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Click here to view the 2018-19 artists.
Click here to view the 2020-21 artists.
September 15th – Ancram Equinox Celebration
Chris Riffle’s brand of heartfelt folk is a product—and a tale—of two coasts. There’s no mistaking the pastoral, spacious sound of his roots—the picturesque coastal towns of Washington state, where while still in college Riffle began making waves on local radio stations, and landed support gigs for such indie mainstays as Death Cab for Cutie. And yet it’s the other side of the country, on New York’s Lower East Side, where Chris has found a home with residencies at venues like the venerable Living Room and Rockwood Music Hall. Chris’ albums have been in rotation at over 150 radio stations & featured on Sirius XM.
Since the release of his last album, Out of Town, Chris has shared the stage with Patti Smith, Blood Orange, Joan As Police Woman; embarked on a national tour supporting Heather Nova; and toured Germany & Belgium. Chris is currently finishing up a new full-length album planned to release in 2020. Stay tuned…
Chris Riffle performed with Cliff Riffle.
Mark DeGarmo, Ph.D. is an award-winning, internationally recognized choreographer, performer, and educator with a passion for intercultural community-building. Over the past 30 years, DeGarmo has produced more than 100 dances and 30 international tours promoting cultural diplomacy and exchange in 12 countries across Latin America, Europe and Russia. Inspired to create a dance company to support his artistic vision, he founded MDD in 1987 with its tri-part mission based in performance, education, and intercultural community through dance arts.
Honors and awards in the fields of performance, education, and intercultural community-building include: 2019 Tlacopac International Artists Residency Dance Director in Mexico, 2018 Creative Agency Network in Australia, 2015 Martha Hill Dance Fund Mid-Career Award, 2015 Sophie Gerson Healthy Youth Foundation Recognition, Millennium Artists Program National Finalist in Dance supported by The White House and National Endowment for the Arts, U.S. Department of State’s American Cultural Specialist Award to Ecuador, and Fulbright Senior Scholar Fellowship to Peru.
October 10th
Adriane Erdos has been dancing and acting since she was a young girl.
At 11, she was personally mentored by Anna Sokolow. She went to LaGuardia HS for drama. In college she was mentored by the famous Indian classical dancer Indrani Rahman and performed a solo of Bharatanatyam at Carnegie Hall. At 18, she was the youngest dancer/choreographer to have her work selected for Dance Theatre Workshop’s “Fresh Tracks” series.
She was also Assistant Director for the Tony award winning play “Side Man”, by Warren Leight. Adriane has always studied theatre, dance, religion, spirituality, myth and folklore from around the world.
She is particularly interested in how most classical and indigenous forms do not make distinctions between these disciplines and use performance art as a way to communicate between dimensions – be it gods and man or spirit and matter.
Gabriela Gullco is a contemporary dancer from Mexico who started her studies in ballet when she was 7 years old.
In 1997, she started to dance with Contempodanza dance company and has been the first dancer, production assistant and director assistant over the past 20 years. With Contempodanza, she performed in many of the most important theaters in Mexico, and in many International Dance Festivals in France, the U.S.A., Argentina, the Czech Republic, Canada and Germany.
In 2004, she won a grant of the FONCA (National Fund for Culture and the Arts) and in 2008 won a prize as the Best Dancer at the Lila López International Dance Festival in México.
She is currently developing her videodance project, UMBRO (“Shaded/Shady”), with her partner Ernesto Lehn, a photographer and filmmaker.
Can Wang (“Tsan Wahng”) is a dancer and choreographer. She is of Chinese origin and influenced by both contemporary and classical dance, and Western and Eastern culture.
She has performed works by Stephanie Batten-Bland, Roy Assaf, Andrea Miller, Valeria Gonzalez, Katarzyna Skarpetowska, Helen Simoneau, Nacho Duato, Jose Limon, Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, among others.
Her own choreographic works have been performed in China, South Korea and the United States.
She is a collaborator with internationally acclaimed visual artists. She was a prizewinner in 2012 Chinese Lotus Dance Competition and has performed with the National Ballet of China.
She is one of the ten recipients of Juilliard Career Advancement Fellowship in 2019, and is a dancer with Buglisi Dance Theater.
November 21st
Former teacher for José Limón in New York and teacher of Limón technique as well as Martha Graham dance technique for over 50 years, Elizabeth Bergmann was Dance Director, choreographer-in-residence and Lecturer at Harvard University and was Professor of Dance at Florida International University; California State University, Long Beach; Shenandoah University; The University of Michigan. Having been awarded 3 choreographic fellowship grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, she also received the Distinguished Faculty Award and Lifetime Achievement Award from The University of Michigan. A Fulbright Scholar to Trinidad, she taught and choreographed for the Trinidad Theatre Workshop. Bergmann currently choreographs for the Sarasota Ballet’s Studio Company and is co-author of Connecting To Creativity: Ten Keys To Unlocking Your Creative Process. She performs an evening length one-woman show, Coming to Myself, which combines her poetry with her dancing for which she received the RASA Award from the SaraSolo Festival in 2018.
Peter Cook is an Arts education academic with a long record of Dance teaching experience with students from selective, performing arts and comprehensive schools. Peter has choreographed original and commissioned works and directing for stage and television within a variety of Dance styles. He also choreographs using digital technology.
Anne Harris is a playwright, dramaturg, videographer, performance poet and academic based in Melbourne, Australia. They have worked as playwright and dramaturg for Playworks, the Australian National Playwrights’ Centre and in the US at NY Theatre Workshop, New Dramatists and the Young Playwrights’ Festival, with an MFA in Dramatic Writing from New York University. They direct the Creative Agency research lab in Melbourne.
