RFHGC - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Vice President
- NYC Rehearsal Director
Devon McLeod is a business minded, Marketing & Consulting executive who holds a Bachelor of Science in Business from New York University Stern School of Business. She is a Martin Luther King Jr. Scholar from NYU, President's Service Award Winner, and John Stevenson Leadership and Community Building Award recipient. Her expertise lies in master organizational planning, diversity and inclusion work, process innovation, and is a highly skillful producer. Her breadth of people management and event knowledge spans from large scale festivals, theater productions, designer weddings, and intimate cultivation dinners. Currently, Devon is a Field Marketing Manager at Wunderkind and a Wedding Manager at The Get Together Events Co. in NYC. Ms. McLeod has also held a position as the Coordinator of Major Gifts and the Young Patrons Circle at the New York City Ballet and worked as a Production Assistant at Once the Musical on Broadway. She is the Vice President of the New York Institute of Dance & Education Inc, the New York Dance Festival, and Reaching For Higher Ground Consulting. Devon has acquired multiple levels of certification in McLeod Technique Modern and Reinforced Motor Function, and has traveled extensively internationally and in the US teaching and assisting in Workshops, Master Classes, and Teacher Certifications. She is on the Kaleidoscope Dance Theatre Board of Directors, a 501c3 non-profit organization, and an Advisory Panelist for the New York State Council on the Arts. She is also a Founding Member of the Queens Hub of the Global Shapers, an initiative of the World Economic Forum.
While completing her BS in Business at the NYU Stern School of Business she earned over $150,000 in Scholarship support. At NYU she worked in the NYU Stern Undergraduate Office of Student Engagement, was a Stern Undergraduate Orientation Leader and Cohort Leadership Program Guide, and was appointed Social Media Director of the Stern Street Team, the college's admissions ambassadors program. Devon was also the Vice Chair of the NYU 1831 Fund, helping lead the fund from 20% senior class participation rate to 50% in just one year. She was invited by Dean Peter Henry to join the Stern School of Business Diversity and Inclusion Task Force that included Stern Undergraduate and Graduate Deans, professors, and students to address the Schools forward thinking on Inclusion and Equity. Her work with this committee led to the creation of an Associate Dean of Diversity and Inclusion position, who oversees an ever growing Office of Diversity and Inclusion. Currently she sits on the NYU Stern Alumni Council, co-chairing the Black and Latino Alumni Committee.
Devon is the NYC Rehearsal Director and a First Company Soloist for the Kaleidoscope Dance Theatre. She traveled to England with the Kaleidoscope Dance Theatre where she had her international dance debut in "Roarin' the 20's" at the Haymarket Theatre. Ms. McLeod subsequently traveled and performed with the company nationally to Wilmington, Delaware's Grand Theater and New York City's famed Symphony Space. She toured to Winnipeg, MB for the Moving Inspirations Festival where KDT worked with Casimiro Nhussi, artistic director of NaFro Dance Productions, Zab Maboungou, founder of Compagnie Danse Nyata Nyata and Kevin A. Ormsby, Artistic Director of KasheDance and performed at the Gas Station Arts Centre. Since being named NYC Rehearsal Director in 2014, she has performed at Alvin Ailey's Joan Weill Center for Dance and the School of American Ballet at Lincoln Center and toured to Germany and Italy.
Devon McLeod Vice President Devon McLeod is a business minded, Marketing & Consulting executive who holds a Bachelor of Science in Business from New York University Stern School of Business. She is a Martin Luther King Jr. Scholar from NYU, President's Service Award Winner, and John Stevenson Leadership and Community Building Award recipient. Her expertise…
Job Titles:
- National Director
- Kierstyn Zaykoski National Director
- National Director for the New York Institute of Dance & Education
Kierstyn Zaykoski is National Director for the New York Institute of Dance & Education, Reaching for Higher Ground Consulting, and part of the Executive Implementation team for Global Initiatives. She is an Executive Coach and Organizational Health Manager Nationally, guiding clients to solutions that set trends and answer necessary questions. Kierstyn has a diverse experience and expertise in the arts, business, and performance; but also, universal and specific understanding others may not, being a white woman who has earned her way to helping to lead a Black and women led arts organization for more than a decade. As a designer and producer, she is extremely well versed in event operations, graphic and film design, marketing and advertising, and leads the Media Production division for the Institute's Global and National footprint.
