CREDIT: Charles Stonewall

REBKA SAKATI Take the Stage Artistic Director and Teaching Artist     
At the age of 5, Rebka first fell in love with dance:  the joy of movement thrilled her; the chance for creative expression captured her imagination.  From that early age, she came to thrive in the dance studio, where beyond the study of technique, she learned some of life’s most important lessons about community, personal discipline, hard work and perseverance.      

After graduating cum laude from Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, Rebka embarked upon a professional performing career that spanned two decades.  A former member of Kansas City Ballet, Charleston Ballet Theatre, Columbia City Ballet, Ballethnic Dance Company, and Wylliams-Henry Danse Theatre, Rebka enjoyed performing a diverse repertoire of works ranging from classical ballet to African dance.  Most recently, she is privileged to have been both dancer and rehearsal director for Owen/Cox Dance Group.

Grateful to share her love of dance with students of all ages, Rebka has conducted outreach classes for the Kansas City Ballet and served on the faculties for Ailey Camp Missouri, Ballethnic Academy of Dance, Columbia Conservatory of Ballet, and Wesleyan College.  While living in Georgia, she was Dance Program Director for both the Booker T. Washington Center and MidSummer Macon. In Nebraska, she served as an administrative assistant at the School of Ballet Omaha, and worked extensively as an Artistic Coach to the area’s aspiring young figure skaters. 

From her own personal journey, Rebka understands that engagement in the arts can be a life-changing transformative experience.  Working in collaboration with Owen/Cox Dance, she launched Take the Stage to offer high-quality arts education to underserved student populations.  Rebka is proud to work with the outstanding artists of Owen/Cox Dance Group and the Greater Kansas City area to uplift children, and help them learn the keys to success through a dynamic and positive experience in the arts.  She is thrilled to have this opportunity to extend the long-lasting benefits of arts education to children throughout our community. 

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.

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.

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!

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.

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