Faculty Bios
Kyle Abraham
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| photo by Steven Schreibner |
Kyle Abraham, professional dancer and choreographer, began his training at the Civic Light Opera Academy and the Creative and Performing Arts High School in Pittsburgh. He continued his dance studies in New York, receiving a BFA from SUNY Purchase and an MFA from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Over the past few years, Abraham has received tremendous accolades and awards for his dancing and choreography including a 2010 Bessie Award for Outstanding Performance in Dance for his work in The Radio Show along with a 2010 Princess Grace Award for Choreography, a BUILD grant and an individual artist fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts, a Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Grant, and a Pennsylvania Council for the Arts Fellowship. In 2009 he was honored as one of Dance Magazine’s 25 To Watch. Abraham was heralded by OUT Magazine as one of the “best and brightest creative talent to emerge in New York City in the age of Obama.” His choreography has been presented throughout the US and abroad, most recently at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Danspace Project, Dance Theater Workshop, Bates Dance Festival, Harlem Stage, Fall for Dance Festival at New York's City Center, Montreal, Germany, Dublin’s Project Arts Center, The Okinawa Prefectural Museum & Art Museum located in Okinawa Japan and The Andy Warhol Museum in his hometown of Pittsburgh. Abraham’s most recent work, The Corner, commissioned by Ailey 2, is currently touring internationally with great reception. http://abrahaminmotion.org/
Chris Aiken
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| photo by William Federking |
Chris Aiken is a leading performer and teacher in the field of dance improvisation and contact improvisation. His work has evolved through ongoing investigations of performance, composition, movement technique and design. His work has been significantly influenced through the somatic practice of the Alexander Technique, ideokinesis, yoga and the fascia and structural integration. Chris has performed and collaborated with many renowned dance artists including Steve Paxton, Kirstie Simson, Nancy Stark Smith, Peter Bingham, Andrew Harwood, Ray Chung and Angie Hauser. He has received numerous awards for his artistic work, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, as well as commissions from the Walker Art Center, Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, Dance Theater Workshop and the National Performance Network. Chris is an Assistant Professor of Dance at Smith College and the Five College Dance Department.
Rachel Boggia
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Rachel Boggia is a choreographer, performer, video editor and educator making work that foregrounds embodied creativity while crossing boundaries between disciplines and media. Currently teaching in the dance program in the Bates College Department of Theater and Dance, she has served on the faculty of Wesleyan University, Connecticut College, Dickinson College and the Ohio State University. She is a member of the Bates Dance Festival documentation team, where she has supervised the development of more than 25 videos for youtube.com/BatesDanceFestival since 2009. Boggia's dance documentaries, videodances, and mediated performances have been seen in Ireland, Germany and around the US. She hasdesigned projections performances by Jeanine Durning and long-time collaborator Vanessa Justice. She holds an MFA in Dance from The Ohio State University and a BS in Biology from Cornell University. http://www.rachelboggia.org
Omar Carrum
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| photo by Martin GAvica |
Omar Carrum is a founding member of the internationally touring dance company, Delfos Danza Contemporánea, where he continues to serve as a choreographer, dancer and teacher. He has been a featured performer in over 60 works of dance, theater and opera, working with an international roster of choreographers performing in some of the world’s most prestigious theaters and festivals for dance. In 2000 he was awarded as the Best Male Dancer at the 21st Annual INBA-UAM International Choreographic Competition. As a dancer, he has been the recipient of the FONCA grant (National Fund for Culture and Art in Mexico) in 1995 and 2001, and the FOECA grant (State Fund for Culture and Art in Mexico) for artistic development in 2001. In 2009 he became recipient of a 3-year FONCA “Scenic creators with trajectory.” In 2009 he became the first Mexican choreographer to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship to develop his project Armoire for hate, fragility and uncertainty. In 1998 he co-founded, with Claudia Lavista and Victor Manuel Ruiz (Artistic Directors of Delfos), La Escuela Profesional de Danza de Mazatlán, which has emerged as one of the leading dance conservatories in Mexico and Latin America. http://www.delfosdanza.com/
Debra Cash
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| photo by Christopher Fitzgerald |
Debra Cash has written about dance, performing arts, design and cultural policy for print, radio, television and the internet. During the year she gives pre-concert talks, provides program notes and moderates panels and events sponsored by regional arts presenters including World Music/CRASHarts and Wesleyan University. A longtime consultant to the National Endowment for the Arts and New England Foundation for the Arts, Debra taught dance history and world dance at Emerson College and has served on panels and nominating committees for the LEF Foundation, The Yard and The Boston Foundation. For 17 years she was dance critic for the Boston Globe, followed by a five year stint at National Public Radio's award-winning WBUR Online Arts website. Debra is delighted to be returning to Bates as Scholar-in-Residence. She earned a Master of Design Studies degree at Harvard and maintains an active career as a user-centered design manager and researcher.
