Visiting Artists and Scholars
2017-2018
David Dorfman Dance (DDD), since its founding in 1987, has performed extensively throughout North and South America, Great Britain, Europe, and Central Asia. DDD has regularly performed in New York City at major venues including The Joyce Theater, The Kitchen, Danspace Project/St. Mark’s Church, La Mama Theater, The Duke on 42nd Street, The Met Breuer, and the 92nd St. “Y”/Harkness Dance Festival. David Dorfman, the company’s dancers, and DDD’s artistic collaborators have also been honored with eight New York Dance and Performance (Bessie) Awards. Dorfman’s work has enjoyed broad and diverse audiences nationally and internationally by sustaining a vision to create innovative, inclusive, movement-based performance that is radically humanistic.
Find out more about what David Dorfman Dance has done with our students & faculty.
2016 - 2017
Meredith Lyons is a dancer, educator, choreographer and administrator from the Northeast. Her physical performance technique is focused heavily in articulate movement vocabularies and anatomical principles that use the body as an instrument of perception, action and interaction. She has performed and toured throughout the country with numerous ballet and contemporary choreographers. As an artist she has presented work nationally and internationally, most recently at The Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, PA, Colby College Museum of Art and Ten Tiny Dances in Boston, MA.
Her current research, the improvisational score Foreword/Afterword, has been taught and presented at the National Dance Educators Organization, Congress of Research and Dance/Society of Dance History Scholars conference in Athens, Greece, ImPulsTanz International Dance Festival in Vienna, Austria and in Istanbul, Turkey. Most recently she served as the Admissions Director/Operations Manager of Bates Dance Festival, where she was also on teaching faculty at Bates and Colby Colleges. Additionally, Meredith has been a guest artist at Connecticut, Dickinson, Franklin and Marshall, Goucher, Middlebury, Providence, Springfield and Ursinus Colleges, Ohio University, Penn State University, University of Maryland, Montgomery County Community College and Southern Maine Community College. Meredith is an Assistant Professor of Dance at Colorado Mesa University.
Joanna Kotze received the 2013 New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award for Outstanding Emerging Choreographer. Her choreography has been presented at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, Baryshnikov Arts Center, American Dance Institute (ADI), Danspace Project, Bard College’s Fisher Center, Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out, New York Live Arts Studio Series, Dance New Amsterdam, Movement Research at the Judson Church, Roulette, Dixon Place, 92nd Street Y, WAXworks, Lu Magnus gallery, Soho20 gallery, Show Room Gowanus gallery, Industry City and the Thelma Sadoff Center for the Arts (WI). Joanna recently created new works on Toronto Dance Theatre, Zenon Dance, Ririe-Woodbury and the James Sewell Ballet as well as on students at Eugene Lang College (The New School), Barnard, Purchase College, Southern Utah University and Miami University (OH). Joanna has received support from the Mertz-Gilmore Foundation, Harkness Foundation for Dance, Jerome Foundation, New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) BUILD, Brooklyn Arts Council, Yellowhouse, and two Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grants. She was a 2013-2015 Movement Research Artist-in-Residence and a recipient of a 2014 Process Space residency through Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC). She has had residencies at The Camargo Foundation, Marble House, Jacob’s Pillow, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Djerassi and the Bogliasco Foundation. Joanna was a 2012 Fellow for Ailey’s New Directions Choreography Lab, a 2011 Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Swing Space resident and has worked in residence at Mount Tremper Arts. She was the Fall 2012 boo-koo space grant recipient at Gibney Dance Center and has participated in Sarah Maxfield’s One-Shot, a web-based solo performance relay.
She danced with Wally Cardona from 2000-2010, performing throughout NYC (including twice at BAM's Next Wave Festival) the United States, Canada, Europe and Mexico. She has also worked extensively with Kimberly Bartosik/daela and Netta Yerushalmy. Since moving to New York, she has also danced for Sam Kim, Sarah Skaggs, Christopher Williams, the Metropolitan Opera ballet, Daniel Charon, Nina Winthrop and others. Joanna is on faculty at Movement Research and Gibney Dance. She has taught at Barnard College, NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Eugene Lang College - The New School for Liberal Arts, Long Island University and the American Dance Festival. She has studied Klein technique with Barbara Mahler since 2003, is originally from South Africa and has a BA in Architecture from Miami University (’98).
