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Lia Smith-Redmann dancer photographed by RayNard Imagemaker.  

Join Us!

Sat. Dec. 6, 2025
6-8 PM
The DAAC in Grand Rapids, MI

Join us for an evening filled with community gathering, a fundraising raffle, light bites and our first annual WMDF Film Fest! Several films will be shown for our first ever film festival.

Purchase Tickets!

Our yearly festival and our first Film Fest is not possible without your support! Click below to purchase tickets to our Film Fest as well as raffle tickets as part of our fundraising efforts. We appreciate you!

Want to donate a raffle item? Email us at: westmichigandancefestival@gmail.com

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Movement Reservoir 
photographed by RayNard Imagemaker.  

How to Apply

Fill out the submission form with your information by November 16, 2025. Films will be reviewed by our team and our team of adjudicators. Five films will be selected to be shown at the event!

Questions? Email us at: westmichigandancefestival@gmail.com

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Dance PlayHouse photographed by RayNard Imagemaker.  

Film Fest Adjudicators

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Michaela Neild, Board Member

MICHAELA "M" NEILD (she/they), is an interdisciplinary artist, dance educator, movement coach, and nonprofit professional based in Buffalo, NY. As an independent artist, M is engaged with improvisation and multidisciplinary investigation, community-building, seeking liberation through storytelling, and the sharing of space. They earned their MFA in Dance and Nonprofit Studies from The Ohio State University and their BFA in Dance Performance & Choreography from SUNY University at Buffalo.

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While M is primarily a dancer, she enjoys infusing her choreography with other visual, video, and installation art mediums. Their choreographic process is experiential, collaborative, and emergent—combining traditional compositional techniques with devising theatre techniques, improvisational games, and chance operation structures. More often than not, M enters the creative process by facilitating discussions and cultivating experiences that pull a central theme for the creative work out of the people she engages with—viewing the challenges, perspectives, combined talents, cultures, and possibilities that emerge as inspiration.

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When M isn't performing or choreographing, they can be found working behind the scenes as a freelance grant writer and program manager for arts nonprofits and independent artists. In these roles, M aims to build infrastructures that open doors for who gets to participate in dance, who gets to watch dance, and how dance happens. M is also the proud founder of Creative Care With Michaela, a sliding-scale healthy aging service dedicated to helping elders age actively, creatively, and independently through movement and therapeutic arts coaching.

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Contact

website: www.michaelaneild.com

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Kelsey Lee

Kelsey Lee (she/they) is an interdisciplinary artist who expands the language of dance by embracing speech, visual art, and digital media to create strange yet familiar worlds. Her choreography has been presented all over the country
and abroad, including Midwest RAD Fest (MI), Milwaukee Fringe Festival (WI), Cleveland Dance Festival (OH), the McGuffey Art Center (VA), and Ponderosa (Germany), to name a few. In 2024, they founded Dance PlayHouse in
Grand Haven, MI. She began her training at the Dance Factory in Delavan, WI where she studied Ballet, Modern, and Jazz dance. They have a BFA in Contemporary Dance & Choreography with a double major in Psychology from UW-Milwaukee. After graduation, she completed a Meisner technique training program at The Acting Studio in NYC. They have worked as a professional actor in both theatre and film productions, with roles including Cecile from the musical, “Annie”, and Amber from the feature-length film, “The Color Yellow”. They have danced professionally with Hixon Dance, Currents Dance Theatre, Hyperlocal MKE, Quasimondo Milwaukee Physical Theatre, Columbus Modern Dance Company, Gina Laurenzi Dance Project, and Peter Stathas Dance.

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Contact

website: www.danceplayhouse.com

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