Photo by Andrew Weeks.
Nominated as a 2016 “New Names to Watch” by Dance Europe Magazine, Milissa Payne Bradley is a San Francisco based choreographer and dance educator. Branded the “e.e. cummings of ballet” by The Huffington Post, Payne Bradley began choreographing in 2010 and founded the San Francisco based The Milissa Payne Project the same year. In 2011, Payne Bradley’s The Game is Afoot was chosen as a semi-finalist for the Company C Contemporary Ballet’s New Commission Project. The Milissa Payne Project’s Revolve, was awarded Best Whirling Dervish in the Best of San Francisco 2013 by SF Weekly.
She has set work on New York Theatre Ballet at New York Live Arts, and in San Francisco for Dance Theatre of San Francisco, Bay Pointe Ballet, Los Gatos Ballet, Napa Valley Ballet, ODC Theater’s Music Moves Festival and the West Wave Dance Festival.
Payne Bradley began her professional career in 2005 with The Oakland Ballet under the direction of Ronn Guidi. For the past twelve years Payne Bradley has been an Artist in Residence at the Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts, SOTA. She is a graduate with Honors from Saint Mary’s College of California in the Liberal Education for the Arts (LEAP) program, and also a graduate with Honors from the inaugural class of Saint Mary’s College of California MFA in Dance: Creative Practice.