2015-2016
2016 Doris Duke Artist Award recipient, Kyle Abraham (Pittsburgh, PA), is a 2015 City Center Choreography Fellowship recipient, and 2013 MacArthur Fellow. Previous awards include being named a 2012 United States Artists Ford Fellow and a 2012 Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award recipient. In 2010, he received a prestigious Bessie Award for Outstanding Performance in Dance for his work in The Radio Show, and a Princess Grace Award for Choreography in 2010. The previous year, he was selected as one of Dance Magazine’s 25 To Watch for 2009. In 2011, OUT Magazine labeled Abraham as the “best and brightest creative talent to emerge in New York City in the age of Obama”. For more information please visit: abrahaminmotion.org
Anna Sullivan received her undergraduate degree in Dance from Ohio University in 2003. She started her multi-media dance company, Anna and The Annadroids, in Columbus, Ohio in 2005 and has been developing the project ever since.
DanceTheYard (DTY) is The Yard’s resident dance collective. Co-directors and choreographers Alison Manning, The Yard’s Executive Director, and Jesse Keller, The Yard’s Director of Island Programs & Education (with Artistic Advisor David R. White), have been building a body of work and presenting an annual weekend of performances each summer, as part of the Yard Arts season. DTY is comprised of professionals living on Martha’s Vineyard and in New York City, and each member has become a part of The Yard’s greater service mission: working together to present performances for the public, participating in educational residencies and dance making programs for children and adults, along with other community based events around Martha’s Vineyard. Each component of DTY’s work contributes to The Yard’s overarching mission of support for emerging choreographers through residency and financial support, dance and related arts presentations, and a commitment to arts education in the local and national communities. DTY’s directors have created an emerging body of work and a collective of professional artists who are committed to seeing the work presented in the local and national dance arena.
Past Visiting Artists
Julie Mayo
Julie Mayo is a 2017-18 Movement Research Artist-in-Residence, a 2014-15 Fresh Tracks Artist at New York Live Arts and is the recipient of creative residencies at the UCross Foundation, Djerassi, and Yaddo. Mayo is an artist who makes dances guided by the action and experience of perceiving. Her research of performance as perceptual inquiry is guided by questions and an intimate and personal sense of logic most often within an emergent framework. Mayo has received commissions from The Kitchen, New York Live Arts, Gibney Dance and The Chocolate Factory in New York City and has been commissioned to create works with students at the University of Wisconsin/Madison, University of Virginia, University of Nebraska, and Wilson College. In addition to the venues in NYC, her work has been presented nationally at NOHspace (San Francisco), Highways Performance Space, (Los Angeles), fidgetspace (Philadelphia) and Links Hall (Chicago), as well as many venues in her hometown of Richmond, Virginia.
Nii-Tete Yartey
Current Artistic Director of the National Dance Company of Ghana (Ghana Dance Ensemble), he is a dance educator, choreographer and performer who envisions his work in this field as a re-contextualization of traditions, with a particular focus on dance theatre and contemporary African dance. He was exposed to dance at a very early age. Coming from a family of dancers, he had the opportunity to observe and participate in dance performances with various dancers and professionals that used his father’s dance space for creating their works. Nii-Tete holds a Diploma, BFA and M.F.A. degrees in Dance and Theatre Arts from the University of Ghana, specializing in Choreography and acting. He was a Graduate Assistant at the Department of Dance Studies at the University of Ghana and stage managed the Performing Arts Workshop (PAWS) based in Accra, under Oh! Nii Kwei Sowah. Nii-Tete has been the Administrative Coordinator at the Noyam African Dance Institute for many years working closely with his father and mentor, Professor F. Nii-Yartey. He has travelled widely performing, teaching and choreographing and conducting workshops in countries like Senegal, Kenya, Belgium, Holland, United Kingdom, Ethiopia and USA. Nii-Tete has scripted and acted in many Ghanaian films, television series and commercials for brands like Tigo, MTN and Coca-Cola. He was adjudged the Best Assistant Choreographer for the African Cup of Nations Football championship Opening and Closing Choreography (CAN 2008).
