Rebecca Nettl-Fiol is a teacher, choreographer, and author, specializing in the Alexander technique and dance training. A faculty member at Illinois since 1982, she certified as an Alexander teacher in 1990 and is a co-director of the Urbana Centre for Alexander Technique, due to her role in integrating the centre with the Dance Department. She has presented papers and workshops throughout the country to dancers, educators, and practitioners in the medical and somatic fields, most recently at the International Association for Dance Medicine and Science in Canberra, Australia. Her co-edited book, The Body Eclectic: Evolving Practices in Dance Training was released by the UI Press in February, 2008. She is currently working on a book on dance and the Alexander Technique. Nettl-Fiol's choreography has been supported by the Illinois Arts Council and the UIUC Research Board, and has been presented in New York City and Chicago, annually at the Krannert Center, at six American College Dance festivals, and was commissioned by Columbus Dance Theatre, Contemporary Dance/Fort Worth, and Barking Dog Dance Company of Louisville. In 2007 her work was selected for FranceOff!, produced at PS 122 in New York City, and subsequently performed in Quito, Ecuador. Her opera and musical theatre experience includes over 30 productions in venues including the UI Opera and Theatre Departments, Interlochen Center for the Arts, Crane School of Music, and Peoria Opera. Professor Nettl-Fiol holds a BFA in dance from University of Illinois and an MA in dance/choreography from The Ohio State University. -top

Alberto del Saz is the Artistic Director of the Murray Louis and Nikolais Dance Company as well as Co-Director of The Nikolais/Louis Foundation for Dance and Assistant to Mr. Louis. Mr. del Saz is a vital and important link in keeping the Nikolais-Louis repertory active. Mr. del Saz was born in Bilbao, Spain in 1960. At an early age he studied ice-skating, which later led to his first performing career. In 1980 Mr. del Saz became the Spanish National Champion in figure skating and soon made his debut with Holiday on Ice-International. His early dance training was received at the Nikolais-Louis Dance Lab from the great teachers of the technique: Hanya Holm, Alwin Nikolais, Murray Louis, Claudia Gitelman, Tandy Beal, Beverly Blossom and others. In 1985 Mr. del Saz made his debut as a lead soloist with the Nikolais Dance Theater, later renamed the Murray Louis and Nikolais Dance Company. As a member of this internationally acclaimed company he has toured to virtually every continent on the globe. Mr. del Saz has appeared for President Reagan at the Kennedy Center Honors in a CBS telecast featuring the Nikolais Dance Theater as well as on PBS American Masters series in "Nik and Murray", an award winning documentary film by Christian Blackwood. He has also represented the United States State Department on a tour of India, appeared at the Paris Opera Garnier in a Homage to Alwin Nikolais and at the Next Wave Festival with Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane Dance Company. In 1990 he went to Japan where he appeared as a guest artist in "V", a project by Mr. Ushio Amagatsu, Artistic Director of Sankai Juku. He has also performed at "Men Brazil". Mr. del Saz has appeared as a guest solo artist in works by Hanya Holm, Claudia Gitelman, Maureen Fleming, Sara Pearson, Cleo Parker Robinson and others. Mr. del Saz is the Reconstruction Director of the Nikolais/Louis repertory and has staged the Nikolais/Louis repertory on university and professional dance companies around the world. Among others: (North Carolina School of the Arts, The Juilliard School, Conservatoire de la Danse de Paris, Ririe-Woodbury Dance Co., The Joffrey Ballet of Chicago, Ballet Met, University of Washington, University of Illinois, Rutgers State University, Brigham Young University, Centre National de Danse Contemporaine in Angers, Southern Utah University, George Mason University, Boston Conservatory, University of Utah, Georgia Tech, Hunter College, Marymount Manhattan College, Barnard College, Montclair State University). In 1997 he danced Rudolph Nureyev's role in "Moments" a work created by Mr. Louis. Mr. del Saz's work has been funded by NYSCA in collaboration with Ice Theater of New York. He is currently choreographing for bronze medalist figure skater Nicole Bobek and Olympic bronze medallist and World Professional Champion Phillipe Candeloro. His Skating work has appeared on Ice-Wars, Grand Slam and the Professional World Championships televised on CBS, FOX and ABC networks as well as the official opening of the Rockefeller Center sponsored by Champions on Ice. Mr. del Saz has been with the Nikolais/Louis Foundation for 20 years, at the moment his focus is in preserving the Nikolais/Louis technique, repertory and legacy through his teaching and directing. -top

Rodger Belman assistant professor at East Carolina since 2004, holds an MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He moved to Greenville from New York, where he worked with Laura Dean Dancers and Musicians and others, including Twyla Tharp and Mark Taylor. He has taught and set his work throughout the U.S -top

Rolando Yanes is a native of Villa Clara, Cuba. He received training at the Professional School of the Arts and the Vocational School of Ballet in Santa Clara, Cuba. While in Cuba, Mr. Yanes was a principal dancer with Joven Guardias Centro ProDanza under the direction of Lauren Alonso and Ballet de Camaguey. In 1995, he was awarded the Silver Medal at the prestigious International Ballet Competition in Brasilia, Brazil. Mr. Yanes came to the United States in 1996 as a principal dancer with Milwaukee Ballet Company. As a principal dancer with Milwaukee Ballet, Mr. Yanes expanded his diverse classical and contemporary repertoire dancing leading roles in such ballets as Romeo & Juliet, Swan Lake, Coppelia, The Nutcracker, and Giselle. His powerful technique and unparalleled partnering skills led to principal roles in La Esmeralda, Spartacus, Troy Game, Who Cares?, Diana and Acteon, and Le Corsaire, as well as major works from leading choreographers like George Balanchine, Choo-San Goh, Robert Joffrey, and Kathryn Posin, among others. Mr. Yanes is in great demand as a guest artist. He has performed with numerous companies including performances of La Fille Mal Gardee with Ballet Taller de San Juan (Puerto Rico) and The International Ballet Festivals in Havana, Cuba and Maracaibo, Venezuela. Mr. Yanes has also performed with the Rockford Ballet, Pamiro Opera (Green Bay), the Florentine Opera, and on international tours to Brazil, Venezuela, Mexico, Martinique, Guadeloupe, and Jamaica. This marks Mr. Yanes' fifth year as the director of Milwaukee Ballet II, the official pre-professional program of the Milwaukee Ballet. In addition to performing with Milwaukee Ballet Company, young dancers will continue their development as they perform classical and original choreography in performances and community outreach events in and around Southeast Wisconsin. Since 2004, Mr. Yanes has been directing Milwaukee Ballet School. His original choreography has been performed by Milwaukee Ballet School's pre-professional summer program students and Milwaukee Ballet II. -top

Nadia Thompson, a graduate of the Royal Ballet School, was born in Southport Australia and trained with her mother's school, Frances Davis Thompson School of Dancing. At seventeen she won a bronze medal at the Adeline Genee Awards and toured with Sadlers Wells Royal Ballet. Nadia went on to work for Northern Ballet Theatre, London City Ballet, and Boston Ballet performing for such dignitaries as, HRH Princess Diana, HRH Princess Margaret, the Duchess of York, Crown Prince and Princess of Singapore, and Her Majesty the Queen at the Royal Command Performance.