Alison Chase
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Alison Chase is a choreographer, director, performance and installation artist. She is best known as co-founder and artistic director of the movement collective, Pilobolus (1973-2005), where she won international acclaim for her unique ability to blend narrative, kinetics, and visuals into rich metaphoric worlds. In her years with Pilobolus, she created more than 50 works for the stage, frequently choreographing individually for the ensemble. In 2009, she founded Alison Chase/Performance as a vehicle to explore new aspects of interdisciplinary work, including large-scale site-specific creations, museum installations and fusions of film and movement. Her many honors include: a Guggenheim Fellowship (1980); a Laurel Award for Life Time Achievement (1992); American Dance Festival’s Scripps Award (2000);); Cine Golden Eagle Award, 2002 (with filmmaker Mirra Bank); and Maine Arts Commission’s 2009 Performing Arts Fellow. Teaching credits include Assistant Professor of Dance and choreographer-in-residence at Dartmouth College (70-73) and Yale Theater Studies Department (1991-1997). Chase holds a BA in History and Philosophy from Washington University and an MA in dance from UCLA. http://www.apogee-arts.org/
Robbie Cook
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| photo by by Kristina Pugh |
Robbie Cook is a dancer, Pilates and yoga instructor based in Los Angeles. He completed a 200-hour Yoga certification at Yoga High in NYC. and has since taught in NYC, Dallas and Los Angeles, and at the Summer Dance Institute/University of Wisconsin, Madison. His Pilates certification was completed in Chicago, subsequently teaching there as well as in NYC, San Francisco, Bennington College in Vermont, Dallas, Los Angeles and as a guest teacher in Minneapolis; Montevideo, Uruguay; Sapporo, Japan; and Cork, Ireland. As a dancer, Robbie has danced with Douglas Dunn, Other Shore, Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, Margaret Jenkins, Jan Erkert, Keith Thompson and Liz Gerring among others. He has also commissioned two solos from Deborah Hay, participating in her Solo Performance Commissioning Project: Music 2001 & The Runner 2007. Robbie earned an MFA in Dance from Bennington College and has taught dance at CSSSA @ Cal Arts, TCU, Long Island University, and Master Classes at Pepperdine University, Harvard-Westlake School, University of Houston, HSPVA Houston, UCLA and ADF. He currently teaches in the Dance Department at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Robbie’s classes draw from his study of Functional Anatomy with Irene Dowd and his continual investigation of the eight limbs of Yoga.
Carol Dilley
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| Manel Socias |
Carol Dilley has been teaching, choreographing and performing, internationally, for over 25 years with recent performance projects in Costa Rica, Australia, Spain and Sri Lanka. She began her modern studies in NY moving from ballet to Simonson technique to performing with contemporary choreographers. She spent nearly a decade based in Barcelona, Spain, teaching, choreographing and performing across Europe with her own company of women, as well as performing with various Barcelona companies and independent choreographers. She also has long-standing ties with the dance scene in Sydney, Australia, where she returns regularly to choreograph, perform and teach. As a dance advocate for grass roots performance opportunities, she was a founding director La Porta in Barcelona, Dance Briefs in Sydney, and more recently, FAB in Lewiston, Maine. Carol has an MFA from the University of Washington in Seattle and a Graduate Certificate in Arts Management from the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia. Carol is an Associate Professor and Director of Dance at Bates College since 2003.
