The people : Dancers and Makers

Photos by Nikki Riggs

Artistic Director and Choreographer

L. BROOKE SCHLECTE  was born and raised in Waco, Texas.  Upon graduating from Reicher Catholic High School in 1999, her supportive parents encouraged her to pursue a dance degree in college.  She initially enrolled at Kilgore Junior College, where she auditioned and joined the Kilgore College Rangerettes.  As a Rangerette, Schlecte was able to perform at a St. Patrick's Day celebration in Ireland, at a United States Presidential Inauguration, and two Cotton Bowl Games.  After graduating from Kilgore in 2001, she enrolled at the University of Texas in Austin to continue her dance education.  In 2003, she graduated with honors from UT with a Bachelor's of Fine Arts in Dance.  After teaching at a dance studio in Fort Worth for one year, Schlecte decided to pursue a graduate degree in dance at Texas Woman's University in Denton.  She graduated with a Master's of Fine Arts in Dance from TWU in 2007.  During her final year of graduate school, she was the recipient of the school's "Excellence in Choreography Award."

In 2007, Schlecte founded Out On A Limb Dance Company and moved back home to Waco.  While beginning to grow her professional dance company, she also taught in the Health and Human Performance Department at Baylor University.  She developed two Dance Minor theory courses for the department, Dance Pedagogy and Dance Composition, while there.  In 2012, Schlecte and Out On A Limb collaborated with Waco Cultural Arts Festival to create (254) Dance-Fest, a curated, multi-faceted dance festival.   In order to coordinate and promote the dance festival throughout the state, she subsequently founded the Texas Dance Festival Alliance as well.  In 2013, Out On A Limb expanded to include a creative dance class for children called Dot Buds and a pre-professional group for local emerging artists called Dot Vines.  Schlecte has been choreographing, collaborating, developing, teaching, and performing through Out On A Limb for 10 years now, locally, regionally, and beyond.

Schlecte has been married to her husband Charlie, a Waco native, for 14 years.  They have two children, Sadie (7) and Silas (4).  

RACHEL BRUCE JOHNSON: Collaborator, Since 2007

Photo by Jeanne S. Mam-Luft

RACHEL BRUCE JOHNSON is the founder and Executive Director of Bell House Arts, Inc., a collaborative dance and art cooperative dedicated to creating opportunity for artistic exchange.  Ms. Johnson’s film work is centralized around dance specifically made for the film medium. This entails considering dance and film equally in all its depth and complexity to fuse the two mediums into the genre of dance for camera. Mrs. Johnson’s dance film work includes Deeper, we all fall down, PASSAGES, Prepare the Veil, PaperCUTS, and She Drew a Picture of a Whale.  Ms. Johnson has worked as a dance performance soloist, contributing choreographer and video enthusiast for various companies across the U.S. and abroad. Her work has garnished such critical comments as “avant-garde” [Margaret Putnam, Dallas Morning News] and “excellence in kinetic artistry” [Loretta Livingston] and was included in the American College Dance Festival’s gala invitational in 2007, the National Dance Association/AAHPERD convention, Screen Door Film Festival, Kivisto Studio K Tulsa, and various other multi-disciplinary venues.She has studied with such artists as Melody Ruffin-Ward (Rhode Island College), Sarah Gamblin (Bebe Miller), Mary Williford-Shade (Mark Taylor), and Todd Rosenlieb (Erik Hawkins Dance Company). She is particularly interested in performance process and in creating work for the dance for camera genre. Ms. Johnson holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Performance and Choreography from Texas Woman’s University in Denton, TX and received the 2007 Outstanding Graduate Student Award.  In 2009, she launched the first adjudicated dance choreography festival in Tulsa, OK; EXCHANGE DANCE FESTIVAL.  Ms. Johnson also performs and choreographs with the Living Water Dance Company in Tulsa, OK and Out On a Limb Dance Company in Waco, TX.  She has served as adjunct professor in the Dance Program at Oral Roberts University and currently serves as a dance committee member for the Living Arts Council of Tulsa.

Professional Affiliations: 
AAHPERD 
NDEO 
Dance Films Association 
Dance Camera West

ERIKA RECORD: Marketing Director, Guest Choreographer, Since 2014

Photo by Nikki Riggs

Erika holds an MFA in Dance from Texas Woman's University in Denton, where she was awarded the Excellence in Choreography Scholarship (2014), and a BFA in Performance and Choreography from Texas State University. In addition, Erika holds a Texas Educator Certificate for Dance, grades 8-12. While in college at Texas State University, Erika was a member of the world famous Texas State Strutters (2007-2009) and also Merge Dance Company (2009-2011). At Texas State, Erika performed in over 40 dance works, obtained the College of Fine Arts and Communication Council of Scholars Award for academic excellence (2009-2011), and also received the Opening Door Dance Theater Scholarship for her senior choreographic work titled, Threshold (2010).

Erika has traveled to and performed in Santiago, Chile (2009), Los Angeles (2010), and New York City (2011). In the past five years, her choreography has seen audiences all over Texas, including Denton, Huntsville, Waco, and College Station. Erika has taught as a guest artist at ACDFA at Sam Houston University in 2013. Some of Erika's most recent performances include dancing in Sarah Gamblin's Act's of Absence, presented at the New Genre Arts Festival in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in March 2014 and performing in her own choreographed solo, LightBody in Texas Woman's University's DanceMakers concert series in April 2014. In addition, Erika recently debuted a new work in the 2015 {254} dance-fest for Out on a Limb Dance Company titled, light swarm, with music composed by Benjamin Shirey and projections designed by TCU's Roma Flowers. 

Currently, Erika is an Adjunct Professor at Texas Woman's University in Denton, Texas, and an Associate Professor at Collin College in Plano, Texas. In addition, she teaches yoga at Inspire Yoga, which opened its Denton location in August 2015. Erika is also on staff at the Center for Ballet Arts, Denton's newest and largest dance studio for children, pre-professionals, and adults. She is making work independently on a project-to-project basis and is dancing as an Associate Member of Out on a Limb Dance Company, which operates out of Waco, Texas.

BRITTANY LOPEZ

Photo by Justin Black

​BRITTANY LOPEZ  is a contemporary dancer and educator currently living in San Antonio, Texas. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in Dance from Texas Woman's University as well as a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Performance and Choreography with teaching certification from Texas State University. While at Texas State University she was a member of Merge Dance Company and Orchesis Dance Company, serving as Artistic Director her final year. 

​Through dance, Brittany has focused her passion on education and choreography. Recently, she choreographed and performed her solo improvisational project, Rebellion on all fronts, in three installments first at W-I-P in San Antonio, Texas, then at the Asheville Fringe Arts Festival in Asheville, North Carolina, and finally at W-I-P Creme in San Antonio, Texas. She also choreographed and performed her duet, an instance of rising, at Brookhaven College in Dallas, Texas and at 254 Dance Fest in Waco, Texas. 

Brittany is an Adjunct Instructor at Northwest Vista College (NVC) in San Antonio, Texas where she teaches a variety of classes as well as co-directs the NVC Repertory Dance Ensemble. She also teaches at Cynergy Dance Company and directs the Company Three competition team (ages 8 - 12). In addition, Brittany serves as President of the non-profit organization, the San Antonio Dance Umbrella, which aims to sustain and support the growing local dance community.