Ice Theatre of New York

Founded by Moira North, ITNY’s mission is to celebrate and advance dance on ice as a performance art. Through its performances in both traditional and site-specific venues, ITNY presents ice dance that helps to open one’s eyes to seeing skating in new and unexpected ways. ITNY was the very first ice dance company to receive dance program funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. www.icetheatre.org

City Skate Pop-Up Concerts are supported, in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature. ITNY is also supported by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council, and NYC Council Member Mark Levine and by Dance/NYC’S Coronavirus Dance Relief Fund.

Additionally, ITNY receives funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, Lisa McGraw Figure Skating Foundation, the Will Sears Foundation, and its generous private patrons.

Sarah Baetge is an Asian American artist from Los Angeles, who has 19 years of experience in competitive figure skating. She has performed for ITNY several times, including performances in Billingham, UK for the tribute show “The Creative Spirit of John Curry.” Sarah's skating showcases a blend of strength and fluidity, symbolizing the duality of life—wild and tame. Her movements on ice serve as a canvas for deeper human connections, fostering empathy, understanding, and the power of healing through the medium of skating.  

Jacqueline Benson is a professional skater, dancer, choreographer, and coach based in New York City. This is her first year performing with ITNY and she is excited to perform in this year's Home Season. Her current professional engagements include touring with Montreal-based contemporary skating company, Le Patin Libre, and working with American Ice Theatre. Jacqueline is also a US Figure Skating triple gold medalist in Freestyle, Moves in the Field / Skating Skills, and Solo Free Dance. She is a Professional Skaters Association Master-Rated coach & choreographer, and has choreographed programs across all disciplines for skaters ranging from National Development Team athletes to showcase skaters to Excel competitors. She is trained in multiple styles of dance and has performed with several contemporary dance companies in her hometown of Phoenix, Arizona. Jacqueline graduated summa cum laude from Arizona State University and has experience in marketing, communications, and nonprofit advocacy work.

Danil Berdnikov is in his fourth season with ITNY. Originally from Samara, Russia, he competed as part of the junior national team and across his home country throughout high school. He later moved to Moscow to further his education and joined Stage Entertainment Russia, where he began performing professionally as a skater. Performing for live audiences gave Danil a renewed passion for skating, leading to an international career spanning eight years. He has performed with Willy Bietak Productions and Wheeler Productions in the US, Stageworks Worldwide Productions in the UK, and Holiday on Ice and Dynamic Shows Entertainment throughout the EU. In 2025, he was honored to be part of Art on Ice in Switzerland - the most famous ice show in the world, where he performed alongside world-class skaters and international music stars. Danil is deeply grateful to his parents, coaches, choreographers, and fellow skaters for their unwavering support.

Sarah France joined ITNY in 2018, bringing her passion for ice dancing and broad knowledge of skating skills, choreographic styles, and techniques to the company.  A multi-disciplinary artist who has extended her lifelong fascinations with movement and creativity into many professional pursuits, she is a dancer and choreographer both on and off the ice, an aerialist, visual artist, author, researcher, musician, and grant writer. In addition to her work with ITNY, Sarah dances with The Equus Projects. Sarah began dancing at age three and figure skating when she was 11 - moving through space and the emotional expression possible in choreography are deep internal drives she has pursued throughout her life. Sarah is internationally regarded for her knowledge of skating skill development and on-ice choreography, having coached beginner through Olympic athletes and leading clinics and seminars worldwide. Sarah is proud to represent her intersectional communities as an LGBTQ+, neurodivergent, and disabled artist.

Oona and Gage Brown (Guest Performers) are a sister and brother U.S. ice dance team from Long Island, NY. Oona & Gage started apprenticing with ITNY in 2016. They were crowned the 2022 World Junior Ice Dance Champions in Tallinn, Estonia! Since then, they have made the transition to the senior level and competed for Team USA. Oona and Gage perform regularly with ITNY while training with their coaches, Inese Bucevica and ITNY choreographer, Joel Dear. Recently, they have been training part-time at the Ice Academy in Montreal.

