Irene Ko was born in Seoul, Korea, Attended the University of Minnesota where she worked with Carolyn Brown and Susan McGuire, who inspired her to come to New York to attend The Juilliard School. While at Juilliard, she studied with  Benjamin Harkarvy, Linda Kent, Ethel Winter, and Genia Melikova, and also studied choreography with Anna Sokolow, Bessie Schonberg, Doris Rudko, and Elizabeth Keen. She also attended the Merce Cunningham School, the Lar Lubivitch Dance company, Broadway Dance Center, and the Bella Lewitzky Dance Company as a scholarship student. After she graduated Juilliard, she went to Korea and joined the Korea Contemporary Dance Company, performing on tour in Japan, China, and Malaysia. She also taught at the Seoul Jazz Academy and at In Duck University. Returning to New York, she worked with H.T Chen & Dancers, performing, touring, teaching and choreographing for the company.   Irene moved to California where she earned MFA in dance at California Institute of the Arts. Her choreographic credits include Back to Heaven, Misty Mirrors, Dedicated to a Crow, Blue Velvet, Silence of Two, Okra Summer, Emotional Conflict, Day Dream.  Her choreographic works have been presented at HCC, St. Petersburg College, and University of Tampa.  Irene currently teaches at HCC.

 Susannah LeMarquand spent 3 years performing for Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines and 6 years at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay. She has also staged and choreographed shows for Norwegian and Silver Seas Cruise Lines. Susannah has studied throughout the United States with such teachers as Frank Hatchett, Ann Reinking, Sheila Barker and Madame Darvash. She has attended summer study programs with Joffrey Ballet, Burklyn Ballet Theatre, Broadway Theatre Project and recently completed a Horton Pedagogy Workshop with Ana Marie Forsythe at Alvin Ailey Studios in New York City. Susannah earned her M.A. in Dance Education from NYU in 2008. She is currently an adjunct professor of dance at HCC and University of Tampa and in her spare time choreographs for special functions at Busch Gardens. 

Richard Allan Ploch, Artistic Director for Acanthus, a chamber-sized Ballet Company and Adjunct Instructor of Dance at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Florida, has been teaching ballet for over 20 years. Ploch began his career in Tucson, Arizona and went on to Ohio State University to receive a MA in Dance specializing in Labanotation. He includes as his mentors and principle teachers: George Zoritch, Nanette Charisse, Peff Modelski, John Calendar, Rosalind Pierson, Sheldon Ossosky, and Robert Yohn.

Ploch has performed with various ballet and modern companies in New York including the Light Opera of Manhattan. He also served as Assistant Choreographer with the Santa Fe Opera where he performed and also choreographed for the Apprentice Artists Program. An active choreographer, his work has been presented in the Northeast, the South and the Southwest. Currently, he devotes most of his choreographic energies to Acanthus.

Richard Allan Ploch maintains active memberships in several national and international dance organizations. They include the Society for Dance History Scholars, Dance/USA, International Council of Kinetography Laban and the Florida Dance Association. He serves on the Board of Directors of the National Dance Registry, the Advisory Board for Performing Arts Resources and has just completed a second term on the Artists Advisory Committee of the Tampa/Hillsborough Arts Council. Ploch is a founding member of the Alliance of Dance Notation Educators, a group of dance professionals from all forms of dance who espouse and include dance notation with dance education.