Singer/Song Writer

The Zack Ballinger Show

A native from South Lake Tahoe California, Shannon trained in the Reno/Tahoe area before moving to San Francisco to train with the San Francisco Ballet School on a full merit scholarship in 2002. She has both classical and Balanchine ballet training and is well rounded in jazz, tap, hip hop, lyrical, modern, and character dancing. Shannon Joined the San Francisco Ballet in 2004 as one of the youngest company members in history. She has worked with world renowned Choreographers and has danced all over the world including France, Iceland, China, Denmark, England and the United States.

Shannon left SFBallet in 2015 to join the original cast of Tony Award winning An American In Paris on Broadway where she joined as an original member of the ensemble and later became the Lise u/s performing the role in 2017.

After An American In Paris closed in October 2017 Shannon took time away from Broadway and Ballet to focus on her music career as a singer/songwriter performing under the stage name EMPRESS. She will release her first single Lovely I Am on April 12th, 2019 as a solo recording artist. She is currently working with the GRAMMY nominated producer Bart Schoudel on her first EP which will be released later this year. You can learn more about EMPRESS here: www.empress-music.com
Shannon is an accomplished composer on the piano and has written music for a short film called Freefall directed by Luke Willis in 2012. Shannon choreographed and stared in the short film 'PRIMA' that premiered at the 2012 TriBeCa film Festival. Shannon also choreographed and performed in a short film "American Overture" by John Williams in 2012 that won first place at the international film festival in Poland.

Shannon has been writing for Fete Lifestyle Magazine since 2015 and has been writing blogs for Discount Dance Supply's Dance Life since 2013.