Dance: Creation to Performance

Meet the Artists

Yannis Adoniou, born in Athens, Greece is an award-winning dancer, choreographer, filmmaker and artistic director of Kunst-Stoff Dance Company, based in San Francisco. Mr. Adoniou has worked professionally nationally and abroad, dancing in such companies as Osnabruck National Dance Theater, Alonzo King’s Lines Contemporary Ballet, Complexions, ProsXima, and Unterwegs Theater. He has received commissions from and presented his work at the Bonn Ballett, Summerfest/Dance, the Burning Man Festival, the HerbstDance Festival, Dance Forum Monaco, and the Dimitria International Dance Festival. With his Dance: Creation to Performance funding, Mr. Adoniou will focus on the reinvention of the classic ballet Les Sylphides, creating this new work for outdoor venues. Mr. Adoniou has received additional support through an Artists Residiency at ODC Theater and will premiere it at the Yerba Buena Gardens in September 2005.

Charya Burt is a graduate and former dance faculty member of the Royal University of Fine Arts in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. An expert in traditional Cambodian male and female folk dance roles, Ms. Burt has performed throughout Cambodia, China, and North Korea. Currently based in Windsor, CA, Ms. Burt conducts dance workshops and teaches Khmer language programs in various community and school programs in addition to performing extensively throughout the state. In 2002, she received IDC’s California Dancemaker Grant to create The Magic Peacocks, a dance work based on traditional Cambodian folk dance, blending Western instrumentation with Cambodian melodies and original choreography. With her current grant from the Irvine Dance in California program, Ms. Burt will create a classical Cambodian solo dance piece to be performed with a singer and five-piece pin peat orchestra, honoring ancient khmer dance traditions.

Jess Curtis is a director/choreographer and performer of interdisciplinary dance/performance. Working independently, and in the collective performance groups CAHIN-CAHA, Cirque Batard (’98–2002), CORE (’94–’98), and CONTRABAND (’85–94), he has created and collaborated on numerous award-winning performance works known for their physicality, emotional honesty, and athleticism. In 2000, he founded Jess Curtis/Gravity as a research and development vehicle for live performance. He is the recipient of numerous national and international awards, including IDC’s California Dancemaker Grant in 2001 and a Fringe First Award (Edinburgh, Scotland) in 2002. His Dance: Creation to Performance grant will be used for the creation and production of Touched (symptoms of being human) – a new international collaborative dance piece with a team of artists from the US, Germany, and France – to premiere in June 2005 at the Yerba Buena Arts Center in San Francisco, CA.

Mike Esperanza is a relative newcomer to the dance community, and is trained in music, dance, and graphic design. He has received several accolades and earned California State University, Fullerton’s first invitation to the American College Dance Festival’s prestigious gala concert (two years consecutively) and an invitation to the National College Dance Festival at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. He has worked as a guest choreographer for several local high schools, dance companies, and colleges and universities. With support from IDC’s Dance: Creation to Performance grant, Mr. Esperanza will create Blind Perspective, a collection of dance narratives that explore the human mind.

Maria Gillespie, based in Los Angeles, is a choreographer, performer, and teacher. Originally from Nashville, TN, she studied at the School of Nashville Ballet, SUNY Purchase, and at various schools in New York City. She has been presented at most Los Angeles venues and the recipient of numerous awards for her performances with Helios Dance Theater. Ms. Gillespie has received several choreography grants and was invited to participate in the Die Pratze International Dance Festival in Tokyo, Japan. With her DCP funds, she will create her first full-length evening piece entitled Ordinary Unsung, consisting of a suite of dances and original music by String Theory to be presented in June 2005.