Meghan Durham
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| photo byNick Fancher |
Meghan Durham is a dance artist, choreographer, educator, advocate, and scholar. Her creative work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Eccles Foundation, the Philadelphia Foundation, the nEW Festival, Dance Advance’s artists’ exchange in Singapore (administered by the Pew Charitable Trust), the Greater Columbus Arts Council, and the Painted Bride Art Center, among others. Meghan taught in the Program in Dance at Princeton University from 2003-2008; and has held dance faculty positions at Temple University, the University of Utah, Westminster College, BalletMet Academy, Repertory Dance Theater's Community School and the Virginia Tanner Creative Dance Program. She currently teaches as a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Dance at the Ohio State University. Meghan conducts her creative activity as an independent artist, as the Artistic Director of Merge Dance and as a collaborating performer (past and present) for Melanie Stewart Dance Theatre, Ashley Thorndike/Peter Swendsen, and Karl Rogers, among others; with recent premieres in Columbus, OH and Chicago.
Michel Foley
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Michael Foley has been involved in the professional dance world for over 20 years. He started dancing at Bates College under Marcy Plavin where he earned a BA in English and Spanish. Michael has performed, internationally, in the companies of over two-dozen choreographers, including Doug Elkins, Kevin Wynn, Seán Curran, Donna Uchizono, Ruby Shang and Eun Me Ahn. He has taught workshops and master classes throughout the US, Europe, Central America, the Caribbean and Mexico, and has taught on the faculties of New World School of the Arts, Bates College, la Escuela Profesional de la Danza de Mazatlan, and Dance Space Center in NYC. He also teaches technique and has set choreography for the Cirque du Soleil organization. Michael has maintained choreographic residencies at over 30 colleges and universities in the U.S. and abroad. His choreography can be found in the touring repertories of dance companies throughout the US, as well as in Cuba, Mexico, Panama, Ireland and Italy. He formed his own company, “Michael Foley Dance”, in 1994 touring the US and Europe. Michael has a 26-year affiliation with the Bates Dance Festival where he has been a student, emerging choreographer, faculty, and co-director of the Young Dancers Workshop from 1996 - 2007. He holds an MFA in Dance from the University of Washington and is an Associate Professor of Dance at the University of South Florida. He also directs a yearly study abroad program in Paris. In 2009 Michael was a Fulbright Scholar in Mexico working with Delfos Danza. http://www.michaelfoleydance.com/
Angie Hauser
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| photo by William Federking |
Angie Hauser is a choreographer, performer and teacher. Her work reflects the influences of improvisation, contact improvisation, ballet, butoh and contemporary dance techniques. Angie has been a member of the Bebe Miller Company since 2000, contributing to the creation of award-winning dance works performed throughout the country. In 2006 she won a BESSIE Award for her collaboration with Bebe Miller. She has also danced with the companies of Elizabeth Streb, Liz Lerman and Poppo Shiriashi and performed with many gifted artists including Kirstie Simpson, Andrew Harwood, Kathleen Hermesdorf, K.J. Holmes and Darrell Jones. Her creative work also includes her ongoing collaboration with Chris Aiken resulting in performances and workshops in the US and in Europe, including their projects, Dwell and Utopia Parkway, both co-commissioned by the National Performance Network. She has taught improvisation and dance throughout the US and in Switzerland, Germany, Canada and Scotland. She has also taught on the dance faculty of Columbia College Chicago, Cornell University, Denison University and Bates Dance Festival. Angie received her MFA in dance from the Ohio State University and holds a BA in Art History from University of South Carolina. She is an Assistant Professor of Dance at Smith College.
