Our Team
Nicole Spring
Executive/Artistic Director & Film Curator
Nicole Spring is a Los Angeles-based filmmaker with a strong background in dance and acting who naturally stumbled into the world of dance films and has been an enthusiast ever since. Screendance brings together all of her interests into one beautiful genre!
Nicole founded Los Angeles Dance Shorts Film Festival in 2017 (renamed Los Angeles Dance Film Festival in 2022) as another opportunity for dance filmmakers to get their films in front of an audience. The hope was that the festival would connect, promote and inspire the dance film community.
IG: @nicolespring.art
Website: nicolespring.art
Alyssa Thompson
Board Member & Secretary
Alyssa Thompson currently works in animation as a Production Manager. Before finding a career in animation, her work as a dance artist took her throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. Since shifting her creative work to dance films, she has found a place where her background in live performance and film experience are able to intersect. She particularly appreciates that in film you get the opportunity to step out of reality and experiment with something you envision in limitless ways. Alyssa also enjoys teaching Pilates and spending time with her husband and their two cats.
IG: lyssala_
Nadav Heyman
Film Curator & Board Member
Nadav is a writer and filmmaker based in Los Angeles. His films have screened in festivals around the world, and his latest screenplay was a Top 50 script by the Academy Nicholl Screenwriting Fellowship. In 2020, his award-winning dance film, “as·phyx·i·a·tion” was published by Dance Magazine and commissioned by the Correana Museum of Art in South Korea. In 2021, Nadav was hired as Editor of a new Universal Motion Picture starring Chris Pine. Most recently, Nadav founded a global platform for dance films at dancefilmmaking.com. Nadav's goal is to continue observing life through story, movement, and film.
IG: @nadavheyman
Website: nadavheyman.com
Steven J. Butler
Board Member
Steven J. Butler is a multi-talented creative with an open mind, passion for storytelling and an aptitude for intersecting multiple art forms. He began his creative career as a dancer and choreographer with credits including Transformers 2, The Latin Grammys, Weeds, Good Morning America and artists including Ludacris, Nick Carter, Aaron Carter, Paulina Rubio, Cheat Codes and Macy Gray.
He received a Bachelor of Arts in film from ArtCenter College of Design, graduating with distinction. His directing credits include music videos for Precarious Records, Ultra Records, and Raid Records. He has also received recognition for his writing, directing, and producing from Slamdance, The Addy Awards, Zooppa, Los Angeles Dance Film Festival, Standard Vision and the Academy of Television & Sciences Blue Ribbon Panel. In addition to his creative work, Steven is 2018 TEDx Speaker.
By intersecting his creative passions and vast practical experience in varying artistic fields, Steven aims to use art as a means of storytelling that both engages and inspires viewers and participants while simultaneously shaping a progressive and culturally relevant narrative.
IG: @stevenjbutler_
Twitter: @stevenjbutler_
Website: stevenjbutler.net
Maddy Leitner
Editor & Social Media Assist
Maddy Leitner is a recent graduate of Ithaca College in the Cinema Production program with Audio Production and Deaf Studies minors, Maddy is a member of DKA Cinematic Society, and was the Chair of Publicity for IC Unbound Dance Company for three years. They directed and co-wrote the award winning film, YourOwn, in 2020.
Maddy is an Editor and Content Manager for the San Francisco Dance Film Festival and intern of Portland Dance Film Fest and Frameform Podcast, as well as a former intern of the renowned women’s film distributor, Women Make Movies. As a lifelong dancer with a filmmaking background, they are deeply passionate and excited about the intersection between the two art forms and the endless possibilities they hold together.
IG: @maddy.leitner
Website: mleitner67.wixsite.com/portfolio