Ale Izquierdo has been a member of ITNY since 2011, and performed as part of the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall in the 2021-2022 season. A native of Léon, Guanajuato, Mexico, Ale started figure skating at age 8, becoming a three-time Mexican national champion, and she won first place at the International Santis Cup Switzerland in 2007. She moved to the USA in 2009, to train under the tutelage of the Ukrainian team of Victor Petrenko, Galina Zmievskaya and Nina Petrenko at the Ice House in Hackensack, NJ. She performed in Dancing on Ice with Torvill & Dean in the United Kingdom and in the Netherlands. Ale has been the advertising face of Polyglide Ice, a surface ITNY uses in its studio.

Joe Johnson is a former Team USA ice dancer. With their partner and fellow company member Karina Manta, they competed internationally for four years before retiring to join Cirque du Soleil. During the pandemic, they worked in England on the reality show Dancing on Ice, and after two years abroad, started touring nationally with Ice Dance International. They have since settled in New York City and perform with ITNY in addition to coaching and choreographing full-time. This is Joe’s first season performing with ITNY.

Valerie Levine has collaborated on ITNY events for the past two decades and has been roller-skating as well as dancing tap, jazz, and ballet since the age of four. She started training in figure skating at 11, going on to compete and test until graduating high school, when she turned down Disney on Ice to pursue her Bachelor’s degree at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT). At 19, she earned her gold level in Senior Ladies Moves and pre-golds in ice dance before skating professionally. While earning her BS in Product Management Textiles from FIT, she minored in dance and trained at Broadway Dance Center in many dance styles, leading to an off-ice career as a professional belly dancer, ballroom dancer, and samba dancer. She currently teaches and performs these styles worldwide, while managing her own entertainment company Valerina Dance.

Karina Manta is an ice dancer and former international medalist and Grand Prix competitor for Team USA with her partner, Joe Johnson. Since retiring from competitive skating, she has toured with the Cirque du Soleil show AXEL and performed as a professional for the UK television series, Dancing on Ice, which she and her celebrity partner won in the 2021-22 season. She has been a company member of Ice Dance International since 2021. Karina's first season performing with ITNY was 2023. In addition to performing, Karina is the author of the young adult memoir, On Top of Glass, about growing up queer in figure skating.

Libby McGrosky has been skating with ITNY since 2023. They began skating at the age of four and continued skating through high school with a focus on freestyle and an interest in synchronized skating. In college, they skated for the Hayden Synchronized Skating Teams at the Junior and Senior levels and represented the USA for three international seasons. After completing their competitive career, Libby joined ITNY and began the process of switching to professional figure skating. Libby obtained a bachelor of science in environmental science with a minor in climate change and sustainability from the University of Massachusetts Lowell.

Emmanuel Savary (Guest Performer) won the US Junior Championships in 2009 and was the National Silver medalist at the novice level. In 2020, Emmanuel and Starr Andrews were the only two African Americans to take part in the U.S. Championships. Emmanuel is also a student at the University of Delaware, studying aerospace engineering. He is part of an acapella singing group and enjoys dancing. Emmanuel is the brother of Joel Savary, the founder of Diversify Ice (2023 Will Sears Honoree), and enjoys being a mentor to other minority skaters through Diversify Ice.

Liz Yoshiko Schmidt has been skating with ITNY since 2017. Luscious edges, artistic movement, and ice dancing inform her skating and professional career, which began in 2013, at the age of 18, performing internationally in Europe, Egypt, and across the US. She is a Japanese/German American skater who hails from Chicago, IL, and recently moved from San Francisco, CA, to New York City. She is a U.S. Figure Skating double gold medalist in Freestyle and Moves in the Field, and a silver medalist in Ice Dancing. Liz received her bachelor of fine arts in painting from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2018, has an art studio in Brooklyn, and is the creator of the ice fashion line Dansu Wear.

Matt Thomas remembers seeing ITNY perform at Rockefeller Center as a young boy and feels privileged to have become a member of the educational outreach and performance groups of ITNY being able to pass on that dream over the last three years. Introduced to skating through the Learn to Skate Program in Syracuse, NY, he continued to train as a figure skating competitor and in 1998 became the Eastern Sectional Champion. He has always loved the ice and considers himself blessed to still be skating three decades plus from his initiation and spreading the joy through his continuing career as a skating coach. A professional saxophonist, Matt holds a Bachelor's in music from SUNY Buffalo, and performs regularly both in NYC and internationally.