Heidi Henderson
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| photo by Nikki Carrera |
Heidi Henderson, choreographer for elephant JANE dance, a pick up company in RI, is a three time recipient of the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts Choreography Fellowship. elephant JANE dance has performed at the South Bank Centre in London, in New York City, at Jacob's Pillow Inside/Out Festival, at The International Festival of Dance in Taegu, Korea, at the Bates Dance Festival, and around New England. Heidi has danced in the companies of Bebe Miller, Nina Wiener, Peter Schmitz, Sondra Loring and Paula Josa-Jones. Heidi has been a contributing editor at Contact Quarterly, a vehicle for moving ideas. She received her BA from Colby College and her MFA from Smith College and is in her ninth year on the faculty at Connecticut College. She first attended the Bates Dance Festival in 1988 and has returned again and again as a student, professional dancer, teacher and as a choreographer.
Sara Hook
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| no credit |
Sara Hook toured the world as a member of the Nikolais Dance Theater and has been a frequent guest artist/collaborator with David Parker and The Bang Group. Her choreography has been produced throughout the US and in the Netherlands, Canada, Italy, Ecuador, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Recent venues for her work include the DancenowNYC Festival at Dance Theater Workshop in New York and the Minneapolis Fringe Festival. She has also toured widely as a guest artist at universities. Hook holds a BFA from the North Carolina School of the Arts, an MFA from NYU, and is a Certified Movement Analyst from the Laban Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies. Currently she is professor of dance and the MFA program director for Dance at Illinois where she actively promotes the synergistic relationship between the professional and academic arenas of the dance field.
Shawn Hove
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| photo by Stephanie Matthews |
Shawn Hove, artistic director of shove gently dance/theatre, received his MFA in Choreography and Dance Technology from the Ohio State University in 2005 and his BFA in Dance from Cornish College of the Arts in 1997. He is a multidisciplinary dance artist investigating and working in dance as a choreographer, dancer, collaborator, educator, lighting designer and media artist. From 2005-2010, he was on faculty in OSU’s Department of Dance, where he was a Technology and Media Advisor for faculty and student research. He also taught technology-based courses in video editing and media in performance. As co-video director, he is going into his tenth year at the Bates Dance Festival where he helps document the festival’s performances and more. Hove recently worked as a collaborating producer for the installation work of Norah Zuniga Shaw’s Synchronous Objects, Reproduced. This work is based on the website of choreographer William Forsythe's Synchronous Objects project. John Mueller’s Dance Film Archived has commissioned Shawn to help create DVDs on Loie Fuller’s Fire Dance, Leonide Massine’s Gaite Parisien and Symphonie Fantastique. Hove currently is a staff/lecturer at Connecticut College where he works as production coordinator, teaches dance production and media in performance courses.
Tania Isaac
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| photo by Bill Herbert |
Tania Isaac is a Caribbean-American dancer/choreographer who fuses choreography with personal documentary and social commentary to grapples with identity, post-colonial issues, feminism and juxtapositions of European and African influences. She graduated with honors from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and received her MFA in dance from Temple University in 2000. Also a scholar, she has penned several articles for publications such as Susanna Sloat’s anthology Making Caribbean Dance (University Press of Florida, 2010). Isaac is a former member of David Dorfman Dance, Urban Bush Women and Rennie Harris Puremovement. She has received grants from the Independence Foundation, Dance Advance, National Performance Network, Leeway Foundation, Harlem Stage Fund for New Work and is the recipient of a 2011 Pew Charitable Foundation Artists Fellowship. Her current work is a groundbreaking exploration of creative method she calls the “Open Notebook“ a way of turning a room into a laboratory of investigation and participatory dance. She developed this project during a 2006 Residency at the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography. Isaac has been faculty at Bates Dance Festival, Resident Artist at Painted Bride Art Center in Philadelphia, and a US/JAPAN Exchange Artist through Philadelphia Dance Projects, Dance Theater Workshop and the Japan Foundation. She has also taught and performed across the U.S.
