RACHEL BRUCE JOHNSON has worked as a dance performance soloist, contributing choreographer and videodance artist for various companies across the U.S. and abroad. Mrs. Johnson served as an adjunct professor in the Department of Dance at Oral Roberts University from 2006-2011 and as a dance committee member for the Living Arts Council of Tulsa since 2009. She has danced and served as a contributing choreographer with Out On a Limb Dance Company in Waco, TX since 2006 and with Living Water Dance Company in Tulsa, OK since 2007.
She is particularly interested in performance process and in creating work for the dance for camera genre.
PHILIP JOHNSON is a graduate of the University of Tulsa where majored in Petroleum Engineering. Philip grew up in Broken Arrow but now lives in Owasso with his wife, Rachel, and two boys, William and Henry. He is the Chief Reservoir Engineer for Cimarex Energy Company. Philip was an Engineering Manager for the Mid-Continent and Cana Regions and a reservoir engineer for multiple regions while at Cimarex. Previously, he worked at ConocoPhillips on the Eldfisk project while living in Stavanger Norway.
LYDIA JOHNSON graduated from Oral Roberts University with a degree in finance and minor in Spanish. She also studied piano at ORU under Donald Ryan. She worked in public accounting for a few years with Ernst and Young, LLP before moving to Alliance Resource Partners, L.P. for whom she currently is an accountant. Being involved in music her entire life, Lydia has always had a heart for the arts and still plays piano and violin on a regular basis. She also serves on the board of the Simon Estes Educational Foundation. Lydia is actively involved in their local church in the areas of community outreach, international missions, and music.
In her spare time, she enjoys traveling, CrossFit, hiking, and doing just about anything outdoors.
TIFFANY R. NIRIDER is a native of Lafayette, LA, where she received a B.A. in Mass Communication from the University of Southwestern Louisiana (summa cum laude). In 2004 she obtained the M.F.A. in dance from Sam Houston State University. During her time at SHSU, she won numerous awards and performed extensively with the SHSU Dance Company working with distinguished artists such as Bill Evans, Shapiro and Smith and Joy Kellman. She served as a Lecturer in Dance there for five years. Other adjunct faculty appointments include Lone Star College (LSC)-Montgomery, LSC-Kingwood where she was the co-founder of the LSC-Kingwood Dance Ensemble, and most recently, LSC-North Harris, where she currently teaches online. Nirider has over 25 years of experience in teaching dance and has taughtmodern, ballet, jazz, tap, choreography, dance appreciation, dance performance, ballroom, acrobatics and aerobics in a variety of settings. Among her performance credits are Kista Tucker Insights, Inc. (John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts- Washington, D.C., Merce Cunningham Studio – NY, California, Texas), Chrysalis Dance Company (Houston, TX), the Raven Dance Project (Huntsville, TX), and Dancesation Entertainment (south Florida and southern California). As a choreographer, Nirider has set works in numerous settings including the university dance stage and in musical theatre. Nirider’s passion remains in accessing and nurturing the authentic self through movement that is rooted in Laban theory and principle. She currently lives in Owasso, OK with her husband and three sons.
LESLEIGH RUTHERFORD is a graduate of Oklahoma State University where she received her Bachelor of Science in Business with minors in Marketing and Management. She grew up in Claremore, but now resides with her husband in Owasso, OK where she is a stay-at-home mom to their 3 daughters. She has always been active in the arts, focusing mostly in song and theater. Out of 500 hopefuls, she was 1 of 12 girls chosen to tour with the American Christian Youth Chorale as a teen, where she had the privilege of traveling and singing in places such as St. Patrick's Cathedral in NYC and in the White House. She was a worship leader at her local church for nearly 20 years. Currently, she is studying the wonders of cymatics (the study of visible effects of sound and vibration). She is passionate about all things light, color, and sound, because they innately make you FEEL.
She has a particular interest in songwriting as she realizes how art shapes culture, and she has a desire to write lyrics that are challenging to the listener, causing them to think and perhaps see things in a different perspective.