As a facilitator, Kierstyn has led many political and corporate forums and was the Chair of IGNITE - Cayuga County's Young Professionals Organization as part of the Chamber of Commerce. She has hosted Republican and Democratic Debates, Political Town Halls, and facilitated training and Panel Discussions. Kierstyn has taught and tutored all ages Internationally for over a decade both in person and online, She co-founded the Kid Land University Language Company and specializes in global teaching of English as a second language.
Kierstyn is a McLeod Technique and Reinforced Motor Function ® expert, and worked with Ph.D. Alison C. DeSimone, Ph.D. Alison H. Graettinger, and Karen Brown (Ballet legend, Dance Theatre of Harlem) all University of Missouri at Kansas City Professors, as well as with McLeod Technique Founder Sean McLeod (President, New York Institute of Dance & Education) creating a UMKC version of a national College Course. Dance Science: McLeod Technique Reinforced Motor Function (a Black-created dance Technique); gained approval from the UMKC Essentials Executive Committee and the Assessment Committee, and became an Essential Course at the University in 2021, one of the country's only Black-created dance vocabularies taught at university.
Ms. Zaykoski is a certified Master Teacher and a graduate of the State University of New York at Potsdam with a degree in Early Childhood/ Childhood Education and a minor in Dance. She is a New York Dance Festival Choreographic Fellow at the School of American Ballet and preparing works for premiere in Europe in 2024. Kierstyn is a Principal Soloist of Classical Ballet and Modern Dance, and a choreographer with the Kaleidoscope Dance Theatre. In a tour through Europe, she premiered a new choreographic work Oublié: Le Don de la Pandémie, for Pointe, exploring the impact of Covid, at the Dora Stratou Theatre in Athens Greece in June of 2023. The work was created by American Director and Choreographer, Sean McLeod, and composed by Emmy Nominated Composer Ryan Chase. Additionally, she has toured, teaching, and lecturing internationally to Barbados, Italy, and Canada, Germany, Czech Republic, Greece and has performed on professional stages in New York City, Kansas, Italy, Greece, and Barbados.
Kierstyn Zaykoski National Director Kierstyn Zaykoski is National Director for the New York Institute of Dance & Education, Reaching for Higher Ground Consulting, and part of the Executive Implementation team for Global Initiatives. She is an Executive Coach and Organizational Health Manager Nationally, guiding clients to solutions that set trends and answer necessary questions. Kierstyn…
Lorienne Beals is an accomplished international performer and educator. Having trained at Purchase Conservatory of Dance, Studio Harmonic in Paris, and the New York Institute of Dance and Education, Lorienne has performed and taught internationally for the past decade. She has been the VP of Operations for the New York Institute of Dance and Education, core faculty of the American Master Class Tour series, Associate Director of the Sean McLeod Dance Experience, and Director and Principal with Kaleidoscope Dance Theatre. Lorienne has been a faculty member and an Associate Producer of the New York Dance Festival. She is the Development Director of an arts integration focused not-for-profit based in southern Maryland, Story Tapestries, Inc.
Ms. Beals is bi-lingual in French, learning Italian, and holds three professional designations recognized in the finance industry. Lorienne is as well versed in the corporate world as she is in dance, and has seamlessly weaved an approach to business and dance that allows her to do both at the International level.
Lorienne spent a year living and working in England for ITT Corporation, and performed and taught for Fairfields Arts Centre, the Basingstoke Academy of Dancing, and helped administer the first England certification workshop for "MT Reinforced Motor Function" at the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dance (ISTD) studios in London, for the Society of Teachers of Alexander Technique (STAT). Lorienne is certified to teach, and is one of only a few authorized to certify teachers in MT Modern (McLeod Technique) and Reinforced Motor Function ® (RMF). Most recently she taught MT techniques including RMF as well as classical ballet, jazz, hip-hop and musical theatre in Maryland and in DC, as well as choreographed for the youth company, Chrysalis Dance Company. She was featured as a guest artist with VTDance performing at The Kennedy Center and Ballet Teatro Internacional performing at The Shakespeare Company's Harman Center for the Arts.
Ms. Beals has toured with the unique, interactive dance company, "The Family Dance Company", and was a featured artist in the International Drummer and Dancer Tour. She has performed in a multitude of productions as a solo artist and with various groups in venues including the Great Blue Heron Music Festival to an audience of over 6,000, as well as in Manhattan, Pittsburgh, Delaware, Washington, DC and other US cities, as well as in England, the Caribbean, and Tunisia, Africa. She currently resides in northern Italy and continues to work and travel as a master teacher, choreographer and performer.
