Emily Mushinski 
Take the Stage Artistic Director  
​Emily Mushinski grew up in the Kansas City area. She started dancing at the age of 3, and fell in love with movement. At the age of 11, she began training at American Dance Center under the instruction of Kristopher Estes-Brown and Jennifer Tierney. She was a member of American Youth Ballet and performed lead roles in ballets such as The Firebird, Swan Lake, and The Nutcracker. 

Emily received her BFA in dance from SUNY Purchase College where graduated summa cum laude and was the recipient of the SUNY Chancellor's Award. Emily has attended summer intensives with Joffrey Midwest, Boston Ballet, LINES Ballet, Ballet X, and Trisha Brown Dance Company. Emily has a diverse performance background and has performed works by choreographers such as George Balanchine, Trisha Brown, Gregory Dolbashian, Gabrielle Lamb, Caili Quan, Kameron Saunders, and Manuel Vignoulle. In 2015, she studied for a semester at Codarts University in Rotterdam, Netherlands. In 2018, Emily trained in the Elite Training Program and performed with Budapest Dance Theater in Hungary.

Emily started teaching dance at the age of 14 when she traveled to Panama and conducted free dance classes in rural villages near the Darien Rainforest. Her passion for the arts and for encouraging youth to discover their potential was strengthened through her work with JUNTOS Collective, Panama Mission Foundation, and India Gospel League. 

Currently, Emily teaches dance and yoga in the Kansas City area. She also continues to dance professionally with Owen/Cox Dance Group, where she has been a company member since 2017. In 2021, Emily became the Artistic Director of Take the Stage, an in-school dance outreach program. She lives with her husband and their beloved Doberman, Doris, in Overland Park. 

BRAD COX 
Take the Stage Music Director and Teaching Artist
​A composer in the uniquely American Ellington model, Brad is dedicated to forming long lasting relationships with musicians and writing music for those musicians. Brad is a founder and contributing composer to The People's Liberation Big Band of Greater Kansas City, and conceived and organized the ensemble’s versions of The Nutcracker and the Mouse King and The Battleship Potemkin. In addition to his work with Owen/Cox Dance Group, he has created compositions and arrangements for Sony Classical recording artist Nathan Granner, Grammy award-winning producer and engineer Russ Elevado, Paris-based songwriter Krystle Warren and nationally-recognized puppeteer Paul Mesner. Brad is a 2009 recipient of the Tanne Foundation Award, and 2010 recipient of the Charlotte Street Foundation Generative Performing Artist Award. Brad is pleased to lend his talents to Owen/Cox Dance Group’s outreach initiative--Take the Stage.
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PATRICK ALONZO CONWAY 
Teaching Artist
​Patrick Alonzo Conway is a percussionist, wind player and composer. He has studied with ethnomusicologist David Locke and such noted Master Drummers as Abubakari Lunna-Wumbie (Dagomba), Frisner Augustín (Haitian), Felipe Garcia Villamil, Alejandro Carvajal (AfroCuban) and I Ketut Gedé Asnawa (Balinese). Mr. Conway has traveled to Cuba to research Afro-Cuban Folklore through the Escuela National de Arté in Santiago de Cuba and Havana, and also to Bali to research traditional and modern Balinese music where he had his composition Sekar Purwa Pascima read by Kaliungu Kaja Banjar Gamelan, in Denpasar. 

He holds a Master of Music degree in Music Composition from the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music, was a founding member of the contemporary music ensemble newEar and has served as president and a member of the Board of Directors of the New Music Institute of Kansas City, Inc.. He has performed with the Gillham Park Orchtet, the Spoonbender Orchestra, Stimulus and Response Company, Grupo Aztlan, Mark Southerland’s Snuff Jazz/Wee Snuff, Mark Lowrey with Drums, Terrestrial Consort, and worked as performer and composer with Paul Mesner Puppets, City in Motion, and the UMKC Theater Department. Mr. Conway works with several ensembles under the auspices of the Traditional Music Society in Kansas City, as conga player with Mambo DeLeon Orquesta/Carte Blanc, as composer/performer with Gorilla Theater and the National Audio Theater Festivals, multi-instrumentalist with Brad Cox Ensemble and Owen/Cox Dance Group, as conga player with Chris Hazelton's Boogaloo 7 and also plays percussion, saxophone and bassoon with BCR and the Peoples Liberation Big Band of Greater KC. During two summers, he led Creative AfroCuban Projects as a part of the Studio150 arts-based youth job training program administered by the Arts Council of Metropolitan KC. He has been the director of Gamelan Genta Kasturi, a Balinese Gamelan Semaradana community ensemble, since the fall of 2006. Gamelan Genta Kasturi has been awarded Studio Space under the Urban Culture Project Studio Residency Program since 2011. 