Larry Keigwin
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| photo by Matthew Murphy |
Larry Keigwin is a native New Yorker and graduate from Hofstra University, where he received a BA in Dance. He founded KEIGWIN + COMPANY in 2003 and as Artistic Director, Keigwin has led the company as it has performed at theaters and dance festivals throughout New York City and across the country. In addition to his work with K+C, recent commissions include Works & Process at the Guggenheim, The Juilliard School, The New York City Ballet's Choreographic Institute, and The Martha Graham Dance Company, among many others. In 2010, Keigwin was named the Vail International Dance Festival’s first artist in residence, during which time he created and premiered a new work with four of ballet’s most prominent stars. Also in 2010, he staged the opening event of Fashion Week: “Fashion’s Night Out: The Show,” which was produced by Vogue. In 2011, Keigwin choreographed the new musical, Tales of the City, at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, as well as the new off-Broadway production of RENT, now running at New World Stages. Keigwin has most recently been commissioned to create a new ballet on the Royal Ballet of New Zealand. Keigwin’s other choreographic credits include work with the pop band Fischerspooner, comedian Murray Hill, and as an associate choreographer for The Radio City Rockettes. www.LarryKeigwin.com
Kim Konikow
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Kim Konikow has a varied background in the arts as a presenter, arts manager and administrator. As a consultant through artservices & company for over 30 years, Ms. Konikow has been engaged in projects that facilitate artistic growth and build community with a focus on organizational development. Her work experience includes: annual conference coordination for with the national service organization Dance/USA; executive director of The Mesa, an arts & humanities residency center in Southern Utah; executive director for the statewide service organization, Minnesota Dance Alliance; associate director for Art Awareness, a residency and performance center in upstate New York; and director of special events at New York’s Brooklyn Academy of Music. Current work includes chairing Utah’s Washington County Arts Council and teaching arts administration workshops at colleges and universities around the country. Ms. Konikow has served extensively as a site visitor and panelist for several regional, state and national organizations. She holds a BA in Art History and Theatre from George Washington University in Washington, DC and a dual MFA in Arts Administration and Theatre Direction from Brooklyn College/City University of New York.
Claudia Lavista
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| photo by Martin Gavica |
Claudia Lavista is a dancer, choreographer and teacher, who has been involved in arts since the age of eight. In 1992 she founded DELFOS Contemporary Dance along with Victor Manuel Ruiz. The company has since grown into one of Mexico’s foremost internationally touring modern dance troupes. Claudia has received many awards for her outstanding artistic works including Best Female Dancer in 1998, 2002 and 2005, and “One of the 10 Best Mexican Dancers of the XX Century” by the specialized critics in 2001. In 2008 and 2011 she received the prestigious National Arts Creators Fellowship from the Mexican National Endowment for the Arts. In 2011 the University of Chicago chooses her as a Mellon Fellow to create a collaborative project with the music department. She has been a featured performer in over 70 works of dance, theater, video and opera, working with an international roster of choreographers and performing in some of the world’s most prestigious theaters. Claudia has created more than 40 choreographic works and has collaborated with theater and opera directors, photographers, video artists, poets and other choreographers for nearly two decades. In 1998 she created, along with Victor Manuel Ruiz and Omar Carrum, La Escuela Profesional de Danza de Mazatlán/EPDM, which has emerged as one of the leading dance conservatories in Mexico and Latin America. http://www.delfosdanza.com/
Rachel List
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| photo by Julie Lemberger |
Rachel List has performed across the U.S. and in Canada, Mexico and Europe as a member of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, The Vanaver Caravan, Partridge/Benford/Dance/Music and The New York Baroque Dance Company. Recent performances with the NYBDC have included appearances at The Kennedy Center, The Rose Theater (Lincoln Center), and at the International Handel Festival in Goettingen, Germany. Ms. List directed and choreographed for her own company from 1985-1995 and was the founder and director of Manchester Dance, a summer workshop in Vermont, from 1987-1997. She holds an MFA in Dance from the University of Wisconsin/Milwaukee and has taught professional ballet classes in New York City since 1978 (currently at the Peridance Center). Ms. List is the Director of the Dance Program at Hofstra University and has taught previously at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Barnard College, Queens College (CUNY), the Paul Taylor Summer Institute, the Balettakademien (Stockholm, Sweden) and Danse Projektet (Copenhagen, Denmark). Ms. List has presented master classes and lecture/demonstrations in Baroque dance at Juilliard, Columbia University, Swarthmore, Vassar, Bard Graduate Center and F.I.T. and has served as a period movement consultant and/or choreographer for the Pearl Theatre and the Bronx Opera Company. She is very pleased to be returning for her fifteenth summer at the Bates Dance Festival.