Her principal roles have included those in Swan Lake, Giselle, The Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker, Coppelia, Don Quixote, and Abdallah. Her vast George Balanchine repertoire includes Russian and Elegy in Serenade, Principal Lady in Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto #2, Divertimento #15, Tchaikovsky Pas De Deux, Mozartiana, Rubies and Choleric in Four Temperaments. She has also performed Twyla Tharp's Upper Room and Waterbaby Bagatelles and Lila York's Celts and Ode to Joy in which she created the principal roles. Nadia has worked as a guest teacher with Trey McIntyre Project, White Oak, Colorado Ballet, Boston Ballet, Queensland Ballet, Harvard University and Wellesley College. -top

Edwin Olvera was born in Chicago, raised in Green Bay, and discovered dance in Milwaukee. At the age of 21, with no formal dance training, Edwin joined UW-Milwaukee's Peck School of the Arts to get his BA in Dance alongside his twin brother, Roberto. While at UWM, they both fell in love with contact improvisation, partnering and yoga. In 2004, a contact improvisation duet called "Zoom Out", choreographed by Long Zhao, was set on the twins and carried them tot eh ACDF Nationals at the Kennedy Center. This duet also got the attention of Dance Magazine and Dancer Magazine in September of 2004. Since he realized that his calling was in contact improvisation, Edwin auditioned for Pilobolus Dance Theatre. After some time, he took a position as a dancer with the company from 2005-2008. The most highlighted moments of his career with the company were traveling the world and doing special collaborations with other artists like Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollack from Israel and master puppeteer Basil Twist from NYC and photographer Robert Whitman. Edwin's background in movement ranges from sports to weightlifting to yoga. He was also in the Army Reserve as a combat medic for eight years with the 452nd Combat Support Hospital of Milwaukee, WI. He is currently working as a personal trainer/yoga instructor at Charym in Litchfield, CT. Edwin lives in Torrington, CT with his supportive wife of five years, Julija Olvera. -top

Roberto Olvera was born in Chicago and raised in Green Bay, WI. He began dancing at the age of 14 as a break dancer with a local hip hop group. After high school, he attended the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Peck School of the Arts as a dance major. A duet entitled "Zoom Out" was choreographed by Long Zhao for Roberto and his twin brother Edwin, which was selected for the American College Dance Festival Kennedy Center Gala performance. Shortly after graduation, Roberto began his professional career with MOMIX, touring extensively nationally and internationally from 2005-2008. Roberto is currently working with Pilobolus Dance Theatre. He was also a combat medic for the US Army Reserve serving an eight-year contract. He would like to thank his family, friends, and fellow soldiers for all the love and support. -top

Dejan Srhoj - After graduating from Ljubljana Ballet School and finishing the Ballet Academy in Munich (Germany), Dejan became the soloist of Slovenian National Opera and Ballet Theatre. From 1999-2001 he performed most of the leading roles, such as Prince in Swan's Lake, Kashchey in Fire Bird, the Prince in Sleeping Beauty, Lucentio in Cranko's Taming of the Shrew. He also took part of research projects with Vera Mantero, Howard Katz Fireheart, Ko Morobushi, Benoit Lachambre, Francois Michele Pesenti...among others. He has received prestigious Award of The Association of Ballet Artists of Slovenia in 2001 and DanceWeb scholarship 2003 in Vienna. In 2000 he co-founded FI_O BALET with Goran D. Bogdanovski with whom he closly collaborates on all the productions and future projects of the company. He pursue however projects with various other artists, as well as, his own choreographic work. In 2004 he created choreography for a puppet theatre performance for adults -Ivana and co-created Confi-dance, the latest creation of Fi_o Balet. His latest project is his first solo performance, Edge of Eden, which he presented in December 2005. -top

Suniti Dernovsek comes to her yoga practice with over 10 years of professional dance experience. She is still choreographing and dancing with her company Hot Little Hands. She began studying yoga in 1999 with Iyengar teacher, Janet Lilly. Since moving to Portland in 2004 she has studied a variety of yoga traditions and she completed the Dharma Yoga Teacher Training at Yoga Pearl in 2006. Suniti has witnessed and experienced Yogas profound benefits and she loves the experience of sharing this with her students. She is very grateful to all of her teachers and thankful to be part of this wonderful community at The People's Yoga. -top

Karole Armitage, Choreographer and Artistic Director of the Karole Armitage Company, began her professional career in 1973 as a member of the Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève, Switzerland, a company rooted in the Balanchine aesthetic and devoted exclusively to his repertory. There she performed many Balanchine masterworks including Agon, The Four Temperaments and Serenade. From 1976-1981 she was a member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company where she danced in leading roles across the globe. Armitage created her first piece, Ne, in 1978, followed by Drastic-Classicism in 1981. Throughout the 80s she led her own New York-based dance company and incorporated the Armitage Ballet in 1985. In 1984, after a performance of her Watteau Duets at Dance Theater Workshop, Mikhail Baryshnikov invited her to create a work for American Ballet Theatre. In 1987, Rudolph Nureyev asked her to create her fourth dance for the Paris Opera Ballet. Its success led to many European commissions. In 1990, Armitage chose to maintain her company on a project basis in order to pursue work with major European ballet and opera companies. In 1990, Armitage was appointed Director of MaggioDanza in Florence, Italy, where from 1995 to 1998 she supervised 45 dancers in the classical repertoire and created her own work. From 1999 to 2002 she was the resident choreographer of the Ballet de Lorraine in France, which toured her work throughout Europe.

In 2004, she made a triumphant return to New York when the Joyce Theater invited her to create a new ballet. Armitage Gone! Dance was launched in 2005. In the same year, she served as the Director of the Venice Biennale Festival of Contemporary Dance. Last spring Armitage was awarded France's most prestigious award, Commandeur dans L'ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

She has created dances for numerous companies including the Paris Opera Ballet, White Oak Dance Project, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, Les Ballets de Monte Carlo, Lyon Opera Ballet, Ballet Nacional de Cuba, the Washington Ballet, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and the Rambert Dance Company, She has directed operas from the baroque and contemporary repertoire for many of the prestigious houses of Europe including Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, the Lyric Opera in Athens and Het Muzik Theater in Amsterdam. She has choreographed for the camera for pop icons Madonna and Michael Jackson and the filmmakers Merchant and Ivory. Armitage's choreography was first seen on Broadway in the musical Passing Strange, which opened in February 2008. This was followed by choreography for the critically acclaimed revival of the 1960's musical HAIR. Over the years Armitage has collaborated with a distinguished array of artists including Thomas Adès, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Jeff Koons, Christian Lacroix, Lukas Ligeti, David Salle, Peter Speliopoulos, Philip Taaffe and Brice Marden. Her work has been the subject of two documentaries made for television: The South Bank Show (1985), directed by David Hinton and Wild Ballerina (1998), directed by Mark Kidel. In addition to creating work for her company, Armitage is creating ballets for The Kansas City Ballet, the Bern Ballet in Switzerland, Boston Ballet and Ballet de Lorraine in France. Armitage is the recipient of many honors including a Guggenheim Fellowship for Choreography (1986), the Grand Prix Roscigno Danza, Italy (2005). -top

