Beverly Blossom
Beverly Schmidt Blossom (August 28, 1926 – November 1, 2014) has been called “the Doyenne of Robust Eccentricity” by Village Voice dance critic Deborah Jowitt. After receiving a B.A. from Roosevelt College in 1950, Blossom went to New York to continue professional dance training, and eventually joined the Alwin Nikolais Dance Company, where she performed from 1953 to 1963. In 1953, Blossom received her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York. She was granted a Fulbright Fellowship in 1957 to study with Mary Wigman in West Berlin. After leaving the Nikolais Company, she was one of the participants in the development of multi-media theater in the East Village, as dance curator of the Bridge Theater, and a collaborator with actor-poet-writer Roberts Blossom, who invented “filmstage theater.” Beverly was a full tenured Professor at the University of Illinois Dance Department, Champaign-Urbana, from 1967 to 1990. Blossom received a Bessie Award and numerous grants from the NEA, the New York State Council on the Arts, the Illinois Arts Council, and a number of private foundations. “Ms. Blossom was best known later in her career, from the 1980s on, as one of the most distinguished — and zaniest — solo performers in modern dance. She had only to walk quietly onto a stage, statuesque and slightly quizzical, and disparate worlds would be evoked, bursting into the light.” (Jennifer Dunning, New York Times)
Works: A Dream of Brides (2006)
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Marianela Boan
Marianela Boan is an internationally known choreographer, recognized as one of the most important artists of contemporary Cuban dance and a leader of the Hispanic-American dance vanguard. Her revolutionary style, “Contaminated Dance,” radically merges text, props and projected images to produce an original form. As a choreographer, Boan has worked in over 40 countries and created more than 50 dances. Prior to moving the States, Marianela founded DanzAbierta in Havana, Cuba. She has been a Titular Professor at the Instituto Superior des Artes (ISA) in Havana and has contributed to the education of several generations of Cuban and Latin American dancers. Marianela Boan shared her work with the Philadelphia community from 2005–10 during which time she founded BoanDanz Action and taught at Temple University (after receiving her master’s degree). Marianela has created works for companies and institutions including the American Dance Festival, Bates Dance Festival, Barnard College, FITLA Los Angeles, DTW, Princeton University, and many more. She is a recipient of a Rocky Award 2008 and has received commissions from Painted Bride Arts Center, the National Performance Network, and the Cuban Artists Foundation. Now residing in Santo Domingo, she is currently the director of the Contemporary Dance Project (ProDanCo) of the Dominican National Ballet.
Works: Stampede (2009)
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Jan Erkert
Professor Jan Erkert is a dance maker, teacher, author, and head of Dance at Illinois. As the artistic director of Jan Erkert and Dancers from 1979 to 2000, she created over 70 works, critically acclaimed for their lush, evocative imagery. Erkert’s work has been seen throughout the United States as well as in Germany, Mexico, Taiwan, Japan, Uruguay, and Israel. Erkert and the company were honored with numerous awards, including fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Illinois Arts Council and Ruth Page Awards for choreography and performance. She has received a Fulbright Scholar Award and is currently serving on the Fulbright Peer Review Panel. She has been a strong spokesperson for innovative and interdisciplinary education, speaking at numerous national and international conferences, including the Academic Chairperson Conference, the National Association of Schools of Dance conferences, and the international conference Performing Arts Training Today.