Paul Matteson
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| photo by Ian Douglas |
Paul Matteson recently completed his fourth year as a member of the Bill T. Jones / Arnie Zane Dance Company. He is originally from Cumberland, Maine and as a beginning dancer attended the Bates Dance Festival, which inspired him to make dance his life. He received undergraduate and graduate degrees from Middlebury and Bennington Colleges, respectively. From 2000-2005, he was a member of David Dorfman Dance and Race Dance, receiving a BESSIE for performance in 2002. He has also performed with Jennifer Nugent, Terry Creach, Peter Schmitz, Kota Yamazaki, Chamecki/Lerner, Jamie Cunningham, Neta Pulvermacher, Susan Sgorbati, Helena Franzen and Keith Johnson. In addition to Bates, he teaches at The American Dance Festival and The Florida Dance Festival. He has choreographed and performed his own work in New York City since 1997 and has been a guest artist at numerous universities nationally and abroad.
Donna Mejia
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| photo by Steven Balderrama |
Donna Mejia is a choreographer, lecturer, teacher, administrator, and performer specializing in contemporary dance, traditions of the Arab and African Diaspora, and emerging fusion traditions in Transnational Electronica. For 10 years she was a faculty member at Colorado College and Director of the Colorado College International Summer Dance Festival. For twelve years she served as managing director of the award-winning Harambee African Dance Ensemble of CU-Boulder. With Harambee she was awarded the prestigious El Pomar Foundation grant, was featured in the March 1996 issue of Dance Magazine, performed for President Bill Clinton and Nobel Laureate Archbiship Desmond Tutu, and was hailed as the “Best of Boulder” for 3 years running. Donna is an authorized instructor of Brazilian Silvestre Modern Dance Technique and is a primary person assisting in codifying this esoteric study of dance and the body after 20 years of practice. Donna was the Guest Artist in Residence for Smith College Dance 2006 through 2009, and has been awarded residencies at the Naropa Institute, Mt. Holyoke College, Hampshire College, University of Northern Colorado, Tapei National University of the Arts, Bucknell University, Colorado State University, Earthdance, Jacob’s Pillow and the Bates Dance Festival. Donna achieved honors marks in the completion her Master of Fine Arts degree on full fellowship. She is director of the Sovereign Collective, a social action and performance ensemble. Her touring lectures about identity in the digital diaspora, ethics/integrity/trends in global dance fusion, and the deconstruction of the femme fatale caricature in dance have earned her the title “Raqs Royalty” [Arabic for dance] by the digital press. http://donnamejiadance.com/
Shonach Mirk-Robles
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| photo by Arthur Fink |
Shonach Mirk-Robles received her classical training in some of the world's best schools, including the School of American Ballet, The Royal Ballet School of London and Maurice Béjart's MUDRA. She was a member of Bejart's famed Ballet of the Twentieth Century from 1974 to 1986 and also performed with Switzerland's Zurich Operhaus, Germany's Hamburg Ballet and Italy's Ballet de Torino. Shonach’s advanced studies in Spiraldynamik® have become the major influence in her method of teaching classical ballet. She studied Spiraldynamik® while also completing her MDEd. The combination of these two advanced trainings has dramatically informed her approach to teaching technique through the integration of Spiraldynamik® principles. Through her collaboration with acclaimed choreographers she has developed a deep understanding of what today's dancers need in the way of a classical base for contemporary performance. Shonach founded her own school in Zurich in 2009 and also teaches, internationally, in Japan, Spain and Germany.
