COOK COUNTY ARTS COLLECTIVE

jane sawyer

FOUNDER

Jane Sawyer is the founder and director of Cook County Arts Collective, facilitating  dance programming and movement workshops at the Cook County Department of Corrections and at Grace House Residential facility since 2018. Since 2023 she has been teaching dance as an adjunct faculty member of the Humanities and Music department at the Harold Washington campus of City Colleges of Chicago. Ms. Sawyer serves as Director of Young Dancers Programming at the Hyde Park School of Dance, where she teaches and  manages the Teacher Training program. 

She is a graduate of The Ailey School Professional Division in New York, where she toured with the Ailey School Student Performance Group, performing works by Darrell Grand Moultrie, Earl Mosley, Francesca Harper and others. She holds a BA in Dance from Columbia College Chicago. Ms. Sawyer trained and performed with Deeply Rooted Dance Theater between 2011-2017. Ms. Sawyer is a 2022 recipient of the Survive and Thrive Changing Worlds mini grant, which funded portions of her work at the Cook County Department of Corrections. 

In November of 2023 she was invited to present her paper titled “Claiming Incarcerated Spaces for the Performing Arts” at the Midwest Modern Language Association conference in Cincinnati, OH.

Ms. Sawyer choreographed for Chicago Folks Operetta in 2024 and collaborates regularly with the Chosen Generation Dance Ministry at Progressive Community Center.
janes@cookcountyartscollective.org

Anna sawyer

TEACHING ARTIST

​Ms. Sawyer is a teaching and featured performing artist for the Cook County Arts Collective, and in 2024 she joined the Board of CCAC.

A graduate of The Ailey School's Professional Division, she holds a master's degree in Early Childhood Education from the University of Illinois at Chicago's College of Education, and teaches on the faculty at the University of Chicago's Laboratory School. She has worked extensively with early learners in several roles at the Chicago Children’s Museum and as a faculty member at the Hyde Park School of Dance. She is a certified Pilates instructor, and teaches Pilates for adults through the Hyde Park School of Dance and for private clients as well.

annas@cookcountyartscollective.org

aLLYSON RATLIFF

​​BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Allyson Ratliff is Director of Community Engagement at the Hyde Park School of Dance, where she also serves as a senior ballet instructor. She has served as Chair of the Board of Directors of the Cook County Arts Collective since its founding in 2018.

Ms. Ratliff has a Master of Arts Management degree with a focus on performing arts. She has studied dance at the University of Arizona in Tucson and the Washington Ballet in Washington DC. Ms. Ratliff has taught at the School of Ballet Chicago, where she instructed classes in ballet and creative movement and served as an integral part of Ballet Chicago's inner city outreach program. She has also served as Ballet Mistress for Expressions Dance Theatre and Rhythm Street in Washington DC.