Projects of note include work as music director/performer on the UMKC Theater Department’s MFA production of Rita Dove’s The Darker Face of the Earth directed by Ricardo Kahn, Artistic Director of the famed Crossroads Theater and organizing the production of a large collaborative interdisciplinary work entitled Angels & Demons at Play which was premiered as part of the ArtSounds series at the Kansas City Art Institute in early February 2011 and then presented as part of the Urban Culture Project at La Esquina in three performances in late February 2011. 

Mr. Conway was recipient of the Charlotte Street Foundation Generative Performing Artist Fellow Award in 2012. As part of the celebratory event attached to this award, a new work was created in collaboration with the other recipient, Heidi Van. Voyeur: an Urban Rhapsody, a Van windowplay with original music by Conway premiered on Oct 5, 2012 at The Fishtank Theater in the Crossroads Art District of Kansas City, MO.

Mark Lowrey 
​Teaching Artist
A Kansas City native, Mark Lowrey, pianist, has won the Village Voice's Pitch Music Award in the category "Best Solo Jazz Artist" for the last 4 years in a row.  Though primarily a jazz musician, he has performed regionally and nationally with classical vocalists, in salsa orchestras, chamber groups, folk/rock bands, and with hip hop artists.  In Kansas City, along with performing regularly with his trio and in all manner of jazz ensembles, Lowrey regularly engages in and produces shows with classical, rock, and world musicians, emcees, and actors.
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KATIE SCHILLING 
​Teaching Artist
Katie Schilling is proud to be a member of Take the Stage, where she can further inspire, educate, and enrich children's lives through the arts.  Katie had a tremendously fond childhood dance experience, one that has fueled a lifetime of learning multiple dance disciplines and a love of health and physical activity. 

Katie Schilling is a graduate of UMKC with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance Performance and a former Kansas City Ballet student apprentice and faculty member.  She has studied and performed with American Ballet Theatre New York, the Milwaukee Ballet School, Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet, The Jillana School, and the Rock School of Pennsylvania.  Katie has also had the opportunity to train in aerial arts and modern dance with local Kansas City companies such as Quixotic, REACH, and Kacico. 

Katie is currently a passionate dance teacher for Kansas City Young Audiences and Kansas City Community School of the Arts.  She is an avid yogi, dog lover, and ballroom dance enthusiast.  If you can not find her teaching, you can find her dancing!
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KIM SHOPE 
​Teaching Artist 
Kim is thrilled to be a part of Take the Stage and knows this program helps children develop discipline, a standard of excellence, and a belief in themselves that carries over into all aspects of their lives. Kim has been a part of Kansas City’s dance community since 1981. As the first graduate of the Kansas City Ballet School, she enjoyed a successful fourteen year career as a professional dancer. During this time she was chosen to further her skills and passion for dance by teaching in the company’s ballet school. Kim retired from Kansas City Ballet in 1998 and opened Midtown School of Dance so she could continue to share her love of dance. In September of 2007, Midtown School of Dance merged with Kansas City Young Audiences and their Community School of the Arts and Kim is now Head of the Dance Department. Kim completed the National Dance Institute New Mexico's Teacher Training in 2013 and utilizes their methods and pedagogy as a Teaching Artist with Take the Stage. In collaboration with KCYA, Kim also teaches Move It-Get Healthy workshops to teach the importance of healthy lifestyle choices through dance, and a Dance and Literacy program for K-6 grade students using movement and dance to engage students in essential foundational reading skills.
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SAM WISMAN 
​Teaching Artist
Drummer/percussionist Sam Wisman is a versatile fixture in Kansas City's thriving creative music scene. Originally from Topeka Kansas, he graduated Cum Laude from the UMKC Conservatory of Music in 2005 with a degree in percussion performance.  Sam is a member of Crosscurrent, the Mark Lowrey Trio, the Westport Art Ensemble, Kinnor Philharmonic, Marimba Sol de Chiapas, the Owen/Cox Dance Group, the People's Liberation Big Band, the Shay Estes Quartet, HoraceScope, and the Roger Wilder Quartet.  Sam has performed with the Kansas City Symphony, the Kansas City Jazz Orchestra, the Topeka Symphony, newEar Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, the St. Joseph Symphony, the Northland Symphony, Kansas City Puccini Fest, Krystle Warren, Bobby Watson, Angela Hagenbach, Kathleen Holeman, Terrell Stafford, Rob Scheps and many more.  He has worked as a percussionist in musical theater throughout the Midwest including the Kansas City Repertory Theater, Musical Theater Heritage, the Coterie Theater, Topeka Civic Theater, and Colombian Theater.  Sam has been involved in premieres by Harry Connick Jr., Stephen Schwartz, Henry Krieger & Bill Russell, and Ahrens & Flaherty.  Sam teaches drums and percussion at the University of Missouri - Kansas City Community Music and Dance Academy and is Instructor of Drumset at Missouri Southern State University.  You can also listen to Sam as a DJ for Jazz Afternoon on 90.1 FM KKFI

Celebrating Take the Stage Founder
Rebka Sakati!