Stephanie Gilliland is a Los Angeles-based choreographer and solo artist. She founded her dance company, Tongue Contemporary Dance, in 1997. Fostering this collective of dance artists, Ms. Gilliland’s work has been presented locally, nationally, and internationally at festivals in Canada, Europe, and Mexico. She has received funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, LA Cultural Affairs, LA County Arts Commission, the Durfee Foundation, and the California Arts Council. With the support of her IDC grant, Ms. Gilliland will conduct on-site investigations and workshops with non-dancers to develop a new evening-length dance based on the organic movement vocabulary of Angelenos and their relationship to the dense urban sprawl that typifies Los Angeles and other large cities.

Cyd Glover-Hill, a Los Angeles native, grew up thriving in her dance studies and performed internationally and on Broadway before the age of 13. In addition to her dance work on stage and television, she assembled the highly-acclaimed Art In Motion Youth Dance Company (AIM), performing in theaters, neighborhood communities and at a number of sites throughout the southland. Simultaneously, Ms. Glover-Hill choreographed for recording artists Mya, Coming of Age, Erika, Justified, and Hymn. With the support from the Dance: Creation to Performance program, Ms. Glover-Hill intends to resurrect the “spirit” of dance in religious expression through a new work, Old Landmark, transforming an African American worship service into a finely-staged dance/theater production at the West Angeles Church in 2006.

Deborah Greenfield returned to the United States 1997, after working for several years in Madrid, Spain. While in Madrid, she divided her time between performing work in various dance-theatre and film projects, studying flamenco dance, and managing her modern dance company, Fuga. She has participated in several international festivals. Ms. Greenfield continues to perform and choreograph for the stage and screen in Los Angeles, where she has founded her newest company, Rosa Negra, to celebrate her unique expression of flamenco dance. With the support of the DCP grant, Ms. Greenfield will create a full-length work of flamenco dance and music, which will run the gamut from traditional to experimental work.

Anna Halprin has enjoyed an illustrious and diverse career in dance since the late 1930s. She has remained a central figure in the dance world, receiving numerous awards and honors, including Choreographer Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Guggenheim Fellowship and the America Dance Guild Award. Her many full-length dance theater works are extensively documented in photographs and on film at the Performing Arts Library at Lincoln Center in New York and the Israeli Dance Archives in Tel Aviv, Israel. As a recipient of a Dance: Creation to Performance grant, Ms. Halprin will create and produce a new work based the aging process in collaboration with elders in a senior community in Mill Valley, CA.

Jamal, a renowned visual artist originally from Tehran, creates work based on his deep knowledge of Iranian folklore and dance traditions. As choreographer and artistic director for AVAZ International Dance Theatre in Los Angeles, he has received extensive recognition for outstanding achievement in design, choreography, and staging. A recipient of a 2002 California DanceMaker Grant, Jamal will continue his investigation in full-length narrative dance drama by creating Kelileh vs. Demneh, a Persian literary masterpiece using animal characters in the telling of folk tales.

Alex Ketley, based in Sausalito, was originally trained in classical ballet in the United States and Denmark. After performing with the San Francisco Ballet he co-founded his own company, The Foundry, to explore his interests in choreography, improvisation, mixed-media work, and the collaborative process. While working on several residencies, Mr. Ketley also completed commissions for Alonzo King’s Lines Contemporary Ballet and Hubbard Street 2. With his DCP support, Mr. Ketley will create and produce a new multimedia performance exploring dance and California’s environment in relation to the emotional exchange between person and place.

Sara Shelton Mann has taught, performed, and created dance work since 1967. A protégée of Alwin Nikolais and Murray Louis, she was the artistic director of the Halifax Dance Co-Op in Nova Scotia in the 1970s. In 1979, she formed CONTRABAND, a group of collaborative artists dedicated to the evolution of an interdisciplinary dance vision. A teacher at several universities and festivals, Mann has also been the recipient of numerous choreographic fellowships. Her DCP grant will support the creation and production of Sky, a new work celebrating the healing powers of nature.

