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Courtney Laves-Mearini (Artistic Director)
Courtney Laves-Mearini received her training in Houston, Texas studying primarily under Anne and Nicolas Polajenko, Gilbert Rome, ABT’s Alexander Minz, Claire Duncan and James Clouser. She also had the opportunity to study with Fosse jazz dancer, Delia Weddington-Stewart for five years while growing up in Houston. She trained for a year at the University of Utah under Li-Chou Chang and had the opportunity to work with Sir Anton Dolin and Toni Lander, restaging Pas de Quatre in the role of Marie Taglioni. She danced with several ballet companies including Atlanta Ballet, South Carolina Ballet Theater and Cleveland San Jose Ballet. She danced lead roles in Serenade as the Russian Lead, soloist in Paquita, Sleeping Beauty as Princess Aurora, Concerto Borocco principal, Raymonda Variations soloist, and Lynn-Taylor Corbett’s Appearances.
Courtney has been teaching ballet since 1978 for various studios in Houston, Florida and Cleveland including teaching at the University of Akron’s dance department. She received her B.A. in Anthropology and Communications from Cleveland State University in 1997 and has excavated for three field seasons on the Maya Mountain Archaeological Project in Belize, Central America with Dr. Peter Dunham.
Heather Young (Executive Director)
Heather Young holds a Master of Fine Arts in Contemporary Dance from Case Western Reserve University and a Bachelor of Arts from Hamilton College. In July 2022, she was promoted to Executive Director of City Ballet of Cleveland. Prior to that time, she served as administrative assistant for the company. Mrs. Young is also the Office Manager and dance instructor at Cleveland City Dance and a yoga instructor at Yoga Roots. She has worked as an adjunct faculty at Lake Erie College, Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland State University. Mrs. Young was a Teaching Artist with Groundworks Dance Theater, an instructor for the Read to Learn…Dance to Move program with DANCECleveland, and has taught Yes!..I Can Move classes for people with Parkinson’s disease at InMotion.
Young has danced professionally with Antaeus Dance, Verlezza Dance Company, Marquez Dance Project, and Tikvah Company of Artists. She has performed in works by notable choreographers including Martha Graham, Pascal Rioult, Carolyn Dorfman, May O’Donnell, Amy Miller, and Elisa Monte. She recently returned to performing with Ajayi Dance, Sarah Holmes Villanueva and Marquez Dance Project.
Young is also a seasoned choreographer whose works have been performed at the Northeast Ohio Dance Festival, Case Western Reserve University, Allegheny College, and Hamilton College. In May 2013, she choreographed the 8th Grade Musical at Hathaway Brown School and in March 2014 choreographed Shrek the Musical at Euclid High School. Her work, Let My Hero In, premiered at Cleveland Public Theatre’s DanceWorks’14. She was also a choreographer for Cleveland Dance Exchange’s Top Ten during Cleveland Public Theatre’s DanceWorks’ 15. Mrs. Young has also been blessed with the opportunity to set works on City Ballet of Cleveland dancers for the Youth America Grand Prix.
Jessie Beck
Jessie Beck is an alumnus of Cleveland City Dance, where she trained under Courtney Laves-Mearini, Paul Wilson, and Linda Adolphi. She studied at the Washington School of Ballet and the Joffrey Ballet School in their summer intensive programs. She holds a BA in History from George Washington University and a JD from the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law. After more than a decade of living in the Pacific Northwest, she relocated to Cleveland in 2021. She is the Director of Rental Assistance at EDEN, Inc., a non-profit focused on ending homelessness in our community. She is a past board member of the Coalition Ending Gender-Based Violence in Seattle, WA.
Mary Braun
Mary Braun is a retired art teacher. After graduating from Case Western Reserve University, she began her teaching career in the Cleveland Public Schools in 1976. In 1978, she began teaching for Cleveland Heights University Heights schools where she taught for 29 years.
Her initial association with Cleveland City Dance was as an adult student herself and later also as a mother of a Cleveland City Dance student.
Presently Mary receives great satisfaction problem solving prop ideas for City Ballet of Cleveland outreach performances and enjoys volunteering for the Sugarplum Fairy Tea. Cleveland City Dance provides her with a sense of community with wonderful people dedicated to the Arts.
