Liz Pelton has worked for three decades in non-profit book publishing and is currently Senior Publicist at Yale University Press. Previously, she was Publicity Director at Harvard University Press and Acting Publicity Director at the Unversity of Chicago Press. She is a lifelong dancer who trained at North River Arts Ballet and Boston Ballet and who has performed with companies and independent choreographers in Connecticut and Illinois. She has taught dance to children at Morton Street Dance Center for more than 10 years and has also worked with children at Roland Park Elementary Middle School and the Park School. She is Associate Artistic Director of Full Circle Dance Company.   

Donna has been Artistic Director of Full Circle Dance Company of Baltimore for 22 years and Director of the Morton Street Dance Center in Baltimore, MD for more than 30 years.  She is a 2022-2023 School of American Ballet National Visiting Fellow and a Certified Teacher of Progressive Ballet Technique (PBT). Her school is renowned in the area for providing excellent training in ballet and modern dance and for developing talented dancers in multiple disciplines. She has received many grants and awards for her choreography and aryistic programming. She trained at the Bernice Johnson Dance Studio in NYC, the NYC High School for the Performing Arts, and Wesleyan University in CT. She danced with several companies in Baltimore before opening Morton Street Dance Center and founding Full Circle. She is an attorney, former corporate executive, and member of The Daily Record’s Circle of Excellence, having been recognized three times as one of Maryland’s Top 100 Women

Sheri Parks, PH.D. is a public intellectual, strategist, senior higher education professor, administrator and author, working to bridge the wisdom of communities and the academy to address urgent societal challenges.  Many in Baltimore also know her as a public radio personality and speaker.  Her signature public projects include Baltimore Stories: Narrative and the Life of an American City, funded and named as a national model for deep community conversations, and the Baltimore Thinkathon. She leads the Natural Dye Initiative, building a Baltimore-based ecosystem of indigo farming, processing, small businesses and art with community partner the Upton Planning Committee. She mentors Korner Boyz Enterprises, a successful four-year entrepreneurial project with former squeegee workers and community partners.  Past community-facing projects have been funded by the Andrew Mellon Foundation.  the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Annie E. Casey Foundation and Maryland state agencies. Her awards include Maryland Top 100 Women in 2019 and national broadcasting awards from GLADD and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. She is the author of two editions of the book, Fierce Angels, which traces the Sacred Dark Feminine and the Strong Black Woman. Photo credit: Joshua McKerrow

Elizabeth Hafey is an attorney for Axiom Inc. and is a real estate agent affiliated with
Coldwell Banker Realty. Elizabeth has deep and varied legal and advocacy experience,
as a civil defense attorney at two law firms based in Baltimore City, and in government
relations for an academic and health care system based in Baltimore City.  She has a
J.D. from the University of Richmond School of Law, an M.S. in Law, Justice and
Society from American University, and a B.A. in Sociology from the University of
Virginia.  Additionally, Elizabeth served as a Commissioner on the Maryland Health
Care Commission and as a Commissioner for the Liquor License Commissioners for
Baltimore City.  Elizabeth has been recognized for several accomplishments in her
field, and in 2016 was named one of Baltimore Business Journal's 40 Under 40.
Elizabeth is a certified yoga instructor and owns a wellness business. She is a dancer
with the Full Circle Dance Company.

Brian Sims is vice president of quality and equity at the Maryland Hospital Association. He has worked at Maryland hospitals in strategic planning, decision support, and finance. He is a longtime member and officer of the Maryland Chapter of the Healthcare Financial Management Association

Donna Basik is a faculty member at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) located in Baltimore City in the MA in Teaching program. As a visual artist, teacher and researcher, she is an advocate for the importance of the arts in human development and the ways in which the arts enrich the life of the community. New to the Full Circle Dance Company board, she has been a supporter of local and regional dance initiatives for the past 25 years, and an advocate for the Baltimore arts community. She believes the arts serve best when they are collaborative, interdisciplinary, and emergent, reflecting the assets and concerns of the community they come from. 

