creating original story ballets meant to represent, reflect and reveal the triumphs and failures of modern society
About
Vaught Contemporary Ballet was founded in January 2015 by artistic director, Katie Vaught. VCB creates original story ballets meant to represent, reflect and reveal the triumphs and failures of modern society. The company is based in Baltimore, MD and has shown work at Baltimore Theatre Project, The Chrysalis, The Jack Guidone Theater, Joe’s Movement Emporium, and Dance Place.
“…a perfect display of Vaught’s provoking aesthetic…brimming with stellar technique, control, innovation, and strength.“
Kateri Pelton, Maryland Theatre Guide (Memento Mori, April 2022)
The Company
Margot Hartley
Margot Hartley is a ballet and contemporary dancer, originally from upstate New York. As a teenager, they relocated to New York City to attend the Joffrey Ballet School on merit scholarship. Margot has danced in numerous Merce Cunningham Trust Fellowship workshops and New York Fashion Week, and acted in a short film featured in Pierre Chareau: Modern Architecture and Design at the Jewish Museum. In 2018, they toured California and Moscow with Vladimir Varnava’s evening-length work ISADORA, featuring Natalia Osipova. Since 2019, Margot has been a member of Gleich Dances, an NYC-based contemporary ballet company. This is their first season with Vaught Contemporary Ballet.
Noah Lewis
Noah Lewis is Philadelphia based freelance dance artist. She began her training at Dance Expressions in 2004; studying Ballet, Tap, Jazz, Modern, and Hip Hop. In 2012 Noah joined her studios company, by 2014 she was a member of the Senior Company. Noah graduated from the University of the Arts with a BFA in dance, under Dean Donna Faye Burchfield. At UArts she participated in works by Tommie Waheed-Evans and Katie Swords-Thurman, Meredith Rainey, Shen Wei, and Monte Romero. Noah Lewis has participated in short term intensives with Alvin Ailey, Long Island University, and Christopher K. Morgan & Artists. In pursuit to further her dance training, Noah currently teaches students in a Philadelphia after school program.
Zoë Brielle Payne
Zoë Brielle Payne is a West Virginian site-specific dance artist, choreographer, teaching artist, and student based in Baltimore MD. She dances to create and perform work that empowers others to realize that there is a world bigger and broader than themselves; to illuminate an experience of self-awareness and contemplation. To engage the audience in a sojourn, or journey within themselves, but also more subjectively to their environment. Her own choreographic work also incorporates her multimedia interests through projection, paint and external “found” materials. Zoë has a diverse dance background that includes a variety of western dance styles as well as West African, Baltimore Club, Swing Dancing & traditional Appalachian Square Dancing.
Lex Vautrin
Lex Vautrin began her training at the age of nine at a competition-based studio in upstate New York. During her high school training she attended summer intensives at the Dance Theatre of Harlem and the American Academy of Ballet. She graduated with a BFA in Dance and a Minor in Creative Writing from the University of the Arts in May 2022, under Dean Donna Faye Burchfield. Lex Vautrin participated as a field study intern with PHILADANCO, where she studied with the company and Danco 2, and assisted with administrative duties. At the University of the Arts she performed works by Tommie Waheed-Evans and Katie Swords Thurman, Shayla-Vie Jenkins and Jesse Zarrit, Sidra Bell, Thom White, Helen Simonaeu, Merce Cunningham, and Joanna Kotze. In July of 2022 Lex Vautrin participated in the Merce Cunningham Fellowship Workshops and performed a restaging of Loosestrife. Most recently Lex performed ‘Lectric Eye by Joanna Kotza at New York Live Arts. Lex is based in Philadelphia and currently works as a freelance dance artist and teaches Pure Barre classes.
Katie Vaught, Artistic Director
Vaught trained at Vostrikov’s Academy of Ballet, Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet and Shenandoah University. She danced with Mich-Mash Productions and Deviated Theatre and worked as a dance instructor in the DMV for over a decade. Her work has been shown at Baltimore Theatre Project, Joe’s Movement Emporium, The Chrysalis, The Jack Giudone Theater, Atlas Performing Arts Center, and Dance Place. She received the Marc Ryder Choreography Grant in 2017.
Vaught Contemporary Ballet 
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