Shell Benjamin earned her BFA degree from Juilliard. While attending The High School of Performing Arts in New York she held a full scholarship at the Alvin Ailey Dance School. She has danced with Dance Theater of Harlem Ensemble, principle dancer of Carte Blanche in Norway, worked with the Joffrey Ballet in New York and the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow. As a member of Equity, Screen Actors Guild and AFTRA she has a list of Broadway and off Broadway Productions. She is founder of Guided Light Dance Company in Amsterdam, Director of Dancing 2 Live a dance program currently used in the Chicago Public School system and Private Schools, and this Summer she is the CO-Director of the Alvin Ailey Chicago Camp. Her professional credits include tours of Indonesia, France, Germany, Spain, Russia, Sweden and Dubai. She has created programs for National Louis Center for the Gifted and taught at the Taipei International Dance Festival. -top

Compagnie Marie Chouinard - In 1978 Marie Chouinard presented her first work, Crystallization, which immediately established her as an exceptional artist driven by an infectious search for the genuine. After 12 years as a solo performer and choreographer, Marie Chouinard founded her own company in 1990, the Compagnie Marie Chouinard. Marie Chouinard has lived in New York, Berlin, Bali and Nepal. Her travels, her curiosity, her eclectic studies and her understanding of various techniques allow her to explore the body in different ways. She has created more than 50 solo and group works. The works created since 1978 reflect the concerns of this surprising choreographer: her view of dance as a sacred art, her respect for the body as a vehicle of that art, her virtuoso approach to performance and the invention of a different universe for each new piece. In Marie Chouinard's alphabet, elements respond to one another as in a classical structure while integrating different cultural understandings of the body as infinitely intelligent. Her raw material is the dancers' flesh, bones and muscles, the instinct and vital impulse of the human body whose intimate connections she exposes. As a carrier of meaning, each gesture becomes the "phoneme" of a thought imbedded in the body, while form reflects the dancer's soul as it resides in organs, cells and energetic circuits. Celebrating the human body as a vehicle of life, Marie Chouinard and her contributors work together to create choreographic pieces that reveal a world of primal light, coded sounds and protean forms, through vigorous and incandescent movements. -top

Eiko & Koma - Eiko (female) and Koma (male) were law and political science students in Japan when, in 1971, they each joined the Tatsumi Hijikata company in Tokyo. Their initially experimental collaboration soon developed into an exclusive partnership. The following year, Eiko and Koma started working as independent artists in Tokyo. At the same time, they began to study with Kazuo Ohno, who along with Hijikata was the central figure in the Japanese avant-garde theatrical movement of the 1960s. Neither Eiko nor Koma have studied traditional Japanese dance or theater forms; they have preferred to choreograph and perform only their own works. Their interest in Neue Tanz, the German modern dance movement which flourished alongside the Bauhaus movement in art and architecture, and their desire to explore nonverbal theater took them to Hanover, Germany in 1972. There they studied with Manja Chmiel, a disciple of Mary Wigman, the noted pioneer of Expressionism in dance. In 1973, they moved to Amsterdam and for the next two years toured extensively in Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Tunisia. It was the late Lucas Hoving, a wonderful dancer who had toured with the early Jose Limon Dance Company, who suggested that they go to America. Their first American performance, White Dance , was sponsored by the Japan Society in May of 1976. Since then, they have presented their works at theaters, universities, museums, galleries and festivals world-wide, including numerous appearances at the American Dance Festival, five seasons at BAM's Next Wave Festival and a month-long "living" gallery installation at the Whitney Museum of American Art. They have also worked in dance/video as another means of communication with their audiences. Their video work has been presented on "Alive from Off Center" (1989) and at the Dance on Camera Festival at Lincoln Center (2001). Their videotapes are available through Pentacle (E-mail info@eikoandkoma.org). -top

Christian von Howard is an international performer, teacher and choreographer. He is the Artistic Director of the VON HOWARD PROJECT, a contemporary dance company based out of New York and New Jersey. In 2006, Christian was awarded a Choreography Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council of the Arts. His choreography has been produced in various venues across the globe including Trier, Germany, Joyce SoHo, Dixon Place, DanceNow/NYC Festival, d.u.m.b.o. arts festival, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center and the Spoleto Festival (SC). He has also set work on various colleges and universities, which included Columbia College(SC), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Jacksonville University, Texas Christian University and various other schools of dance across the country. As a concert performer, Christian has worked with such artists as Doug Varone, Fernando Bujones, Douglas Becker, Mark Dendy, Fred Benjamin, and he currently dances with the Umoja Dance Company, Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company and the Alpha Omega Theatrical Dance Company. Christian is a member of the dance faculties of the Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University and the Alvin Ailey School. He will join the dance faculty of Virgin Commonwealth University in the Fall of 2008. Christian holds a BFA from Texas Christian University and a MFA from Tisch School of the Arts, New York University. -top

Cedric Gardner was a top 20 finalist on the third season of the American dance contest series So You Think You Can Dance. Cedric began dancing with his mother at the age of seven, watching classic Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly films with her, and he began studying dance seriously at the age of 19. His first formal training took place at the Peck School of the Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, lasting for two years, though he opted later on to pursue a hip hop dance career at other venues. He then subsequently studied and practiced at the Millennium Dance Complex and the Edge Performing Arts Center. Cedric considers his dance style and techniques to be freestyle, falling under the umbrella of multiple dance styles. He calls it emotion-driven dancing, and expressing those emotions through dance. Apart from dancing, he also enjoys other hobbies such as chess, golf, playing the drums, video games, kite flying, rollerblading, and bowling. He also confidently predicts that he'll own his own production company and dance studio within the next ten years, as well as a toy company. -top

Daniel Gwirtzman directs, choreographs, teaches, and dances for the Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company. Known for its entertaining flair, stylistic diversity, musicality, originality, and accessibility, his choreography has been presented at venues throughout the country and abroad. His New York choreographic debut was in September 1995, when Fall Harvest opened at the Merce Cunningham Studio by a new collaborative repertory company, Artichoke Dance Company, which Daniel co-founded and directed. Under the headline The Next Generation: Young Companies With Strange Names, Elizabeth Zimmer, reviewing for The Village Voice, described him as "moving in Mark Morris' direction." The New York Times hailed Artichoke as "a welcome addition to the New York dance scene." Since that time, Daniel has created a repertory of over ninety choreographed dances ranging from the hilarious to the dramatic, in a variety of idioms: modern, ballet, musical theater/jazz and folk. His work has been set on, and created for, other companies and university dance departments, including The North Carolina Dance Theatre, Fordham University/The Ailey School, Barnard College, and The University of Wisconsin. This past summer (2008) he choreographed Kiss Me, Kate for the Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre company. Beginning with Israeli folk dancing in the elementary grades, his life has been one of dancing without pause. As a dancer he has been described as a willowy John Travolta, sensual, playful, a rag doll, unusually supple, and one who moves like the wind. He has toured nationally and internationally with Garth Fagan Dance and the Mark Morris Dance Group, among other companies. A guest choreographer and teacher at various institutions, including the University of Tulsa, the University of Michigan, Virginia Commonwealth University, The Place (London), Dance New Amsterdam (NY), the North Carolina School of the Arts, the American College Dance Festival Association, Princeton University, New York University, Duke University, The University of the Arts and The Interlochen Center for the Arts, Daniel is excited to begin teaching the senior dance students at the LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts beginning in the winter of 2009. Daniel has received fellowships from the Sacatar Foundation (Brazil), the Raumars Artists-in-Residence program (Finland), the Joyce Theater Foundation (NY), The Yard (Martha's Vineyard), and the Djerassi Resident Artists Program (California). This past January he was invited by DanceEast, one of the UK's leading dance organizations, to attend the Rural Retreat 2008 at Brocket Hall in Hertfordshire, England. A global leadership retreat for directors and creative producers for ballet and dance, Daniel was one of 27 participants invited from 12 countries, alongside principal dancers, choreographers, directors and producers from the world's top ballet and contemporary companies. At a press conference held at the House of Commons, in London, Royal Ballet Principal Dancer Tamara Rojo summed up the weekend's intensive think tank:

