in 2020 Eric co-founded Acoustic Research Systems (ARS), a new-space startup focused on providing acoustic testing services to the global aerospace industry, where he is currently the CTO.
Musician . Composer
Matthew Young
Matthew is a versatile musician and composer hailing from outside of Jacksonville, Florida, and a newcomer to the West Coast. An accomplished classical pianist, ballet accompanist, and graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. Matthew now focuses on producing and composing electronic music with retro-inspired electropop duo TWINKIDS as well as for film scores, dance music partnerships, and for various instrumental projects. Matthew is a passionate music educator, teaching piano, music production, and music theory at all levels, and more recently developing emerging artists’ live sets and sounds.
Dancer
Hannah keene
Hannah Keene of Wellesley, Massachusetts began her training at the Boston Ballet School from the age of 5 to 17 before joining Boston Ballet II for two seasons. She then danced with the Kansas City Ballet for three seasons and joined the Los Angeles Ballet in 2017. This is Hannah's second season with the Freaks.
Dancer
Adam Bloodgood
Originally from Seattle, Adam Bloodgood is a graduate of Pacific Northwest Ballet School where he trained for 12 years under the direction of Francia Russell, succeeded by Peter Boal. Adam has performed as a principal guest artist in every major region of the country in addition to dancing as a full-time company member with Ballet Idaho, Dayton Ballet and City Ballet of San Diego. Adam has performed leading roles in work by George Balanchine, Stephen Mills, Peter Anastos, W. Earle Smith, Betsey Wistrich, and Karen Russo Burke, among others.
In 2017, Adam originated the role of Romeo in Contempo Arts Productions’ Romeo and Juliet in Los Angeles. Adam Bloodgood also works as a musician, journalist and entrepreneur; he is the guitarist for Floating Pockets, editor/correspondent for Public Occurrences Network, a Pacific Northwest based publication, and host of Clear Perspective with Adam Bloodgood, a talk show web-series. This is Adam's third season with the Freaks.
Dancer
Michelle Lebowski
Miss Lebowski began her ballet training at age 13 with the Joffrey Ballet and the Colorado Ballet. After a number of performing opportunities including Paquita, Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, Esmerelda, Prince Igor, Bournaville's Conservatoire, Balanchine's Walpurgisnacht, and Arpino's Viva Vivaldi Miss Lebowski became a company member at Indianapolis Ballet.
In addition to establishing herself as a freelance dancer in Los Angeles with Freaks With Lines and LA Dance Moves, Miss Lebowski is pursuing her undergraduate studies at the University of Santa Barbara. Miss Lebowski created Ballerinas of Los Angeles in 2020, a social networking platform for freelance ballet artists in Los Angeles.
Dancer
David Prottas
David is a former dancer with the New York City Ballet and graduate of Canada's National Ballet School. After leaving the ballet, David made his Broadway debut in the Tony Award winning revival of Carousel and continued to play leading roles in other notable regional theaters. He has acted on television, in numerous award winning short films, and in national commercials. In addition to his work as a dancer and actor, David is a sought after ballet instructor and coach.
Dancer
Ottavio Taddei
Originally from Italy, Ottavio has been performing in dance productions, operas, television shows and musicals in Italy, Qatar, Oman and the U.S., hitting some of the most prestigious stages of the world including the MET, Walt Disney Music Hall, The ‪Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, The Royal Opera House of Muscat, The Teatro dell’Opera di Roma and The Pasadena Playhouse.
Ottavio has performed principal roles in repertory ballet such as Firebird, Swan Lake, Nutcracker, Romeo and Juliet and a modern production of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, Body Parts, QatarMarine Festival, I Promessi Sposi the musical, Lo Spettacolo Dell’Acqua and many more. Ottavio also worked in many operas as a dancer and actor such as Prince Igor, Moise et Pharaon, Die Zauberflöte, La Boheme, Hansel and Gretel, Madame Butterfly, Tosca, Nabucco, Rigolettoto. This is Ottavio's second season with the Freaks.
Dancer
Aj Abrams
AJ Abrams originally from Long Beach, CA AJ trained with Anthony and Terri Sellars of Orange County Dance Center and Keith and Linda Clifton of Clifton Dance Project. Other training included schools such as Pacific Northwest Ballet, The Rock school of Pennsylvania Ballet and School of American Ballet. Mr. Abrams started his professional dance career under the direction of Stephen Mills at Ballet Austin. During his time in Austin he was given the opportunity to dance principal roles such as Albrecht in Giselle, Sugar Plum Cavalier in the Nutcracker and a featured role in Balanchine’s Who Care’s.