Leslie Dworkin
An independent dance artist who has been choreographing, teaching, and performing internationally for the past 15 years, with performance residencies at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Joyce SoHo, Movement Research in NYC, Jacob’s Pillow, Performática in Puebla Mexico, Wave Rising Dance Festival in NYC, and Wolfeboro’s Arts on the Edge Festival, to name a few. Dworkin’s work has garnered much choreographic support, including funding from the Pew Charitable Trusts, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a Djerassi Fellowship, Movement Research Exchange, IPAP in Philadelphia, and a 3-year residency in the Susan Hess Choreographers Project in Philadelphia. Leslie has performed in the works of such noted choreographers as Ralph Lemon, Maureen Fleming, and Kei Takei; was an Associate Artist with Bebe Miller at the Atlantic Center for the Arts; and was a member of the Leah Stein Dance Company, Sharir/Bustamante DanceWorks, and Melanie Stewart Dance Theatre. Leslie has an MFA in Choreography from Temple University, and has been a guest artist and Assistant Professor in numerous dance departments throughout the U.S., including UCLA, UNC/Greensboro, Oberlin College, University of Texas/Austin, and Kenyon College. She is a certified yoga and qigong instructor, and maintains a private practice in central Ohio as a Trager bodywork practitioner.
Lisa Ford Moulton
Lisa received a BS in Modern Dance from Brigham Young University and a MFA in Choreography from the University of Utah. She was a member of the Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company in Salt Lake City and worked with the Loose Gravel Dance Company and Contemporary Danceworks before joining the faculty at Ohio University in 1995. She was an Associate Professor of Dance until 2004, when she left full-time work to focus on her young family. Lisa has continued her relationship with Ohio University as a guest artist and adjunct faculty member. In addition to her work with Ohio University students, Lisa’s choreography has been performed both nationally and internationally by the Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, Alaska Dance Theatre, and at Dancers’ Workshop in Jackson Hole, WY and OhioDance Festival Choreographers’ Showcases. In 2004, Ms. Moulton was commissioned to create Turning Two Hundred, an evening-length work choreographed to the music of Ohio University faculty member and composer Mark Phillips. Among other honors, she has received two Ohio Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship Awards and the Ohioana Citation for Dance. Currently, Lisa is a VSA Ohio visiting artist, teaching in two multi-handicapped schools. Since 2006, she has been a choreographer at the Hill Cumorah Pageant, in Palmyra, NY. Lisa has taught Adult Modern Dance at Factory Street Studio since 2010.
Christine Cali
Founder and Artistic Director of San Francisco Dance Theater, Cali & Co, Cali comes from an extremely athletic background turned creative - which lead her to dancing. The following practices studied over the past 20 years have deeply influenced Cali’s teaching style: Modern/Contemporary Dance (Cunningham & RELEASE), Improvisation and Contact Improvisation, Ballet, Somatic studies in Feldenkrais, Alexander Technique, Body-Mind Centering, Hapkido (Korean Martial Art Form), Qi Gong, Yoga, Pilates, ZEN Meditation and Thai massage. She has been teaching dance for all levels/ages of moving humans for more than 15 years.
Cali holds an MFA inDance from Hollins University/the American Dance Festival (06'), BFA from Ohio University (97'), is certified in Pilates, co-directed projectLIMB in Brooklyn, NY (03'-06'), founded/directs CALI & CO dance in SF (98' - present). She teaches at ODC Dance Commons, ROCO Dance & Fitness and Sonoma State University.
Wanjiru Kamuyu
Wanjiru Kamuyu, founding Artistic Director of WK Collective, has performed and choreographed dance for over a decade on and for stage and TV. She began training in her homeland of Kenya and continued studying at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center, American Dance Festival, and Philadanco. She holds an M.F.A. in dance choreography and performance from Temple University.
As a performer, Kamuyu has toured nationally and internationally with world-renowned choreographer Jawole Willa Jo Zollar (Urban Bush Women). She has worked with esteemed choreographers Molissa Fenley (Molissa Fenley and Dancers), Sean Curran, Marlies Yearby (Movin’s Spirits Dance Theater/Broadway musical RENT), Nathan Trice (RITUALS), Tania Isaac (Tania Isaac Dance Projects) and Dean Moss (Gametophyte Inc.). As an original cast member of The Lion King at Theatre Mogador, Paris, Kamuyu performed in Julie Taymor’s production for three years. She performed as an original cast member and served as Resident Choreographer, Dance Captain, and Swing for the successful run of Bill T. Jones’ Tony Award winning Broadway musical FELA! at the Royal National Theater and continued on as Dance Captain and Swing in the show’s first European and US National Tours.