"The art form of dance is not lost and is not adrift. There is vision, there are the people to take it forward, and there are the minds to challenge it, make it relevant to society and to the audiences of this new century. During these four days I had the privilege to share a common passion and see into the future and rejoice in what is coming and the artists that are going to take us there." Daniel's essay Fan The Flames , a response from the retreat, was featured in Dance/USA's 25th Anniversary Spring 2008 journal dedicated to the future of the dance field. Daniel holds a BFA from the University of Michigan, and an MFA from the University of Wisconsin. -top

Sara Hook, former soloist with Nikolais Dance Theater, has also performed with Murray Louis, Pearl Lang, Jean Erdman, and Stephan Koplowitz among many others and is an occasional guest artist/ collaborator with David Parker and The Bang Group. Hook\'s company, Sara Hook Dances regularly appears in New York and other national venues. Recent company activities include appearances at Dancenow/NYC\'s DanceMOpoliton Series at Joe\'s Pub at the Public Theater, the West End Theater, the Family Matters Series at Dance Theater Workshop, and the Sampler Series at Symphony Space in New York City. Recent national venues include the Modern Dance Festival at the Modern Art Museum of Ft. Worth, Texas and the Danceworks Performance Series in Milwaukee, WI. Her work also continues to be produced internationally with David Parker and the Bang Group in venues throughout North America and Europe. The first American representative to the International Choreographer\'s Residency Program at the American Dance Festival (ADF), Hook received a Scripps ADF Humphrey-Weidman-Limón Choreography Fellowship in 1995. She has toured widely as a guest artist/teacher and has set works at over a dozen universities nationally. Hook has been on the faculties of Princeton University and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center, and guest faculty of the Paul Taylor Summer Intensives in NYC. She holds an M.F.A. from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and a B.F.A. from the North Carolina School of the Arts. She is also a Certified Movement Analyst from the Laban Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies. -top

Navtej Johar - If there is something that I see and it disturbs me, then it by default implicates me into a responsibility of finding resolve vis-à-vis this object of agitation. And in the process I have to begin to honor and act upon the constructive thoughts that cross my mind. Thus, my state of Yoga and inner calm are directly tied to what I feel needs to get done. Like the old saying, 'If a piece of paper littering the floor needs to be picked up, then the longer I wait to pick it up, the heavier it gets." The sooner I intelligently register a problem and proactively make appropriate adjustments, the sooner I find resolve in my mind to what bothers me, and the more undisturbed and focused I remain. This is the philosophy of yoga that informs Abhyas." -- Navtej Johar. -top

In the year 2000, Navtej Johar, a Bharatnatyam dancer, choreographer and Yoga exponent, opened Studio Abhyas with the objective of teaching dance, Yoga and Vedic chanting. The Studio was also meant to fulfill another objective: Act as a permanent rehearsal space. In 2004, Abhyas was turned into a Trust committed to Yoga, dance-theatre and urban design. Teaching Yoga in a structured and sustained manner over an extended period resulted in a gradual deepening of Navtej's own practice and his understanding and commitment to Yoga. It also resulted in strengthening of the bond he shared with his alma mater, the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram in Chennai and his teacher Sri T.K.V. Desikachar. Prior to setting up the Studio, Navtej had been teaching Yoga for several years but most of it was on ad hoc basis. So when he established the Studio, his guru was very happy with the decision and it was with his blessings that Navtej named it Abhyas. Over the years, Sri Desikachar has visited the Studio on several occasions to conduct workshops and offer talks on the practice and philosophy of Yoga. Since the inception of Abhyas, Navtej's understanding of Yoga has widened to include the social and the civic. The Yoga Sutras advocate that both our sanity and serenity are integrally tied to the quality of our 'seeing' and engagement with the world and its objects. It is with this basic philosophy that the Abhyas Trust ventured to include the Urban Design Program. In 1992, when Navtej returned to India after a gap of nine years, he was dismayed to observe that Indian cities were chaotic and haphazard and totally overlooked the concerns and safety of the pedestrian. There was an utter lack of attention to the detail, most of which was discourteous to the human body. The second despairing realization (after seeing that the little nieces and nephews that he had left behind were now young adults) was that a whole new generation had grown up with the same attitude, blinkered and blind, insensitive, with no sense of responsibility towards public spaces and facilities. The year 1997 was marked by the 'Uphaar tragedy'. During the matinee show on day one of the release of a Hindi movie, a fire started by a faulty transformer in the basement of Uphaar, a movie theatre in Green Park, New Delhi, snuffed out the lives of 59 people who had gone there to watch the film. This man-made tragedy, barely a kilometer from his residence, proved to be a turning point for Navtej and he made a silent resolve to do something about it in his own way. Thus, when the Abhyas Trust was formed, Navtej was determined to include urban design as part of its activities and to target children in particular to bring about a change in mindset, to make them conscious of their surrounding, instill an eye-for-detail and make them proactive vis-à-vis their immediate environment. Concern for the urban environment further extends to care and nurturing of stray animals that are very much a part of our surroundings. People often overlook their plight, not because they are unfeeling or callous, but because most don't know what to do and whom to turn to when they see an injured animal badly in need of help, or for that matter when they see an open drain or a dangerous turn. The Abhyas Trust was thus set up with the hope to simultaneously work on two planes, the inner and the outer, both of which need to be addressed to lead a happy, healthy and harmonious life. -top

