Celebrating Susan!

American Midwest Ballet School director Susan Chowning – fondly known to all as “Miss Susan” – plans to retire at the end of this school year. Susan and her husband, Billy, plan to return to her native North Carolina so they can be closer to her parents.

Susan will be just as active as ever through the end of the school year. And she’ll be training two brilliantly-qualified successors to follow in her footsteps: AMB company artist Kelanie Murphy, as school director, and founding company member Claire Goodwillie, as associate director.

We are so grateful for Susan’s outstanding leadership in building the AMB School. Additionally, we’d like to recognize Susan for her instrumental role since the company was founded. Together with Mattew Lovegood, she gave the ballet a home for our first 10 years. Our success as a company would not have been possible without this tremendous support. Susan has inspired countless audience members, students, teachers, and professional dancers throughout her career as a performer, teacher, and director.

Please join us in celebrating Susan and welcoming Kelanie and Claire!

Tracing the Steps of a Notable Career

Although Susan admits that she didn’t pursue dance seriously as a child, her potential was obvious to others. A summer session at the prestigious North Carolina School of the Arts led to an invitation to join the year-round program at its performing arts high school. After graduation, Susan moved to New York to dance on scholarship for the Harkness Ballet, then with multiple professional companies. Her path led to Ballet Omaha, where she danced until it closed in 1996.

Her next step was into teaching, first at Omaha Theater Ballet and then opening her own studio, Motion41 Dance, in partnership with OTB dancer (and later AMB ballet master) Matthew Lovegood. When Erika Overturff, also an OTB alumna, started American Midwest Ballet, she contacted Susan. “She asked if they could use Motion41 as their rehearsal studio,” Susan recalled, “and I said ‘Of course!’ So I’ve been connected with AMB since its beginning.”

That connection became official in 2019, when AMB was invited to become the resident dance company at the new Hoff Family Arts & Culture Center in Council Bluffs. The spacious new facility made it possible for AMB to start its own school… and of course Susan was the obvious choice to lead it. She phased out Motion41 and became the original director of the American Midwest Ballet School.

Dance education has been rewarding for Susan. “A career in dance lets you know the passion and drive it takes to succeed,” she said. “So when you see a child with that same passion, who is totally engaged, and who really wants to be a part of the art form, you know you’re passing down something important. It’s handing down your craft. It’s continuing a tradition.”

Stepping into a New Spotlight

Incoming school director Kelanie Murphy is well-known to AMB audiences in works such as Bob Fosse’s The Trumpet Solo and Frank Chavas’ ’Stormy Monday’ from Eva. She also has an equally impressive background as a dance educator, choreographer, and program administrator.

A Chicago-area native, Kelanie began training at the Judith Svalander School of Ballet and spent summers training at Kansas City Ballet, Alonzo King Lines Ballet, and the Lou Conte Dance Center and Ruth Page Center for the Arts.

She graduated magna cum laude from the University of Missouri Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance with a BFA degree in dance performance, while earning a Conservatory Ovation Award, a Chancellor’s Scholarship, and the Anita and Gary Robb Scholarship. After graduation, Kelanie danced for four seasons at Minnesota Ballet and three seasons at Madison Ballet before moving to the Omaha metro area to join American Midwest Ballet.

Kelanie directs the annual AMB Summer Intensive and the AMB School’s Youth America Grand Prix Solo Program.

Incoming associate director Claire Goodwillie was a founding company member of American Midwest Ballet, from its inception until her retirement from the stage after Momentum 15. An Omaha native, she had trained at the Omaha Theater Ballet School and at summer programs at Pacific Northwest Ballet and Ballet Austin before becoming an apprentice with Omaha Theater Ballet. After that company closed, she transitioned to Erika Overturff’s new Ballet Nebraska company, now American Midwest Ballet.

Memorable roles from her dance career include the Gift of Courage in Erin Alarcón’s The Wizard of Oz, the title role in Erika Overturff’s Cleopatra, the Rat Queen and Dew Drop Fairy in The Nutcracker, and Helena in Oskar Antunez’ A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Claire holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration with a concentration in nonprofit management from University of Nebraska – Omaha.