Faculty
Meredith Wells
Meredith Wells has been educating youth in the art of ballet since 2003. She has taught at well-renowned ballet schools, recreational programs and public schools as well as coaching gymnasts and adult students. After years of exploring many outlets to share her knowledge, she is overjoyed to have created développé, a unique dance education program to foster the technique, desire and life skills that aspiring young dancers need to make their way in the world of dance.
Meredith’s ballet path started in Minneapolis where she studied at Ballet Arts Minnesota. Opting to pursue a college education post high school, she went on to Hampshire College where she focused her studies on child psychology and movement therapy. During her second year of college, she found herself dreaming of nothing but dancing professionally, so she took leave from her education and pursued a career on the stage. She moved to Atlanta, GA where she danced with Atlanta Festival Ballet for the ‘02-’03 season. In 2003 Meredith moved to Newport, RI to join Island Moving Company (IMC) where she was a company member until her retirement in 2013. It was there that she began her professional teaching career; working with the students of Newport Academy of Ballet, Rosemary’s School of Dance and teaching in the local public schools through the outreach program that IMC provided. When not teaching or on contract, she worked as a guest artist for Spindle City Ballet and Tony Williams’ Urban Nutcracker. In ‘13, Meredith retired from a full-time performance career, married her husband Jon and moved to Natick, MA. Since moving to MA, she has taught for NorthEast Rhythmic Gymnastics, Suzanne’s Dance Connection, Walnut Hill School for the Arts, Koltun Ballet Boston, Revolution Trapeze and has taught open classes at The Dance Complex and Green Street Studios. She loves nothing more than helping dancers to find the potential that is within themselves and is beyond excited to have created a space where she can do that for her dancers every day.
Kristin Wagner
Kristin Wagner is a movement enthusiast living, learning and growing in Boston, MA. Kristin has been performing with a number of local contemporary dance theater companies and freelance choreographers, in addition to working as an educator and arts administrator within a number of Massachusetts dance institutions, since 2012.
She currently performs with KAIROS Dance Theater, for whom she currently serves as Rehearsal Director and Principal Dancer, and Peter DiMuro/Public Displays of Motion. She creates her own work both independently and with her partner Tony Guglietti as “Decent Dance.” Over the last decade, Kristin has had the honor of performing on stages at Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Boston Center for the Arts, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Jordan Hall, The Dance Complex, and Green Street Studios, among others. Her choreographic work has been presented across the Northeast, including at Starlight Square, the Salem Arts Festival, Boston University, The Dance Complex, Lincoln Center, Tufts University, Harvard University, AS220, the Boston Center for the Arts Mills Gallery, and the Maine International Film Festival, among others.
Kristin is passionate about supportive, rigorous, and eclectic dance education, and has shared her movement philosophies with students ranging from youth to adult in competitive, pre-professional, and collegiate environments across Massachusetts. She is currently on faculty at the New England Conservatory, North Atlantic Dance Theatre The School, and Wilmington Dance Academy, and is a guest teaching artist at Free Form Dance Academy and Koltun Ballet Boston. In 2021, Kristin became a Yoga Alliance Certified RYT-200 through Jenny Lane Yoga. Her dance and movement courses are greatly influenced by the art and science of yoga and yogic philosophy, and her yoga practice is deeply informed by her experiences as a performing artist. In both dance and yoga, Kristin is guided by the belief that authentic, uncensored movement can be a pathway for personal growth, authenticity, and healing.
Kristin is a certified artist in the City of Boston and has been awarded support for her work as a maker and producer from the New England Foundation for the Arts, the City of Boston, the Somerville Arts Council, the Brookline Commission for the Arts, and MASS MoCA’s Assets for Artists program. She holds a B.A. in Hospitality Administration with a minor in dance from Boston University (2012, summa cum laude). Learn more at www.bodiesmoving.com.