Onye Ozuzu
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| photo by Michael Weintrob |
Onye Ozuzu is a performing artist, choreographer, educator and researcher. Her body of work fuses modern dance, West African dance, Japanese and Chinese martial arts, yoga, improvisational performance, literature and cultural studies. She has been actively making and performing work since 1997. Her work has been seen, nationally and internationally, at The Joyce Soho (NY), Kaay Fecc Festival Des Tous les Danses (Dakar, Senegal), La Festival del Caribe (Santiago, Cuba), and Lisner Auditorium (Washington DC), among others. Ongoing projects include The Technology of the Circle, a group performance improvisation process; ADADIA African Drum and Dance in America, a web-based ethnographic collection of oral histories and vigorous engagement with interdisciplinary collaboration and feature works with painter, Michael Dixon, ballet dancer/scholar, Stephanie Tuley, photographer, Michael Weintrob, and conductor, percussionist, Fara Tolno. Onye is, currently, serving as Professor of Dance and Chair at the Dance program at Columbia College Chicago.
Peter Richards
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| no credit |
Peter Richards is a videographer, artist and dancer living in New York City. He has produced archival performance documentation for hundreds of artists in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Columbus and Maui. He has created video projections for performances shown at Aaron Davis Hall, Dance Theater Workshop, The Kitchen, and Symphony Space in New York City, as well as at Trinity College and The Castle Theater at the Maui Arts and Cultural Center. Other video works have been shown at The Pregones Theater, The Stark Gallery, Dance on Camera Festival, and the MIX Festival in New York City. Peter toured extensively with Mikhail Baryshnikov’s White Oak Project’s Past/Forward as the live-camera operator for the performance piece. In 2010 he was awarded a “Bessie,” along with all collaborators, for his video contribution in Yanira Castro’s Dark Horse/Black Forest – Gershwin. Since 2000 he has been the resident videographer for The Bates Dance Festival.
Karl Rogers
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| photo by Nancy Fancher |
Karl Rogers, co-director of the Young Dancers Workshop, is Assistant Professor of Dance at The College of Brockport. He is also a member of David Dorfman Dance and has danced in projects for Colleen Thomas, Terry Creach, Paul Matteson, elephant JANE dance, Melinda Ring, Hoi Polloi, and many others. He completed an MFA in Choreography (2003) and is, currently, a PhD candidate in Dance at the Ohio State University. His dance company, Red Dirt Dance, has performed at venues across the country. Most recently, he has performed a series of duets, collaborating with both Heidi Henderson and Megan Durham-Wall.
Laura Selle-Virtucio
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Laura Selle Virtucio began her movement training as an athlete in Sioux Falls, SD. In 1995, she moved to Minneapolis where she earned her BFA in Dance from the University of Minnesota. Among her greatest accomplishments, she counts her long partnership as a company member and choreographers’ assistant to Shapiro & Smith Dance and Stuart Pimsler Dance and Theater. With these companies, Laura has been a featured performer on stages nationwide, such as the Joyce Theater (NY), Annenberg Center (PA), The Guthrie (MN) and the Southern Theater (MN) and has set numerous repertory works across the country. Laura performs with Shapiro & Smith Dance and Zenon Dance Company and is a guest artist with Carl Flink’s Black Label Movement. Laura’s work with jazz choreographers Cathy Young, Danny Buraczeski and Zoe Sealy influenced her teaching and performing of jazz dance. She was an affiliate faculty in the dance programs at the University of Minnesota and Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota. Laura received the 2007 McKnight Fellowship for Dancers and a 2007 Sage Award for Dance for Best Performer. In her spare time, she enjoys social dance, performing with the Minneapolis Salsa Movement.