Works: Wet Dreams (2006)
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Susan Marshall
As artistic director of Susan Marshall & Company, Marshall has, since 1985, created over 40 dances on her company, and has also created works for the Lyon Opera Ballet, Frankfurt Ballet, and Mikhail Baryshnikov. In its home base of NYC, the company has performed most frequently at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (six seasons), and Dance Theater Workshop, as well as at The Joyce Theater, The Kitchen, and Baryshnikov Arts Center; it has also toured extensively across the US and overseas, including appearances at the Edinburgh Festival, Spoleto Festival, and Pina Bausch’s Internationales Tanzfestival NRW. Marshall’s work with Philip Glass includes the stage direction of “Book of Longing,” a song cycle based on the poetry of Leonard Cohen; and the choreography, direction and co-adaptation of “Les Enfants Terribles,” a dance opera based on the work of Jean Cocteau. Marshall has also choreographed/directed the music ensembles Eighth Blackbird and Bang on a Can’s Asphalt Orchestra. A 2000 recipient of a MacArthur fellowship, Marshall has received numerous other awards, including three New York Dance and Performance Awards (BESSIES) for Outstanding Choreographic Achievement. In addition to her own company’s work, Marshall serves as Director of Dance at Princeton University’s Lewis Center for the Arts, having assumed that post in September 2009.
Works: Sawdust Palace Suite (2010)
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Andrea Miller
Andrea Miller is the founder, artistic director, and choreographer of New York-based company Gallim Dance. Through a plural body of work that explores the relationships of movement with other forms of expression including theater, visual arts, music, and politics, Miller has developed a recognizable artistic language of extreme physicality and unprejudiced emotionality. In 2014, Miller received the honor of being named a Guggenheim Fellow by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, for demonstrating exceptional creative ability. New York Magazine writes, “Her viscerally physical movement wrings every inch of life from her dancers — and you’ll be holding your breath, too.” Miller is the recipient of multiple awards and honors, including Sadler’s Wells Jerwood Fellowships (2012 and 2013), Princess Grace Foundation Special Projects Awards (2012 and 2013), New York City Center Choreography Fellowship (2011-2012), Joyce Theater Artist in Residence (2011-2012), Youth America Grand Prix Award for Emerging Choreographers (2011), Wesleyan University’s Mariam McGlone Emerging Choreographer Award (2011), Princess Grace Foundation Works in Progress Award (2010), Dance Magazine’s 25 to Watch (2009), and Princess Grace Foundation Fellowship in Choreography (2009).
Works: Dust (2009) – was commisioned to created by Andrea Miller by Hedwig Dances and has since become a well known repertoire piece for both Hedwig and Andrea’s Gallim Dance in New York.
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Susana Pous
Susana Pous (DanzAbierta Choreographer) is originally from Barcelona, Spain. She has lived in Havana, Cuba for over 10 years where she has worked with DanzAbierta, first as a dancer, and, since 2007, as the resident choreographer. As a member of DanzAbierta, she has worked with esteemed choreographers such as Bryan Jeffery, Pepe Hevia and Norbert Servos. Ms. Pous studied at the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance, José Limón Institute, and graduated from Catalonia’s Center of Cinematographic Studies. Prior to her work with DanzAbierta, she was a member of several companies including Satsumas, Selene Lux Dance, Maria Rovira Transit Co., and Pepe Hevia. Ms. Pous has created numerous works including What to Expect When You’re Expecting, Other Guaguancó, Malson and Showroom. She has won several awards including the Villanueva Award for the best dance in Cuba in 2009 (Malson) and 2011, the Award for Best Choreography UNEAC Cuba in 2010 and the Prize II unique Caribbean Dance Biennial 2010. She has collaborated with companies such as the National Ballet of Cuba, artists such as musician/composer X Alfonso, and worked as an actress in Cuban cinema.
Works: Aires de Cambio (2014)
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Judith Sanchez Ruiz
Judith Sanchez Ruiz (Choreographer) is a Cuban-born choreographer, performer and teacher, based in New York since 1999 and recently relocated to Berlin, Germany. She began her dance studies at the age of 11 at the National School of Arts in Havana, Cuba. She has performed with Trisha Brown Dance Company; David Zambrano; DD Dorvillier; Jeremy Nelson and Luis Malvacias, DanzAbierta Company; Mal Pelo Company; and, is currently working with Sasha Waltz & Dancers in Berlin. Ms. Sanchez has also developed various collaborative projects with innovative composers Henry Threadgill, Steve Coleman; as well as visual artists; Stephen Talasnik, Sun K Kwak, Kentaro Ishihara, Jonathan Cramer, Burt Barr, Ian Trask, and Photographer Anna Lee Campbell.