Olivia Coombs
Olivia began studying ballet under Jessica Wilson throughout her childhood. After high school, she studied for two years at the Alonzo King Lines Ballet training program where is she not only developed her technique, but began to push the limits on classical ballet and began to recognize her passion for contemporary dance. In 2013 Olivia apprenticed with Dawson Wallace Dance Project in Denver for one season. The following year she performed work by Ismael Ivo as part of a special research project at ImpulsTanz in Vienna, Austria and Sao Paulo, Brazi. In 2018 she became a founding company member of Boston Dance Theater, founded, and under the direction of Jessie Jeanne Stinnett. Coombs since has performed works by Jessie Jeanne Stinnett, Yin Yue, Sidra Bell, Shannon Gillen, Micaela Taylor, Rena Butler, Marco Goecke and co-artistic director Itzik Galili.
Olivia has been teaching throughout Boston Dance Theaters’ educational programs, and last year taught at Concord Academy. Olivia is so thrilled to be starting with Développé to continue to translate her knowledge to the next generation!
Onalie Arts
Onalie joins Développé after moving to the area from western MA, where she was a teacher, coach and rehearsal assistant for 15 years with Pioneer Valley Ballet in Easthampton. For the past thirty-plus years she has taught in numerous studios throughout MA, NH and VA; including Smith College and Dean College as Adjunct faculty. In addition to ballet and pointe classes, through the years she has taught variations, repertoire, anatomy, injury prevention for dancers, yoga, dance history, composition and choreography, strength and conditioning, and Progressing Ballet Technique. While at PVB she set her own choreography on students as well as sections of Les Sylphides and Paquita, and rehearsed students of all ages for the annual Nutcracker and sprint shows. Onalie is also a trained Massage Therapist, having studied at the Massage Institute of New England in Cambridge. Her studies and work as a LMT and as a Vinyasa yoga instructor has influenced her approach in guiding young dancers as they grow and evolve in their training and artistry.
Onalie received a BFA in Dance from SUNY Purchase after attending Boston Ballet School as a young student and graduating from Walnut Hill School of the Arts in Natick. She then went on to dance professionally with Minnesota Dance Theatre, Connecticut Ballet Theatre, North Atlantic Ballet, New Jersey Ballet, and as a guest artist with Ballet New England. After she retired from professional ballet career she danced with two modern companies based in Boston: Anna Myer and Dancers, and Nicola Hawkins Dance Company. Throughout her dancing she continued to study with oustanding teachers in Boston and NYC who shaped her as an artist and as a dancer; Larissa Lubivschuk, Skip Warren, Roseann Ridings, Marcus Schulkind, Willy Burmann, Madame Gabrielle Darvash, and Zena Rommett, as well as many others who provided guidance and insight along the way.
Onalie is delighted to be joining the faculty at Développé and to continue to share the passion of ballet and dance with this beautiful group of young dancers.
Alexandria Nunweiler
Alexandria Nunweiler is a contemporary choreographer, performer, and educator based in Boston, MA. Her movement, described by Dance Informa as “grace with power,” is rooted in history, human experience, and the fine line between darkness and humor. Alexandria earned her B.A. in Dance from Winthrop University where her thesis “Valhallveien” represented the university at the American College Dance Festival Southeast in 2014. She also holds her MSc in International Business from Hult International Business School, studying in both Boston, MA and Shanghai, China, as well as her 200-hour RYT which she brings into both yoga and dance spaces as a framework for how she organizes and translates movement practices.
As a choreographer and producer, Alexandria’s work has been featured up and down the east coast in the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, BOOM Fringe Festival, Dance Complex’s A Drop in the Bucket, NACHMO Boston, and the Charlotte New Music Festival Dance Co-Lab, among others. She also co-produces the annual series ‘CURE8’ alongside collaborator Ashlea Sovetts, which premiered in 2022 in Cambridge, MA and has since extended into Charleston, SC. Alexandria’s work has been funded through New England Foundation for the Arts, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the South Carolina Arts Commission and Alternate ROOTS.
In performance, Alexandria works within The Click, performing in works devised by Kristin Wagner (make light: or how I survived it all), Lonnie Stanton (Emotive Land), and Angelina Benitez (My Guide to Feeling It All). Her past performance work has been with Brian Feigenbaum, Tony Guglietti, THE MARK dance company, Martha Connerton/Kinetic Works, and staibdance. As an educator, Alexandria holds space for intuitive learning and dives deeply into improvisation as a mode of movement understanding.