Niess has worked on over 150 productions as director, choreographer, actor, dancer, performance artist or movement coach throughout the US, Canada, Germany and Scotland. He has served as Artistic Director for the Great Lakes Festival Ballet and for Ballet Theatre Ohio. He was recently selected to co-present a paper at the International Federation for Theatre Research in Libson, Portugal in July, 2009. He will also be on the faculty of the International Performing Arts Institute in Germany later this summer.