Works: It’s Not About You (2012)
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Deb Siegel
Deborah Siegel, Assistant to the Chair of the Department of Creative Writing at Columbia College Chicago, received her MFA in Creative Writing: Fiction from Columbia in 2008. Her novel-length thesis, Ponderosa Bones, has been sitting by her couch gathering dust since graduation. Deborah also holds a degree in Dance. She worked as a dance choreographer, performer, and improvisation artist, taught in the Dance Department at Columbia College Chicago for twenty-five years, produced numerous dance concerts, and received grants and fellowships from the Illinois Arts Council. She founded and directed IRIS Dance Improvisation Group, a vehicle for exploration and performance of made-in-the-moment dance and sometimes story, and collaborations with musicians, writers, and visual artists. While a grad student in the Fiction Writing Department, Deb worked in the Publishing Lab, taught for Act/Write, co-edited the Story Week Reader, and had works published in Flashquake, Bookslut, and Hair Trigger. After earning her MFA, Deborah taught English Composition and tutored at Morton College. She has two kids, one BFA grad in Photography, the other a junior Biology major, and lives with her husband, theatrical designer and teacher Ken Bowen, and their Louisiana Catahoula Leopard Dog, Marley (named after Bob).
Works: Open Windows (1987)
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Sheldon B. Smith
Sheldon B. Smith has been making dances, music and video art for over 25 years in both the Midwest and California. Originally trained in ballet and french horn his interests have since shifted. A lot. He likes creating things that cross disciplines but movement is usually at the core. He has been interested in technology for many years and with Lisa, regularly makes performance work that skillfully integrates technology and dance in ways that try to allow both elements to speak to common human experience. His current creative interests are focused on developing workable strategies for integrating technology into improvisational performance. For the last five years he has been a full-time Visiting Assistant Professor in the Mills College Dance Department. There he teaches various composition, music, technology and theory related courses. He has a BA in Dance from Colorado College and an MFA from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and has fond memories of both institutions.
Works: How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb (2004)
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Charlie Vernon
Charlie Vernon is a dance creator in Chicago. He worked as a columnist in the Chicago Reader and cofounder the performance space Links Hall in 1978. He left the management of Links Hall in 1983 to pursue a career in real estate which he continues to do today.
Works: Dances of Many Lands (1982)
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Renee Wadleigh
Renée Wadleigh, professor and MFA thesis advisor, was a New York City-based dancer, choreographer, and teacher for 30 years before she was hired at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1991. Wadleigh received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts for choreography in 1985, 1986, and 1988 while in New York and from the Illinois Arts Council in 1993, 1995, 1997, 1999, and 2001 plus a finalist award in 2005. She has created 43 new works at the U of I since 1992 and has created or set dances on university and professional companies across the United States and abroad.
Works: Opus 38 (1999); Totem (2003); One, Two (and a half), Three (2004)
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Bill Young/Colleen Thomas
BILL YOUNG (winner of recent Guggenheim and NY Foundation for Arts Awards) discovered dance through contact improvisation while studying music at Oberlin College. He showed early work in San Francisco while dancing with Margaret Jenkins, and later moved to New York City where he danced with Douglas Dunn, Randy Warshaw, and Merce Cunningham (on video). In 1988 he established Bill Young and Dancers, which has been presented in New York City at the Joyce Theater, DTW, The Kitchen, Danspace Project, PS 122, Movement Research, Symphony Space and the 92nd St. Y (among others), and on repeated international tours, including performances in Austria, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Canada, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Russia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Finland, Mexico, Brazil, Peru and Venezuela. 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, The Miller Theater, Danny K. Playhouse, and The Kumble Arts Center, as well as at Cal State Long Beach, East Carolina University, and Minneapolis at the Ritz Theater, Southern Theater, and The New Guthrie.
Works: Rein, Bellow (2007)
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