Colleen Thomas
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| photo by Gerry Noel |
Colleen Thomas is a New York based choreographer and performing artist. She began her professional career with the Miami Ballet and went on to work with renowned contemporary choreographers such as Nina Wiener Dance Company, Donald Byrd/The Group, Bebe Miller Dance Company, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, and The Kevin Wynn Collection among others. In 1997 a creative collaboration with Bill Young evolved into an intimate company focused on rigorous physicality and dynamic partnering. Their work has been seen throughout the U.S, Europe, Asia, and South America. Now interested in focusing on illuminating her vision of contemporary work, Thomas has formed ColleenThomasDance. Thomas has presented her work in Hong Kong, Estonia, Venezuela, Peru, Brazil, and Russia and in New York at Joyce Soho, Danspace Project, Dance New Amsterdam, Dance Theater Workshop, The Miller Theater, Danny K. Playhouse, and The Kumble Arts Center, as well as at Cal State Long Beach, University of Maryland, Connecticut College, Ursinus College, East Carolina University, and Minneapolis at the Ritz Theater, Southern Theater, and The New Guthrie. Thomas received her BA in psychology from SUNY Empire State College and her MFA in Dance from University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. She has been an adjunct faculty member at Long Island University's Brooklyn Campus, The New School, Barnard College, and Skidmore College. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Professional Practice at Barnard College of Columbia University. http://www.colleenthomasdance.com/
Return to topMartha Tornay
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| no credit |
Martha Tornay founded the East Village Dance Project (EVDP), a dance development program for ages 4 to 19, in New York City in 1997, under the non-profit organization GOH Productions. In the Fall 2010, she opened her own space Avenue C Studio in the East Village, a studio that is home to all EVDP classes and to the Teen Repertory Company. EVDP presented the first Teen Dance Festival at La MaMa in Fall 2010. Prior to launching her teaching career, Martha graduated from Interlochen Arts Academy and received a Fine Arts Award in dance technique and choreography. Martha has over three decades of intensive classical ballet and modern technique studies with dance masters such as Mme. Gabriela Darvash, Gretchen Ward Warren, Robert Brassel and Merce Cunningham; and performed for 18 years with regional and international ballet and modern dance companies in the US and Israel. For the last nine years, Martha has been teaching at NY University’s Experimental Theater Wing, Bates Dance Festival and for the Louisville Ballet School. http://eastvillagedanceproject.com/
Nicole Wolcott
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| photo by Matthew Murphy |
Nicole Wolcott is a choreographer, teacher and performance artist based in New York City. She has been performing with dance companies, bands and video artists around the country for sixteen years in venues as varied as the Metropolitan Opera House, The Kennedy Center and CBGBs. She has also appeared as a featured dancer in the major motion picture Across the Universe and videos for the band, Fischerspooner. In 2003 Nicole co-founded KEIGWIN + COMPANY with Larry Keigwin and was the Associate Artistic Director until 2010. Wolcott’s choreography has been performed at Symphony Space, the Frying Pan, Galapagos, Dance Theater Workshop, Joyce SoHo, Joe’s Pub, CBGB’s, Monkeytown, PS122, DTW, DNA, the Duo Theater and around the country at Summerdance Santa Barbara, Bates Dance Festival, Florida Dance Festival and the American Dance Festival. In 2010 she was the Artist in Residence at Dance New Amsterdam in New York City and more recently Dancenow/NYC commissioned an evening of work, which premiered in April 2011 at Joe’s Pub. Presently she is an adjunct professor at Hunter College and continues to teach in private studios in New York City as well as travel the country as a guest artist. http://www.nicolewolcott.com/
Cathy Young
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| photo by Brian Mengiini |
Cathy Young received her BA magna cum laude from Harvard University in Sociology and Women’s Studies, and her MFA in Dance from the University of Illinois. She is nationally recognized as a master teacher of jazz dance, and has conducted residencies at over 40 colleges around the country, as well as teaching at major U.S. festivals including Bates Dance Festival, Florida Dance Festival and the international Open Look Festival, in St. Petersburg, Russia. As a performer, Cathy has danced with numerous companies including Zenon Dance Company and Danny Buraczeski’s JAZZDANCE! touring extensively throughout the US and Europe, and performing in prestigious venues such as the Joyce Theater in New York and Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. For the past 20 years she has been focused on creating her own work, a dynamic mix of styles and dance forms that intermingles jazz, modern, contact improvisation and social dance. She creates choreography for her own company, Cathy Young Dance, and has also been commissioned by professional companies and presenters including The Walker Art Center, Minnesota Dance Theatre, Pennsylvania Dance Theatre, Zenon Dance Company, The Minnesota Opera and internationally by Kannon Dance Company of St. Petersburg, Russia. Her choreography has been recognized with awards and grants from the McKnight Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Target Foundation and the Minnesota State Arts Board, among others. She was previously Department Chair and an Associate Professor of Dance at Ursinus College, and now serves as Director of the Dance Division of The Boston Conservatory.
