A native from South Lake Tahoe California, Shannon trained in ballet, jazz, tap, hip hop, lyrical, modern, and character dancing 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.
Shannon Joined the San Francisco Ballet Company in 2004 as one of the youngest members in the company's history. Over her 11 year career she worked with world renowned Choreographers including Helgi Tomasson, Christopher Wheeldon, Val Caniparoli, Alexi Ratmansky, Yuri Possokhov, Justin Peck, Paul Taylor, Mark Morris, John Nuemeier, William Forsythe, David Bintley, James Kudelka, Edward Liang, and has danced numerous roles in ballets by Marius Petipa, Agnes De Mille, Jerome Robbins, Serge Lifar and George Balanchine. She has danced all over the world including France, Iceland, China, Denmark, England and the United States.
In 2015, Shannon left SF Ballet to join the original cast of the TONY award winning production of An American In Paris on Broadway (April 12 2015- Oct 9 2016) as an ensemble member and Lise U/S (lead role). AAIP was nominated for 12 Tony awards (won 4!) in 2015 and was nominated for a GRAMMY award in 2016 for the Original Broadway Cast Recording. Shannon received the ACCA award for Best Broadway Chorus in 2015 for her involvement in AAIP.
Shannon is an accomplished composer, singer, songwriter, pianist and producer. She sings under the stage name EMPRESS and is currently recording her first solo album. EMPRESS will be releasing her debut EP 'We Own This Crown' spring 2021.
Shannon founded a record label Stardust World Productions LLC that supports females in the music industry in 2019.
Shannon is currently working on developing two startups in the XR tech industry that will bridge the gap between technology and the performing arts. Shannon plans to develop both Augmented Reality (Miraliti) and Virtual Reality (My Empire XR) companies to enhance the performing arts.