Donna Burrer (Board President)
Donna Burrer is the Training Director at MAI Capital Management, a Cleveland-based wealth management firm providing planning and investment advisory services. She holds an MEd in Adult Learning and Development and has over 30 years of experience in learning and development, leadership development, technical communications, and program and project management. Donna has worked in various industries throughout her career, including paint and coating research, medical diagnostics and biotechnology, financial services, investment management, and learning and development consulting. Donna’s passion for dance, especially for ballet, started in childhood, and even now, she continues to study ballet at Cleveland City Dance. Another outlet for her love of dance and performance is promoting the City Ballet of Cleveland and its talented pre-professional dancers through extensive volunteer efforts and serving on the CBC Board of Directors since 2013.
Lauren Dangelo
Lauren Dangelo began dancing in Cleveland, Ohio. In addition to training at local schools, she attended summer programs at Cincinnati Ballet. Lauren graduated in 2014 magna cum laude with her BFA in Dance Performance. Upon graduating, Lauren went on to dance with the Charlottesville Ballet under the direction of Sara Jansen Clayborne. There, she danced both soloist and corps de ballet roles in both classical ballets: The Nutcracker, The Firebird, and Sleeping Beauty, as well as other original compositions. She also danced in several original contemporary works, most notably by Colby Damon from Ballet X and Steven Melendez from New York Theatre Ballet, among others. Lauren now considers herself a freelance dancer, working with companies and creatives nationwide. As of late, she has had the opportunity to dance with ODC in San Francisco, CA, where she had the pleasure of dancing Kate Weare’s work, Giant; New Dialect in Nashville, TN, under the direction of Banning Bouldin, Sidra Bell, Kun-Yang Lin/Dancers’, amongst others. Lauren has performed in the Broadway and commercial industries by working as the dance captain on the show Chicago: The Musical and on Royal Caribbean’s Brilliance of the Seas. As of late, Lauren is on the precipice of graduating from Northwestern University with her Master’s in Clinical Mental Health, focusing on eating disorders. Lauren is excited to be able to meld both of her passions together and primarily work with dancers and shed new light on the industry.
Dr. Evelyn M DeLiso (Board Treasurer)
Evelyn M DeLiso’s childhood career goal was to become a professional ballet dancer. Growing up in Ames, Iowa, she took dance lessons from seven years old and through college. She holds a BA and MA in Dance from Butler University. In her mid-twenties, she returned to graduate school. She has a Ph.D. in Ceramic Engineering and Science from Rutgers University. During her 35 year industrial career, she worked for companies in R&D that make and sell products including Alcoa, Corning, Inc., Masco Corporation, and Dan T. Moore Company in Cleveland, Ohio. She is an inventor holding 20 granted US patents. Since 2018 she is a certified Iyengar Yoga teacher at Level I. Since retiring in 2015, she has become actively involved with City Ballet of Cleveland. She has delightfully taken on the role of Grandmother Halle in the Nutcracker since 2017 and is currently serving as the Board Treasurer. She is a member of the American Ceramic Society and the Iyengar Yoga Association of North America.
Jan Devereaux
From a childhood ballet student of Russian Nicholas Vasilieff in Portland, Oregon to a faithful subscriber and ardent supporter of the Horvath/Nahat Cleveland Ballet, and now as an enthusiastic student at Cleveland City Dance, Jan has always loved dance and to dance. Jan’s admiration for the high standards and quality training at City Ballet of Cleveland made the decision to join the Board quite easy. Courtney Laves-Mearini’s advocacy for Shaker Square was also a draw.
A Cleveland transplant from the West Coast, Jan arrived with a liberal arts degree and a master’s in history. She did graduate work in nonprofit and public sector management and has spent half a lifetime in community service – in the Shaker Schools; in the City of Shaker Heights – as a long-serving City Council Member; and as a nonprofit volunteer and Board member in local, state, and national organizations and institutions. If she had it to do all over again, she might have majored in city planning!
Now sharing retirement years with new Board member Michael Devereaux , the two are enthusiastic Pilates students of Courtney Laves-Mearini and look forward to making a contribution to City Ballet of Cleveland.