Victoria Marks creates dances for the stage, for film, and in community settings. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including recognition from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the London Arts Board. She has received a Fulbright Fellowship in Choreography, and numerous awards for her dance films, including the Grand Prix in the Video Danse Festival (1995 and 1996), the Golden Antenae Award from Bulgaria, the IMZ Award for best screen choreography and the Best of Show in the Dance Film Association’s Dance and Camera Festival. With her DCP award, Ms. Marks will create Necessary Motion, examining dis/ability within a suite of four-minute dances made for selected members of AXIS Dance Company to be presented at a venue in Los Angeles.

Robert Moses has been a part of the Bay Area dance community for over 17 years as a choreographer, performer, educator, and currently as Artistic Director of his company, Robert Moses’ Kin. In 1985 Mr. Moses joined ODC/San Francisco, with whom he danced off and on for the following 10 years. In 1989 he joined Twyla Tharp Dance, performing in some of her best known works. Shortly after his return to the Bay Area in 1991, he began presenting his own work in addition to continuing to dance with ODC/San Francisco. He has created over 60 works for his company, which have earned him the 1998 SF Weekly Black Box Award, 1998 Bay Guardian Goldie, and 1998 and 2001 IZZIEs for excellence in ensemble work. Mr. Moses has also been honored with a 1998-99 Wattis Artist-in-Residence at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, a 2000 Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation Choreography Award, and a 2001 IDC California DanceMaker Grant. With his Dance: Creation to Performance grant, Mr. Moses will create and produce The President’s Daughter, a new narrative work that will explore racial and political subject matter from the Jeffersonian era and mid-20 th century America.

Banafshey Sayyad was born in Tehran, Iran, and began studying Persian dance at a very young age. Once in the U.S., she studied Flamenco and danced with The Jose Greco Dance Company. She formed NAMAH, her own dance company in an effort to express more of her Persian cultural and spiritual heritage. Her choreography draws from Persian classical, folk and tribal dances, Sufi ritual, Tai Chi and Flamenco. A licensed acupuncturist and herbalist, Ms. Sayyad is interested in the healing dimensions of dance and music. With her DCP grant, she plans to create Inner Circles: Norooz of the Soul, an ensemble piece that will explore the concept and imagery of purification of the symbolic Middle Eastern public bath during the time of the Iranian New Year.

Sherman Shoate received training in jazz and funk jazz dance before joining Culture Shock Dance Troupe in San Diego in 1998. He turned down several offers of college scholarships in track and football to perform jazz and hip hop in San Diego. Showing extraordinary talent as a performer, he signed on with 2 talent agencies before dancing professionally in several music videos. With his DCP grant, Mr. Shoate will create and produce an evening-length hip hop dance work based on troubled youth discovering how to make successful choices in their lives.

Brenda Way is the Founder and Co-Artistic Director of ODC/San Francisco. Since 1971, she has taught residencies and master classes locally, nationally and internationally. Ms. Way is the recipient of many prestigious awards, including San Francisco’s Isadora Duncan Award from 1994 – 2000, twenty-one consecutive years of National Endowment for the Arts grants, a 2000 Guggenheim Fellowship, and numerous grants from the California Arts Council. Her choreographic commissions include work for Alvin Ailey Dance Theater, the Oakland Ballet, and Walker Art Center. With support from Dance: Creation to Performance, Ms. Way will create On a Train Heading South, in collaboration with composer Jack Perla and video artist Jim Campbell. The work is inspired by the melting of the polar ice caps and the lack of urgency expressed by the human population.

Scott Wells has received choreographic awards in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Europe and from the American Dance Festival. He has created a full-evening production every year in San Francisco since 1992. He has taught and performed in several countries throughout the world, including Turkey, Russia, Hungary and Germany. Since 1997, Mr. Wells has received numerous grants, featuring support from the California Arts Council, the San Francisco Arts Commission, Zellerbach Family Fund Grants, and an IDC California DanceMaker Grant. Mr. Wells will use his DCP funding to create and produce Half-Off, a new evening-length work exploring formal theatrical space both on and off the stage.