Alonzo King (Choreographer, Artistic Director) is a visionary choreographer who has works in the repertories of companies throughout the world including the Swedish Royal Ballet, Frankfurt Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, Dance Theater of Harlem, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, Hong Kong Ballet, North Carolina Dance Theatre, and Washington Ballet. He has worked extensively in opera, television, and film, and has choreographed works for prima ballerina Natalia Makarova and film star Patrick Swayze. Mr. King has also collaborated with artists such as actor Danny Glover, legendary jazz saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, and tabla master Zakir Hussain. Renowned for his skill as a teacher, Mr. King has been the guest ballet master for National Ballet of Canada, Les Ballets de Monte Carlo, San Francisco Ballet, Ballet Rambert, Ballet West and others. In 1982, Mr. King founded Alonzo King's LINES Ballet, which has developed into an international touring company. Seven years later, he inaugurated the San Francisco Dance Center, which has grown into one of the largest dance facilities on the West Coast offering over 80 open classes to adults and teenagers. In 2001, Alonzo King started the LINES Ballet School to nurture and develop the talents of young dancers through year-round and summer programs. Expanding the scope of his educational visions to the college level in 2006, Alonzo King and LINES Ballet embarked on a partnership with the Dominican University of California, creating the West Coast's first Joint BFA program in Dance. It is the only Joint BFA program in the country to be led by an active, world-renowned master choreographer. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom presented the 2nd Annual Mayor's Art Award to Alonzo King in October 2008, calling him a "San Francisco treasure, embodying the best of San Francisco, the creative excellence and diverse culture of this city." In June 2008, Alonzo King was honored with the Jacob's Pillow Creativity Award, in recognition of his contribution to "moving ballet in a very 21st-century direction," in the words of Ella Baff, Executive Director of Jacob's Pillow. The Creativity Award is the third major national award Alonzo King has received in the past three years-in 2006, he was recognized as one of the fifty outstanding artists in America by the United States Artists organization, and in 2005, received the Bessie Award for Choreographer/Creator-and one of many such honors he has received over the course of his career. He is also the recipient of the NEA Choreographer's Fellowship, Irvine Fellowship in Dance, National Dance Project and the National Dance Residency Program, as well as five Isadora Duncan Awards. He has also received the Hero Award from Union Bank, the Lehman Award, and the Excellence Award from KGO, and was chosen as the recipient of the San Francisco Foundation's 2007 Community Leadership Award. Alonzo King has served on panels for the National Endowment of the Arts, California Arts Council, City of Columbus Arts Council and Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Arts Partners Program. In 2005 he was named a Master of African-American Choreography by the Kennedy Center. He is a former commissioner for the city and county of San Francisco, and a writer and lecturer on the art of dance; his contributions appear in the books Masters of Movement: Portraits of American Choreographers and in Dance Masters: Interviews with Legends of Dance. In 2005 he was awarded an honorary Doctorate by Dominican University of California, and the following year was given the Green Honors Chair Professorship from Texas Christian University. Last spring, he received a second honorary Doctorate from his alma mater, CalArts (California Institute of the Arts) in Los Angeles. -top

Heidi Latsky has been a moving force in the dance world for many years, as a choreographer for stage, theater and film. Latsky began her amazing career as the "Disco Queen" of Montreal, forming her first dance revue company, Footlite Dance Theater, in 1982. After moving to New York City in 1983, Latsky initially received recognition as a celebrated principal dancer for Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance (1987-1993). She became a nationally renowned choreographer through her collaboration with Lawrence Goldhuber in the critically acclaimed duo Goldhuber & Latsky (1993-2000). In 2001, Latsky formed the New York-based modern dance company, Heidi Latsky Dance (HLD), to critical acclaim. Her work and company have toured extensively throughout the United States and Europe, performing regularly at preeminent venues and festivals such as Jacob's Pillow, Steps Festival (Switzerland), Portland Institute of Contemporary Art/PICA, Canada Dance Festival (Ottawa), Dance Theater Workshop, Movement Research at Judson Church, the 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Project, Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Academy of Music/BAM, Danceworks (Toronto), Espace Tangente (Montreal), Cannes International Festival de Danse (France), Dance Umbrella (Boston), Bryn Mawr College (PA), the Duke on 42nd Street (produced by the 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center), Central Park Summerstage (New York), Symphony Space (New York), Danceworks Theatre (WI), Long Island University (New York), SUNY Purchase, and Pittsburgh's Three Rivers Arts Festival. With her visionary approach to dance and inventive production elements, Latsky has created a distinct signature style, educational approach and philosophy. In addition to creating more than fifteen works for Heidi Latsky Dance, Latsky has been commissioned to create new work by the Cannes International Dance Festival, American Dance Festival, the Joyce Theater: Altogether Different Festival, Performance Space 122, 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Project, Danspace Project @ St. Marks Church, Alvin Ailey Dance Center, Whitney Museum of American Art, Teatro Libero Palermo, Celebrate Brooklyn!, Montana Transport Company, Pennsylvania Dance Theater and Li Chiao-Ping Dance. She has also created work for solo artists including Gus Solomons Jr, Maxine Sherman, Janet Lilly, Michael Thomas, Li Chiao Ping, among others. For more than 20 years, Latsky has used her innovative teaching practice and philosophy, The Latsky Method, in sharing movement to encourage insight and healing. She has incorporated this method in her teaching residencies at several institutions including Skidmore College, the University of Wisconsin at Madison, University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, Connecticut College, Roger Williams University, Bryn Mawr University, Drew University, Frostburg University, Rutgers University, Purdue University and Point Park College. Latsky headed the Movement Department at The School for Film and Television in NYC from 1998-2005. Latsky has served on the Artist Advisory Board of Danspace Project for over 10 years and is a member of the Dancer's Forum as well as the Society for Arts in Healthcare. She has been a judge at numerous ACDFA conferences and served on panels including the Pew Charitable Trust, the American Dance Guild and the Omega: Women and Power Conference. She annually curates a "Food for Thought" show at Danspace Project, which benefit the AIDS Service Center, NYC. At the 2003 American Dance Guild Conference Legacy: Dancebuilders of the 20th Century, she spoke about Bill T. Jones and performed at their gala event held at Symphony Space. In 1997, Goldhuber & Latsky received the prestigious Scripps/ADF Primus-Tamaris Fellowship for Choreography. In 1994, she was chosen to represent Canada at the Suzanne Dellal International Dance Competition in Tel Aviv and again in 1996, at Danse a Lille, France. She was the 2000 recipient of the McGinnis Lectureship Award from Point Park College. In 2001, she was a recipient of a project residency through the Joyce Theater Foundation. In the 2004-05 season, she was the choreographer for the Academy Award nominated Katja Esson's film "A Season of Madness"; she directed and collaborated with singer/actress Susan Murphy on her musical revue "Girl/Group" at The Marquee, NYC; she performed with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company at BAM and at New York City Center in roles she originated 16 years ago; she collaborated with director Mary Fulham on a three week run of "Balletto Stiletto" at La MaMa ETC (NYC) which was nominated for an IT Award for Best Performance Art Production 2005; and premiered CLUB RIOT at La Mama's The Club with a two week run. In 2006, Latsky premiered the evening length show, DISJOINTED, at Danspace Project NYC in May 2006. During fall 2006, Latsky created two new solos - "Five Open Mouths" for disabled dancer Lisa Bufano (a 2006-07 Franklin Furnace Fund for Performance Art Recipient) and "Woman At An Exhibition", which Latsky created for herself inspired by her work with Bufano. She was also a guest teacher in the dance department at Long Island University. Latsky currently coaches privately, teaches The Latsky Method at The Bikram Yoga Studios in NYC and is a faculty member at Hofstra University. She is working with director Mary Fulham on her new play "Trophy Wife", premiering at La Mama ETC in April 2007. She recently created a work for the STEPS Summer Dance Intensive and will be teaching there in August 2007 as part of the Contemporary Masters Series and will be setting a new work at Point Park College, Pittsburgh January 2008. Heidi Latsky has been nominated for a New York Innovative Theatre Award for Outstanding Choreography/movement for Mary Fulham's TROPHY WIFE that was presented at La Mama's Annex Theater April, 2007. She will be continuing her collaboration with Mary Fulham in the fall 2007. -top