Michael Devereaux
Michael Devereaux claims he can’t sing and he can’t dance! While he may possess little talent in any of the fine arts, he has always enjoyed the talent of others in all forms of dance. Michael’s introduction to ballet was in a 7th grade music class at First Avenue Junior High School in Arcadia, California taught by “Fireball” Fiori. There among other things he learned and had to demonstrate the 5 feet positions of classical ballet in order to get an “A” (which he got)! He is drawn to the sometimes-overlooked athleticism of dancers. This includes the raw strength, agility, flexibility and balance of the dancer.
While a clinical neurophysiology fellow in NYC in the mid 1970’s Michael had the opportunity to see many of the greatest ballet dancers of the twentieth century perform. After he was recruited to Cleveland by the Director of Neurology at UHCMC/CWRU he continued his interest in dance by becoming a subscriber and supporter of the Horvath/Nahat led Cleveland Ballet throughout its history in Cleveland. He and his wife, Jan, have also been able to regularly witness performances in Cleveland of different visiting dance companies as well as small local dance companies.
A year before being invited to join City Ballet of Cleveland’s Board of Directors and recognizing his own gradual loss of agility secondary to advancing age, he joined his wife in the twice per week Pilates class led by the maddeningly flexible Courtney Laves-Mearini. This led to the opportunity to observe a wide range of school age children dancers perform in various CBC sponsored venues. From time-to-time some joined our Pilates class which gave him a firsthand opportunity to appreciate their developing skills. Even though most will not become professional dancers what they are achieving in self-confidence, personal discipline, and physical mastery will serve them well in life. This is the driving force behind making him want to support young dancers as a CBC Board member.
Naomi Hollander
Naomi Hollander is a film, television and video professional. She holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Theatre Arts and Political Science from Cleveland State University. Upon graduation, Ms. Hollander initially worked at the world headquarters of the Council of International Programs, a non-profit international exchange for social and human service professionals. This position allowed her to travel the world and meet, work, and collaborate with people from over 70 different countries.
A career change led her into the film industry where she has worked for the past 33 years on productions ranging from feature films, music videos, commercials, training films, corporate business meetings and live events. In addition to working with CEO’s and Presidents of major corporations, she has had the opportunity to work with notable figures such as Barack Obama, Joseph Biden, Hillary Clinton, Willem Dafoe, Ben Vareen, Smokey Robinson, Jay Z and Beyoncé. She has served as a member of the board of directors of both the Ohio Independent Film Festival and the International Women’s Group of Cleveland.
Naomi is excited to join City Ballet of Cleveland’s Board of Directors where both her daughter and son have been company members for multiple years!
Lori Simplican
Lori Simplican is happy to be on the board of the City Ballet of Cleveland. Lori was trained by the legendary Jazz teacher Dee Hillier. She has been dancing, teaching and choreographing in the Cleveland area for many years. Lori performed locally in theaters and as a member of the Dee Hillier Dance Company where she was a part of the Lighting of Public Square Show and the Opening of the remodeled Allen Theater. She was co-director of the youth program and a member of faculty for the Cleveland Contemporary Dance Theater. She has choreographed for the Cleveland Playhouse as well as City Ballet of Cleveland and numerous other local theaters. Before retiring from studio work in 2024, Lori was an active faculty member at Cleveland City Dance. She is also a teaching artist for Dancing Classrooms Northeast Ohio, a program that teaches ballroom dance to schools throughout Northeast Ohio.
Tracy Williams
Tracy Glover Williams learned to love the performing arts from her aunts, Barbara and Lucy, and annual school field trips to New York City’s Lincoln Center to see and hear the NYC Philharmonic. Barbara took her to see the Rockettes twice a year, and Lucy took her to see Alvin Ailey’s American Dance Theater once a year, as well as various Broadway shows, including The Wiz. That carefully cultivated childhood appreciation as well as encouragement from friends and their son’s teachers was enough to convince Tracy and her husband, Reggie, that their son Shane should study ballet with Courtney Laves-Mearini, and eventually join City Ballet of Cleveland.
Tracy earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Case Western Reserve University and currently works as an administrator in Pre-K-12 education. In her spare time, she enjoys baking and reading. Tracy is honored to serve on the board of the company that gave her child a firm foundation for his dance career.