Lorienne Beals Lorienne Beals is an accomplished international performer and educator. Having trained at Purchase Conservatory of Dance, Studio Harmonic in Paris, and the New York Institute of Dance and Education, Lorienne has performed and taught internationally for the past decade. She has been the VP of Operations for the New York Institute of Dance…
Sean McLeod is an Executive Producer, Award Winning Businessman, and American Choreographer whose work spans more than 30 years and 3 continents including New York City, across the US, and internationally to the West Indies, the Caribbean, Europe, and Africa. Sean is founder of Reaching for Higher Ground Consulting - a Communication, Performance, and Development Company, President of Kaleidoscope Dance Theatre, and is Executive Producer of the Harriet Tubman Freedom Music Festival, New York Dance Festival and the Global Dance Initiative. He has worked with several Senators and Congressmen and is a Conference Designer, Fortune 500 Executive Life Coach, Mediation Expert, and Motivational Speaker that uses the arts to teach Personality Development and Emotional Development for Corporations and Executives. He teaches Life Skills to Teens, habit shedding to Adults, and racial innovation Training for schools & universities.
Sean McLeod is President of the New York Institute of Dance & Education and the recipient of countless awards including the coveted Jefferson Award for Public Service to America founded by the late Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, the New York State Liberty Award (the NY Senate's highest honor), and the NAACP Trailblazers Medal of Honor. Sean was inducted into the Auburn Music Hall of Fame and is presently working with the legendary Wycliffe Gordon on new arrangements of "A Soundtrack for Harriet Tubman," a suite of songs he composed nearly 30 years ago. Sean is noted for promoting talent everywhere he works and has personally awarded over 400 thousand dollars to established and emerging artists.
Mr. McLeod attended the Conservatory of Dance at the State University of New York at Purchase and has established himself as successful Consultant and Executive Corporate Advisor. An expert creator, strategist, and wordsmith, he assists CEO's and their teams connect their products with greater audience understanding and appeal.
Sean is a Master Teacher and acknowledged developer of movement systems, most notably his codified McLeod Technique "MT", MT Afro Hip Hop, Training For Athletes - TFA , and Reinforced Motor Function ® RMF which are taught globally. Mr. McLeod works in New York City as well as in major cities across the Globe. He is an expert in Emotional Development, Personality Development and Body Alignment and created the syllabus for university study at the State University Of New York at Cayuga College that he also taught at RIT. Sean developed the Black Ballet Discovery Project, the Black Ballet Creative Workshops, and launched the Black Ballet Choreographers Symposium and Commision Conference in LA in 2018 launched with Denise Saunders Thompson and the International Association of Blacks in Dance. He believes you can be anything you want, provided you prepare yourself, share immensely, and help others be significant too.
As a Black Intellect Sean has had countless commissions from Universities to the Federal Government. He has provided master classes, taught, or lectured about business and the arts for several colleges and universities including Wells College, Syracuse University, Rochester Institute of Technology, Howard University, Purchase College, Adelphi University and more.
For nearly 30 years Sean has led the Applied Study Program at NYIDE providing business, teaching, and performance training for college students, emerging and professional dancers, and dance teachers. That program led to the creation of a Partnership with Cayuga Community College where Sean's turn key and time tested dance development programs were introduced through the Continuing Education division of the two year college.
As a Black Choreographer Sean has had countless commissions from Universities to the Federal Government. At the beginning of his career Sean McLeod used choreography and dance to present experiences that challenged the way minorities and people of color are seen in contemporary society. 30 years later Sean additionally uses movement to help women and girls around the globe to find their self value in life and survive well in dance. Sean McLeod is an altruistic "believer in people," whose purpose is moving people to tangible action, personal responsibility and aiding those in social conflict.
To meet this need, Sean McLeod founded the New York Institute of Dance & Education; Kaleidoscope Dance Theatre (KDT); the New York Dance Festival; the New York Center for Health and Healing; the Fine Arts Dance Association (FADA); the Educational Tour on Self-esteem through Dance; Community of Color World Culture Celebration; Circles-Expanding Horizons Program; Mission to South Africa; Reaching for Higher Ground Consulting, Change International, "Moving Past Racism" City Healing Series, the Carmen De La Vallade Award for Dance, the Janet Collins Fellowship, the Global Dance Initiative and more.
Sean McLeod Founder Sean McLeod is an Executive Producer, Award Winning Businessman, and American Choreographer whose work spans more than 30 years and 3 continents including New York City, across the US, and internationally to the West Indies, the Caribbean, Europe, and Africa. Sean is founder of Reaching for Higher Ground Consulting - a Communication,…