Douglas Nielsen
Douglas Nielsen has been a guest teacher and choreographer at more than 40 universities throughout the United States and abroad. He has served as the Rufus Putnam Professor in residence at Ohio University, as the Sage Cole Chair at the University of Minnesota, and guest faculty at New York University Tisch School of the Arts. Currently, Douglas resides in Tucson, Arizona, where he serves as Professor at the University of Arizona School of Dance.
Former member of the Batsheva Dance Company in Israel and Gus Solomons, Pearl Lang, and Paul Sanasardo dance companies in New York, he has performed solo works by Viola Farber, Beverly Blossom, Anna Sokolow, Murray Louis, and Charles Weidman. Douglas began dancing shortly after earning a B.A. in psychology at Augsburg College, Minneapolis. He studied dance at the California Institute of the Arts in the early ‘70’s with Donald McKayle, Bella Lewitzky, and Mia Slavenska.
In 1988, Douglas pioneered the founding of the first modern dance company of Mainland China (The Guangdong Dance Company). Other international assignments include L'ecole-Atelier Rudra Bejart Lausanne (Switzerland), The Beijing Dance Adademy (China), Palucca Schule (Dresden, Germany), University of the Americas (Mexico), and representing the American Dance Festival in Korea, Russia, China, Czech Republic, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, and Mongolia.
Mary Seidman
Artistic Director of Mary Seidman and Dancers, Mary has operated her own modern dance school for eight years. Her dance company performs at venues such as Jacob’s Pillow, BAM, Symphony Space, and St. Mark’s Church. She is a faculty member at Mark Morris Dance Center, Brooklyn, and Third Street Music School, NYC.
Sean Curran
Seán Curran, of Sean Curran Company, began his dance training with traditional Irish step dancing as a young boy in Boston, Massachusetts. He went on to make his mark on the dance world as a leading dancer with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. He received a New York Dance and Performance (“Bessie”) Award for his performance in Secret Pastures.
A graduate and guest faculty member of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, Curran was an original member of the New York City cast of the Off-Broadway percussion extravaganza Stomp, performing in the show for four years. He has performed his solo evening of dances at venues throughout the United States as well as at Sweden's Danstation Theatre and France's EXIT Festival.
Stefanie Batten Bland
Stefanie’s choreographic vision of contemporary dance redefines community by illustrating the synergy that arises when interdisciplinary artists from varied backgrounds and cultures collide. This vision was recognized as a 2010/12 Baryshnikov Arts Center/Jerome Robbins NEW fellow and a Cambridge Who’s Who! Of Professionals and Entrepreneurs.
SBB has guested and danced for choreographers, directors, and companies including Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, Sean Curran, Kraig Patterson, Gus Solomons Jr., Douglas Dunn, Lar Lubovitch Dance, Pina Bausch Tanz Theater Wüppertal, Julie Taymor, Angelin Preljocaj, and Pal Frenak.
SBB fuses her past heritage and current collaborators to create her own distinct, multi disciplinary futuristic environments for stage and film. Currently with pieces on Alvin Ailey ll, Frontier Danceland of Singapore and is a 2013 artist in residence at Rutgers University. Click for recent Dance Enthusiast Article on her Black Madonna
Lisa K. Lock
Lisa has been a freelance artist with many companies, starting with the Swiss Chamber Ballet in Basel, Switzerland and finishing with Hysterica Dance Company in L.A.She also set original works on the Ohio Dance Theater, Verb Ballets, Dancing Wheels, Great Lakes Youth Ballet, and the former Cleveland Contemporary Dance Theater.
As a solo artist and choreographer Lisa recently collaborated with San Francisco based filmmaker John T. Williams in his project 2412. She performed extensively throughout the L. A. basin as well as the greater Cleveland, OH area. Her works have also been seen in Honolulu, San Francisco, Chicago and NYC as well as in international showcases in major cities like Paris, Madrid, Vienna, Edinghburgh, Lithuania, and Guatemala in addition to her native Switzerland.