Deborah Hull is the K-12 Director of Arts at The Park School of Baltimore, a pre K-12 independent school.  A choreographer, performer, and arts educator, Deborah spent many years working as a freelance modern dancer and dance/theater artist in San Francisco, CA, where she founded and directed the dance program at The Hamlin School.  Deborah and her family moved to Baltimore from San Francisco in the summer of 2019, and she looks forward both to supporting Full Circle and to connecting with the wider DMV dance and arts communities 

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Although nationally known as an actress for her recurring roles in HBO’s “The Wire” and “The Corner”, Maria is also a storyteller and dancer with more than forty years of performing and teaching in the US and across the globe. She is a Fulbright scholar and former news reporter for the ABC affiliates in Miami and Baltimore. Currently, she is on the theater faculty at the Baltimore School for the Arts. A native of Baltimore, Maria has received many awards and honors including the Eubie Blake Award, the Sarah’s Circle Award, and the 2004 Governor’s Arts Award for Individual Artist. In 2007, she was named Artist of the Year by Young Audiences of Maryland, Inc. In addition to her work as performer and educator, Maria is much requested as a speaker and presenter. With a background in yoga, meditation, Homa therapy and dance therapy, she conducts staff retreats, workshops and weekly classes that help people to release stress and feel at peace. Formerly the diversity coordinator for the Park School in Baltimore, she has been a consultant since 2006 for Maryland Public Television’s Campaign for Love and Forgiveness, sponsored by Fetzer Institute. As a recipient of an Open Society Institute community fellowship grant, Maria established a unique mentoring program in the inner-city schools, and beyond, called the Dance Girls of Baltimore. It is through this vehicle that she passes on the values of self-discipline and thoughtful behavior. In 2007, Maria worked in Poland and Czechoslovakia co-directing the independent film “Soul Immortal” to be released in 2010.

Ivy Fox, of Baltimore, MD, has been performing since she was a young child. While attending Point Park College in Pittsburgh as a dance major, she studied and performed Luigi jazz technique under Douglass Bentz, Ron Tassone and Jody Welch, ballet with Mary Petrov, and Dunham with Ron Hudson. Ivy graduated from Alvin Ailey American Dance Center with a certificate in dance, working with such great dancers and teachers as Judith Jamison, Mercedes Ellington, Denise Jefferson, Penny Frank, Miguel Godreaux, Jose Meier, and Delores Browne. She became an EPCOT WORLD DANCER for Walt Disney World in Orlando Florida, performing with stars such as Ben Vereen, Debbie Boone, Donny Osmond, Maureen McGovern, and Carol Channing.  Her career has included extensive film, commercial, and stage work that has taken her to Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Germany, Switzerland, France, Canada, Dubai, and many other locations around the world. Credits include the film BLACK NATIVITY, the musical CHICAGO (Broadway, national, and international tour), ANNIE on Broadway as understudy for Velma Kelly and Matron Mamma Morton, the first national tour of KISS ME KATE, the first national tour of RAGTIME, the Radio City Christmas Spectacular in New York City, and more. In 2012 / 2013, she worked with Jacques d’Amboise’s National Dance Institute / New York City as a teaching assistant in the public school system, and she has also taught children through the Baltimore City Parks and Recreation dance camp. She has had several opportunities to choreograph for Dance Baltimore at the Baltimore Museum of Art. 

Alton McClain Scarborough is a recording artist, music minister, and founder and CEO of The Scarborough Foundation, which awards scholarships and grants to public school students who display extraordinary natural abilities and acquired proficiency in the performing arts. Her group Alton McClain & Destiny’s first album for Polydor Records produced the Top 40 hit IT MUST BE LOVE. The group toured with Teddy Pendergrass, Frankie Beverly & Maze, Chic, Peabo Bryson, The Gap Band, and Millie Jackson.  They appeared on national television and toured Europe. A second album, MORE OF YOU, was a collection of upbeat dance tunes and heart-wrenching ballads that displayed Alton's unique vocal styling and versatility. A third album, GONNA TELL THE WORLD was produced by Grammy award-winning songwriter Skip Scarborough, who would become her husband and collaborator. While on tour in Japan with Ray Parker, Jr., Alton heard the call to sing Gospel. Her first Gospel album, GOD’S WOMAN, which her husband Skip produced, was released in 1995. Two years later Skip and Alton became the Music Ministers at the Place of Grace Church in Reisterstown, MD, where their friends David and Althea Franklin are the pastors. They fulfilled that role until Skip’s passing in 2003.  The album RENAISSANCE is a collection of these songs and is dedicated to his loving memory. https://thescarboroughfoundation.org/