Deborah Lohse - Artistic Director of ad hoc Ballet, is a classically trained choreographer and dancer from Sacramento, California. As a performer, she has worked with the Sacramento Ballet, Monica Bill Barnes & Company and Doug Elkins and Friends. Her work has been described as "emotionally driven" (Backstage) "searing and articulate" and "elastic and fascinating" (Village Voice). In New York, her ballets have appeared in venues ranging from the theater at Florence Gould Hall and the Clark Studio Theater at Lincoln Center to the stage of Joe's Pub. With a desire to seek out new music and support living composers, her repertory includes works from David Lang, Michael Gordon and Stefan Weisman. She has received support from the Puffin Foundation, Bossak/Heilbron Foundation, and artist residencies at Dancenow/NYC Silo, Dance New Amsterdam and Acadia Summer Arts Program. For New Chamber Ballet, she has created Just Holding On and Night Is Falling, and is working on a new ballet for the spring of 2009. -top

Trey McIntyre Company is one of the most sought-after choreographers working today. Born in Wichita, KS, McIntyre studied at North Carolina School of the Arts and later with Houston Ballet Academy. In 1989, McIntyre was named Choreographic Apprentice to Houston Ballet; a position created specially for him by Artistic Director Ben Stevenson. Since then, McIntyre has created a canon of more than 75 works for companies such as Stuttgart Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, New York City Ballet and Ballet de Santiago (Chile). Trey has served as Resident Choreographer for Oregon Ballet Theatre, Ballet Memphis, and The Washington Ballet. From 1995 until 2007, he was Choreographic Associate for Houston Ballet. He has received many grants and awards, including two choreographic fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Choo-San Goh Award for Choreography, was named one of Dance Magazine's "25 to Watch" in 2001 and one of People Magazine's "25 Hottest Bachelors" 2003. In 2004, McIntyre established his critically-acclaimed Trey McIntyre Project, a dance company that allows him to continue his artistic and creative relationships with a select group of high-caliber dancers. In the summer of 2008, Trey McIntyre Project launched as a full-time company operating out of Boise, ID. In its first season Trey McIntyre Project will tour to more than 25 cities across the nation and the world. -top

David Neumann has been a featured dancer in the works of Susan Marshall, Jane Comfort, Sally Silvers, Irene Hultman, Cathy Weiss, Big Dance Theater, and the late club legend Willi Ninja. He was a member of Doug Varone and Dancers, and an eight-year original member and collaborator with the Doug Elkins Dance Company, with whom he toured nationally and internationally. He continues to perform and choreograph for theater, opera and film working with such directors as: Hal Hartley, Laurie Anderson, Robert Woodruff, Lee Breuer, Peter Sellars, JoAnn Akalaitis, Chris Bayes, Mark Wing-Davey, Daniel Sullivan, Les Waters and Molly Smith. Recent and upcoming projects include: creature movemet on 'I Am Legend' with Will Smith, performing in 'Beckett Shorts' with Mikhail Baryshnikov at New York Theater Workshop and choreographing 'The Bacchae' at the Public Theater. As artistic director of advanced beginner group, Neumann's work has been presented in New York at PS 122, Dance Theater Workshop, Central Park SummerStage (where he collaborated with John Giorno), Celebrate Brooklyn and Symphony Space (where he collaborated with Laurie Anderson) and The Whitney. His work has also been presented at the Walker Art Center and MASS MoCA. He's currently a professor of Theater at Sarah Lawrence College and a guest lecturer at both Barnard College and The Graduate Acting Program at Yale University. -top

David Parker grew up in Lynnfield, Massachusetts and began studying tap and ballet in Boston while he was a teenager. He later discovered modern dance while attending Bard College. After performing in several tap, folk and contemporary dance companies in New York City, Parker began to make his own dances. One of his first, "Bang and Suck," was awarded a finalist prize at the Fourth International Competition for Choreographers of Contemporary Dance in Groningen, The Netherlands in 1994 and was a special citation of the Kurt Jooss Award jury in Essen, Germany in 2001. Parker recently choreographed the evening-length production of "Dylan Dog" for the Verona Ballet in Italy with Jeffrey Kazin in the title role. This dance/theater work with songs featured 44 members of the Verona Ballet and was based on the adventures of an Italian comic book hero. Parker choreographed an industrial for Stolichnaya vodka which appeared simultaneously in New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Washington DC. He has the pleasure of an ongoing collaboration with Sara Hook with whom he has made three pieces and taught workshops on dance career development. David Parker has recently been invited to create a new work for the Anna Sokolow Players Project in collaboration with the Paris based Impromptu Wind Quintet. He currently serves on the faculty of The Alvin Ailey School in New York where he teaches dance composition and improvisation and is a guest professor throughout the U.S. and Europe. Parker is a founding member of The Pink Ribbons Project/Dancers in Motion Against Breast Cancer and serves on the board of directors of The Field. -top

Stephen Petronio- was born in Newark, New Jersey, and received a B.A. from Hampshire College in Amherst, MA, where he began dancing in 1974. Initially inspired by the dancing of Rudolf Nureyev and Steve Paxton, Petronio was the first male dancer of the Trisha Brown Company (1979 to 1986). He founded Stephen Petronio Company in 1984 and has created an expansive body of work marked by an unmistakable movement language and ground-breaking choreography in collaboration with contemporary innovators in the fields of music, visual arts and fashion. Petronio has collaborated with composers Rufus Wainwright, Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed, Michael Nyman, James Lavelle, Wire, Diamanda Galás, Sheila Chandra, Lenny Pickett, and on numerous works with David Linton; visual artists Cindy Sherman, Anish Kapoor, Donald Baechler, Stephen Hannock, Justin Terzi, Charles Atlas, Tal Yarden and Trisha Fox; fashion designers Rachel Roy, Tara Subkoff/Imitation of Christ, Leigh Bowery, Manolo, Paul Compitus and Tanya Sarne/Ghost; and long time collaborator and Resident Lighting Designer Ken Tabachnick. Stephen Petronio Company have been presented at some of the most prestigious venues on six continents over the past 24 years and Stephen has received numerous accolades, including a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, awards from the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, an American Choreographer Award, a New York Dance and Performance Award/Bessie and was recently inducted into the Nutley, N.J Hall of Fame. He has also been commissioned by some of the world's premiere modern and ballet companies: William Forsythe's Frankfurt Ballet (Simulacrum Court, 1987), Tulsa Opera (Le Trouvere, 1990), Deutsche Oper Berlin (Laytext, 1992), Lyon Opera Ballet (Extravenus, 1994), Maggio Danza Florence (Mid-Summer's Night Dream, 1996), Sydney Dance Company (Underland, 2003), Washington Ballet (De-Capulet, 2007) and The Scottish Ballet (Ride the Beast, 2007). Company Repertory has been re-staged on companies all over the world including: The Scottish Ballet, Ballet National de Marseille, Ballet Lorraine, London Contemporary Dance Theater, Chamber Dance Company in Seattle, Skolen for Moderne Dans in Denmark, Norrdans in Sweden, and X Factor Dance Company in Edinburgh, among others. -top