AJ started his freelance career in Los Angeles working with Luminario Ballet, Barak Ballet, Festival Ballet Theatre and Ballet Red. He has been featured in music videos with Coldplay and Florence and the machine and traveled the world aboard a cruise ship with Royal Caribbean Cruises. Mr. Abrams has been asked to join Freaks with Lines as a dancer/choreographer/ballet master. This is AJ's second season with the Freaks.
Dancer
Sofia Rochin
Sofia began her dance training at California Dance Theatre in the Conejo Valley and has performed in a variety of classical ballets and original productions with CDT's performance company, Pacific Festival Ballet. Before graduating in 2016. Sofia attended SUNY Purchase College in the Conservatory of Dance as a Ballet Major and Psychology Minor.
After completing her collegiate education, Sofia joined Indianapolis Ballet as a trainee in their Professional Level Program. Sofia performed in George Balanchine 's Who Cares, The Four Temperaments and The Nutcracker, as well as a variety of original choreography ballets by Victoria Lyras. Sofia has performed around the world from her hometown of Southern California to New York City to France with Festival Dansez Maintenant and Eastern Europe with the Estonian National Ballet. She now resides in Los Angeles, furthering her dance experiences and passions. This is Sofia's first season with the Freaks.
Dancer
Michael Hill
Michael Hill grew up dancing, leaving home at 15 to pursue it professionally. He was trained at the Next Generation Ballet, Canada's National Ballet School, Orlando Ballet School and Ballet West Academy Professional Training Division, as well as with masters such as Bruce Marks, Dinna Bjorn and Alonzo King. He has performed several corps roles with Ballet West, principal and soloist roles with Ballet West II, the Ballet Repertory Theater of New Mexico, Queen City Ballet, New West Ballet, and has also competed in the National High School Dance Festival and Youth America Grand Prix. He currently teaches at the West LA Academy of Dance and performs with companies such as Freaks With Lines, the Kenneth Walker Dance Project, San Pedro City Ballet and Ballet California.
Dancer
Leah McCall
Leah McCall grew up in Parker, Colorado, where she began her dance training with the National Ballet Academy of Denver. At 15, she began studying at Miami City Ballet School in their Professional Division. From there Leah made a transition into Boston Ballet School to finish her pre professional training. During her summers, Leah trained with SAB, Complexions, and Alonzo King's Lines Ballet. At 18, Leah was offered a place in Boston Ballet’s Trainee program, dancing there for two years before she landed a Corps de Ballet contract with Los Angeles Ballet in 2016.
While dancing with Los Angeles Ballet, Leah has had the opportunity to dance leading roles in work by: Christopher Wheeldon, Alejandro Cerrudo, Aszure Barton, Menghan Lou, and George Balanchine. Additionally, Leah was asked to return to Boston Ballet as a supplemental dancer for their spring season in 2017, where she had the opportunity to dance in their production of Sleeping Beauty and Balanchine's 'Stravinsky Violin Concerto'. Leah has also signed with a commercial dance agency, Bloc Talent Agency, as of 2019, so she can participate in freelance opportunities and commercial work during her off season from Los Angeles Ballet.
Dancer
Breanne Wilson
Originally from Calgary, Alberta Brianna relocated to Arizona and received a BFA in dance from the University of Arizona School of dance with a complimenting minor in Business. Now in Los Angeles Brianna is represented by Go 2 Talent Agency. She performed in the 25thAnniversary production of Art on Ice in Switzerland touring the country with Aloe Blacc, Rebecca Ferguson, Bligg and Bastian Baker. Other recent credits include La Traviata with LA Opera and Singin’ in the Rain with McCoy Rigby Entertainment where she performed the iconic dance role of “the girl in the green dress” originated by Cyd Charisse. Before moving to Los Angeles, Breanne performed as a company member with Odyssey Dance Theatre in Salt Lake City. She completed 3 European tours performing throughout Germany, Switzerland and France. Breanne also performed as the lead aerialist in King Triton’s Concert where she played Ariel at Tokyo Disney Sea. She has danced works by George Balanchine, Sean Cheesman, Spencer Liff, Kitty McNamee, Mia Michaels, Larry Keigwin, Gary Chryst, Ann Reinking, Sherry Zunker, Bonnie Story, Ernie Flatt, Garrett Smith, and Derryl Yeager. This is Breanne's first season with the Freaks.