Katie Diamond began her professional dance experience in the world of ballet, complete with Balanchine ballets, pink tights and pointe shoes. At the age of 19, she traded both in for sneakers and life as a nanny, and spent countless hours in bass-filled clubs of San Francisco. Nearly four years later, she returned to formal dance training at California Institute of the Arts, where she earned her BFA and was selected to study abroad at London Contemporary Dance School.  In 2005, Katie began performing with the Limon Dance Company, with which she has danced works by Jose Limon, Doris Humphrey, Anna Sokolow, Lar Lubovitch, Jiri Kylian.  She has also enjoyed a rewarding freelance career, performing with Mark Morris Dance Group, The Met Opera, Daniel Charon, Pam Tanowitz, Colin Connor, Jonathan Fredrickson, and Jessica Gaynor.  She is on faculty at the Limon Institute and guest teaches at universities, festivals, and schools nationally and abroad.  Katie is grateful to her family and friends for their unwavering support, and to Ellen for her unique inspiration.  She began working with Cornfield Dance in 2009.

Carol Mullins - Lighting Designer

Award winning designer Carol Mullins has been designing lighting since the mid-70s, and has been the Resident Lighting Designer for the Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church since 1982. She co-edited (with Douglas Dunn) Danspace — 25 Years, a dance history. She has designed lighting for Douglas Dunn, collaborating with artists such as David Ireland, Mimi Gross and Charlie Atlas. She has designed for Elizabeth Streb at the Kitchen; for Wendy Perron at the Lincoln Center Festival; for John Kelly at the Joyce; for Steve Paxton and Lisa Nelson in Sao Paolo, Helsinki, Montpelier and Marseilles; and for Ellen Cornfield in Paris, Poland, Russia and in the U.S. She has designed for several Charles Weidman/Doris Humphrey programs at BAM’s Lepercq Space and at the Kennedy Center, and other venues.

In theater, she designed for Anne Bogart, including Marathon Dancing at the Grand Ballroom in the Masonic Hall, Another Person is a Foreign Country at an abandoned Victorian hospital, and the Obie-winning No Plays, No Poetry but . . . at the Ohio Theater. She has designed for Talking Band, Jim Neu’s Undercurrent Incorporated at Mladinsko Theater in Ljubljana and Ellen Stuart’s Perseus at the La MaMa Annex, and many more. She conducted workshops in lighting for dancers and choreographers for the Instituto de Bellas Artes in Mexico City and at the Polli Talu Art Center in Estonia. In 1999 she received a NYSCA Commissioning Grant for Individual Artists to collaborate on the Talking Band’s Tilt at La MaMa. She has received 3 New York Dance and Performance Awards (Bessies) and a 2003 OBIE for lighting The Talking Band’s Painted Snake on a Painted Chair.


Renée Kurz - Costume Designer

Renée Kurz, originally from Northwest Arkansas, studied dance and fashion at Missouri State University. Renée has designed costumes for Cornfield Dance’s two evening length works Fault Lines and Dance for a Small Room. She has also designed for VIA Dance Collaborative, Jessica Gaynor Dance, and Philippa Kaye Company.  As a dancer she has currently performed with Saint Michael’s Warriors Dance Company, Jessica Gaynor Dance, and VIA Dance Collaborative.  She has also worked with choreographers Daniel Charon, Gudbjorg Arnalds, Jessica Kondrath, and Noémie Lafrance. Renée is currently in India teaching dance to children.