Toni Pierce-Sands (Co-founder, TU Dance Company, St. Paul, MN.) Toni Pierce-Sands - a Minnesota native &emdash; performed with Minnesota Dance Theatre, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, where she was a featured soloist in such signature pieces as Revelations and Cry, Tanz Forum (Germany), and Company Rick Odums (Paris). She has also appeared in the Twin Cities as a guest performer with Ragamala Music and Dance Theatre, Shapiro & Smith Dance, Vocalessence, Stuart Pimsler Dance Theatre, and Robin Stiehm's Dancing People Company. Her command of the Horton technique has led her to teaching posts throughout the United States and Europe. Toni teaches dance at the University of Minnesota, where she is also the director of University Dance Theater. In 2004, she was awarded a McKnight Artist Fellowship for Dance. TU Dance founders Toni Pierce-Sands and Uri Sands were named "2005 Artists of the Year" by the Minneapolis Star Tribune. -top

Ruth Rootberg- Editor, BA, MA, MM, MEd, is a designated Linklater voice teacher and Certified Laban/Bartenieff Movement Analyst (CMA). She completed training with Missy Vineyard to become an AmSat certified Alexander Teacher in June 2003. After studying two summers in Toga, Japan, Tadashi Suzuki gave her permission to "share her knowledge" of his work. A professional actress and singer, Ms. Rootberg's credits include operatic roles with the Zurich Opera and St. Gallen Opera (Switzerland), The American Medieval Players, and Northwestern University Opera Theatre (Chicago). She has also coached German pronunciation and sung professionally with the Chicago Symphony Chorus and Grant Park Symphony Chorus. Theatre experience includes Court Theatre, Drury Lane South, and the New Haven Film Festival. In addition to her singing and acting credits, Ms. Rootberg has performed as a puppeteer and clown. Ms. Rootberg taught voice and speech at Northern University of Illinois, The Theatre School, DePaul University, Center Theatre, and Shakespeare & Company. While Assistant Professor of Voice at the Yale School of Drama, she coached numerous shows for the Yale Repertory Theatre. She has presented workshops in Chicago, New Haven and South Africa (SAPVAME 2000). Her peer-reviewed article, "Moving Towards Vocal Center," was published in the inaugural edition of the Voice and Speech Review (2000). Her exercise integrating voice, breath and text is published in The Complete Voice & Speech Workout, edited by Janet Rodgers (2002). About the Assistant Editor Marth Munro, Assistant Editor, has a Masters in Theatre Voice, is a Certified Laban/Bartenieff Movement Analyst (CMA) and a Certified Lessac Teacher. She has attended several workshops on Alexander and Feldenkrais and, mainly through VASTA, has been exposed to the work of Linklater, Rodenburg, Fitzmaurice, etc. By the time this is in print, Munro would have (hopefully) handed in her PhD. investigating Lessac's Tonal NRG and Leino's concept of the Actor's formant in female voices. She is currently teaching at the Pretoria Technikon, South Africa where she is leader of an interdisciplinary research project entitled: "Computer Aided Voice Training." She conducts workshops on body/voice integration for actors and singers and body integration for musicians. She is Chair of SAPVAME (South African Performers' Voice and Movement Educators) and Associate Editor of the Voice and Speech Review. She is also a member of VASTA and SASTR. She directs for musical theatre and does voice and movement coaching. Marth believes in finding the organic processing in the body and using that as the core of all voice and movement work. -top

Uri Sands (Co-founder, TU Dance Company, St. Paul, MN.) Uri Sands' choreography has received national recognition for the fusion of classical elegance with edgy contemporary action, for pulsating intensity with poetic lyricism. A principal dancer with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater for five years, he also danced with Minnesota Dance Theatre and James Sewell Ballet, as a guest artist with Complexions under the direction of Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson, and as a principal dancer with North Carolina Dance Theatre. His recent choreographic commissions include, among others, Vocalessence, Zenon Dance, Penumbra Theatre, James Sewell Ballet, North Carolina Dance Theatre and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. In addition to several film and television credits, Uri has taught dance extensively throughout the United States and Europe. He was awarded a 2004 McKnight Artist Fellowship, and a 2005 Princess Grace Award in choreography. TU Dance founders Toni Pierce-Sands and Uri Sands were named "2005 Artists of the Year" by the Minneapolis Star Tribune. -top

Peter Sparling- is a professor (1984- ) and former chair (1988-95) of the University of Michigan Department of Dance and also Artistic Director of the Ann Arbor-based Peter Sparling Dance Company. A graduate of Interlochen Arts Academy and the Juilliard School, he was a member of the Jose Limon Dance Company from 1971-73 and a principal dancer with the Martha Graham Dance Company from 1973-87. He recently returned to Graham's company for its Library of Congress performances of "Appalachian Spring" in 1998. As a regisseur of the Martha Graham Trust, he has staged Graham's works on his own company and on companies all over the world. From 1979-83, he presented his solo concert, Solo Flight, and Peter Sparling Dance Company for five successive seasons at New York's Riverside Dance Festival. Sparling has held residencies at numerous American universities and at the London Contemporary Dance Theatre, Australia's Victorian College of the Arts, Portugal's Ballet Gulbenkian, Taiwan's Cloud Gate Dance Theatre, the Bat-Dor Summer Dance Workshop and at the American Dance Festival. He is a recipient of the 1998 Governor's Michigan Artist Award and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs, Arts Foundation of Michigan and U/M Rackham School for Graduate Studies. Sparling was a 1996-97 Faculty Fellow at the U/M Institute for the Humanities and 1998 Fellow at the U/M Rackham Summer Interdisciplinary Institute. He has worked extensively with composers, actors, visual artists and scientists to create collaborative performance works. An avid writer and poet, he has written texts for performance and has been published in the Michigan Quarterly Review. -top

Ray Tadio- was born in the Philippines and received his dance training at the Alvin Ailey School in New York. He danced with the Ailey II Company for three years and later served as assistant to the director on several national and Caribbean tours. His performing credits include the Joyce Trisler Danscompany, Kevin Wynn Collection, David Rousseve, Asian American Dance Theater, Philippine Dance Company of NY and numerous companies in NYC and abroad. He co-founded and co-directed Footprints Dance Company of NYC from 1990-94 and co-directed IDT, the jazz and tap affiliate dance company of Hope College in Michigan from 2004-2008. Mr. Tadio has choreographed for the Ailey II Company, Reflections Dance Co. of Washington D.C., Pori Dance Co. of Finland, Benetton Corp. (NY), National Ballet Academy of the Netherlands, Jazz Theater Show Musical/Theaterschool Amsterdam, dANCEpROjECT (MI), Movements Dance Co. of Jamaica, and studio companies in Japan & Europe. Mr. Tadio's international association includes residing in The Netherlands for four years, teaching/choreographing at the theater schools in Amsterdam and Rotterdam. He taught workshops for Djazzex Co. (Den Hague), Rotterdamse Dansgroep, and studios in Belgium, Germany, Italy, and France. He was awarded the Le Huit d?Or in France in 1995 for excellence in jazz and contemporary dance. In 1998, he moved back to the US and subsequently obtained his art degree at San Jose State University. He taught at UC Davis before acquiring an Assistant Professorship at Hope College in 2004. He specializes in the Lester Horton modern dance technique as well as modern jazz and frequently teaches in Europe and Japan. Mr. Tadio holds an M.F.A. in Dance Performance and Choreography from the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. -top

Parul Patel- is a well known dancer, choreographer and director in Indian Classical dances - Bharat Natyam, Folk Dance and Folk Music. She did her Masters degree in Performing Arts (M.Mus.) in Bharat Natyam from M.S. University of Baroda. She has performed Bharat Natyam, Folk Dance and Folk Music at national and international levels including UK, France, Germany, Kuwait and USA. She has been a member of the Senate of M.S. University of Baroda since 2002. -top

Ed Morgan- is an accomplished playwright and director. Morgan conducted a series of master classes focused on audition techniques and directing regional theater to students in University of Virginia Department of Drama, and advised graduating M.F.A. acting students on their professional portfolios in Spring of 2008. Morgan is returning to U.Va. after a successful visit to the drama department in 2006, when he directed a production of George Bernard Shaw's "Arms and the Man" on the Culbreth stage.. Morgan's professional productions of literary adaptations include "Sounding the River: Huck Finn Revisited" at the Milwaukee Repertory Theater in 2002; "The Tavern, A Strange and Comical Night in the Life of Huey O. Long," at the Swine Palace Theatre in Baton Rouge, La.; Ibsen's "Ghost" in 1997 at the Milwaukee Repertory Theater; and "A Christmas Carol," annually since 1998 at the Milwaukee Repertory Theater and in 2007 at Clarence Brown Theatre in Knoxville, Tenn. Morgan served as Milwaukee Repertory Theater's associate artistic director for six seasons, and his 1997 production of Robert Lowell's "Bentio Cereno" was featured in American Theatre Magazine. Morgan's work has garnered numerous awards, including Helen Hayes Awards and nominations and the Drama League of New York Director's Project award. -top

Reggie Wilson- Reggie Wilson/Fist & Heel Performance Group is a Brooklyn based dance company which blends contemporary dance with African traditions. The company makes brilliant new performance from the spiritual traditions of the African Diaspora. Wilson draws on the movement idioms of Blues, Slave and Worship cultures to create what he calls "Post-African Neo Hoodoo Modern dance". Accompanied by their own driving rhythms--body percussion, aspirated breath, singing and shouts--Fist & Heel blends deep ritual into potent, beautiful and energizing contemporary dance. The Good Dance (Congo-Congo and his search for the Good Dance) is the working title for a new work, currently being developed by choreographer, Reggie Wilson, which explores the influence of Central African culture on world performance forms and its metaphoric, historic, real world parallel with Mississippi Delta culture. His research on the secular and religious aspects of life in the African American communities of the Delta and the Central African countries of Cameroon, Gabon and Congo (Brazzaville) and a multi-year exchange and collaboration between Reggie Wilson/Fist and Heel Performance Group and Congolese choreographer, Andréya Ouamba and his Company, 1er Temps based in Dakar, Senegal, will be contextualized into the performance work The Good Dance.The project has been awarded an NDP production and touring grant and will be available for touring in 09/10. A work in progress performance of the piece will be performed at the French Institute : Alliance Francaise in May of 2008. The New York City premiere will take place at the BAM Next Wave Festival in the Fall of 09. The project's proposal is available upon request. Previous works include The Tale: Npinpee Nckutchie and the Tail of the Golden Dek (The Tale), an examination of the human search for coupling and uncoupling; a new group work using tugging, push and pulling, hidden, subtle, aloof partner manipulation, and detached gazes of the social dance form Stepping. It integrates African forms with the intricate partnering and movement dialogs of "hand dancing" idioms Bopping and Lindy Hop as well as the Black Folks tradition that produced the Big Apple, the Black Bottom, the Electric Slide, etc. The Tale premiered to critical acclaim last February in NYC at Dance Theater Workshop. About the piece The New York Times wrote "The Tale cultivates a concise gem of a world, where music and movement are sewn together by a social dance form called stepping". The work has been commissioned by Dance Theater Workshop, NY; On the Boards, WA; Helena Presents, MT; MCA Chicago , IL , ; and the NPN Creation Fund. It was also awarded a National Dance Project grant for the 06/07 season and was performed in twelve venues throughout the US. "Shuffling feet send the body forward and backward with a deceptively simple refinement. Anyone could master the motion, but only a choreographer of Mr. Wilson' s innate warmth could successfully put it on a contemporary-dance stage." -top

Karine Plantadit- Broadway: Movin' Out, Saturday Night Fever, The Lion King. Off-Broadway: Damn Yankees. Film/TV: Across the Universe, Frida, Chicago, Sex & the City, "Made" (MTV). She was raised in Cameroon, and her first training was ballet in Africa. As a teenager, she attended the Rosella Hightower Dance Center in the south of France, and at 16m saw the Ailley company in Paris and followed them to New York. Karine subsequently attended the school, worked with the Jamison Project for a year, and when the two companies merged in 1989, she spent seven years with the Alley company. Karine also works as a Life and Career Coach and frequently teaches "Nail Your Audition" workshops in NYC as well as across the US. -top

David Pritchard is the personal trainer of Michael Redd of the Milwaukee Bucks, as well as multiple artists, teachers and performers in the Milwaukee area. He leads conditioning and nutrition workshops for the UWM Dance Department. -top

Bill Young (winner of a recent Guggenheim and NYFA 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 where he danced with Douglas Dunn, Randy Warshaw, Merce Cunningham (on video). In 1988 he established Bill Young and Dancers, which has been presented in NYC at the Joyce Theater, DTW, The Kitchen, Danspace Project, PS 122, the Duke/92nd St. Y and Symphony Space, as well as on repeated international tours, including performances in Austria, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Poland, China Czechoslovakia, Russia, Finland, Mexico, Brazil, Peru and Venezuela. Young has created over 50 works, noted for their virtuosity as well as emotional range and power; his commissions include new works for the Estonian National Opera Ballet, Pennsylvania Dance Theater, the Zenon Dance Company (Minneapolis), DanceArt Hong Kong, the Wildspace Dance Company (Milwaukee), Teoria de Gravedad (Mexico), Bratislava (Slovakia) Dance Theater, and the Madach Theater (Budapest). Supporters include the NEA (6 yrs), Artslink, the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts, the Mary Duke Biddle, Joyce Mertz-Gilmore, Harkness and Greenwall Foundations, the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, the USIS/State Dept., the Fund for US artists at International Festivals and the Trust for Mutual Understanding. -top

Susan Marshall -top
In 2003-2004, the department hosted a year-long residency with Susan Marshall & Company. The residency included a performance by the company, the restaging and performance of an excerpt of "The Most Dangerous Room in the House" (1998), a signature Marshall work; several master classes and workshops; and community events. The residency was supported in part by a grant from the National College Choreography Initiative (a joint project of Dance/USA and the National Endowment for the Arts) and UWM's student government.