Kelly McConville (M.Ed) is an educator and PhD candidate at The Melbourne Graduate School of Education (MGSE) at the University of Melbourne, and an Associate Researcher at RMIT, informed by her background in theatre and drama education. Her research interests include how performance can be used to interrogate and communicate aspects of cultural and professional identity.
Catherine Tharin is the Dance Curator/Artistic Associate at 92Y, has invited hundreds of artists since 2006 to perform. Her choreography was shown summer 2019 in Mexico City and Seoul. She is a committee member of the Bessies. She danced with Erick Hawkins for eight years and continues to teach his technique and write about his aesthetic philosophy.
Catherine Tharin’s work will be performed by Jenny Levy and Esme Julien Boyce.
MC Tingbudong (MC 听不懂, aka Jam No Peanut) is a New York City-based rapper, new media artist and revolutionary. He began learning mandarin in high school, and in 2008 was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study hip hop culture in China. His internationalist politics resonate in his music, as he switches between English and Mandarin in politically charged verses over lo-fi, trap and experimental beats. Recently selected as a Found Sound China artist in residence, he returned to China in 2018 to create and perform original music on tour from Yunnan to Beijing. In 2019, he has focused his efforts on positioning Chinese hip hop as global music, through performances with Found Sound China in New York City, as Official Showcasing Artists at SXSW Music Festival, performances for China Week, and a nine-city tour through China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. His work has been featured in the New York Times, The Nation,VICE, XXL, Complex, RadiiChina , Noisey China and more.
December 5th
Originally from Argentina, Anabella Lenzu is a dancer, choreographer, writer and teacher with over 25 years experience working in Argentina, Chile, Italy, London and the USA. Lenzu directs her own company, Anabella Lenzu/DanceDrama (ALDD), which since 2006 has presented 380 performances, created 14 choreographic works and performed at 100 venues, presenting thought provoking and historically conscious dance-theater in NYC.ALDD’s work has been seen at La Mama, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Movement Research at Judson Church, 92nd Street Y, HERE Arts Center, Abrons Arts Center, DUO Multicultural Arts Center, Queens Museum, Bronx Museum, Gibney Dance, Center for Performance Research, Roulette, Chashama, Dixon Place, Sheen Center, The Consulate of Argentina in NYC, NYU/Casa Zerilli Marimo, University Settlement, Baruch Performing Arts Center, Snug Harbor Cultural Center, Instituto Cervantes, 3LD Center for Art & Technology, Kumble Theater/Long Island University, among many others. She has received grants from Brooklyn Arts Council, Puffin Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Edwards Foundation, The Vermont Community Foundation, and the Independent Community Foundation.Her choreography has been commissioned all over the world for opera, TV programs, theatre productions, and by many dance companies.Currently, Lenzu conducts classes at Peridance Capezio Center and NYU Gallatin, and is Artist-in-Residence at CUNY Dance Initiative, 2019-2020.
Kanene Ayo Holder is a bold and award winning artist, activist and educator dedicated to systemic change through critical analysis and community engagement. She teaches at the elementary and collegiate level on what she’s deemed “Intersections of Injustice” (race/class/gender) to analyze current societal ills through multidisciplinary projects. She’s lectured at Columbia University, NYU, Museum of Art and Design and Studio Museum of Harlem among others. She’s often hired to devise and facilitate workshops on diversity and activism at institutions including Apollo Theater and The New York Times School.
She won numerous awards in the arts including from Franklin Furnace and Puffin Foundation for Activist Art and fellowships for education including Coro’s Education Leadership Collaborative, The Colin Powell Center for Policy Study and The National Endowment for the Humanities. She recently completed a journalism and new media writing fellowship called THREAD at Yale University. She also is producing “BlackIssuesISSUES”, a biting satire on race that premiered off-broadway in 2018 and currently at venues including The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and completing a program at Cornell University for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
kanene.holder@gmail.com
@blackissuesissues on IG, FB & Twitter
Kiran Rajagopalan is an award-winning dancer, choreographer, writer, and educator based in New Jersey. Trained extensively in Bharatanatyam (Indian classical dance) for over 25 years, Kiran has given many acclaimed performances in India, Indonesia, Germany, Spain, France, and the United States.
Kiran graduated with a B.A. (magna cum laude) in Behavioral Neuroscience and Spanish from Boston University in 2008, an M.A. (honors) in Bharatanatyam from University of Madras in 2010, and an M.A. in Performance Studies from New York University in 2015. Kiran also regularly conducts workshops, lectures, and demonstrations on neuroscience, Indian classical dance, and performance studies.
He is the co-founder and artistic director of Daya Arts which aims to bridge diasporic communities through original, high-quality artistic productions. Although focused on visual and performing arts rooted in South India and West Africa, Daya Arts also actively participates in initiatives that engage with other communities of color.
February 6th
Joan Liu was trained in multiple genres before starting her performing career with Taipei Royal Ballet.
She later pursued academics accumulating a MS in biology from New York University and MA in Dance Education through the collaborated program between NYU and American Ballet Theatre.
Her work, including a full evening length ballet, has been showcased in various historic venues including New York City Center, Dixon Place, Abrons Arts Center, Players Theatre, Frederick Loewe Theater…etc.
In 2019, Liu launched Axons Dance Theatre to focus on the creative process and to encourage communication through the art of dance.
Joan Liu will be performing with Saeko Hayashi, Marisa Pisano, and Dominique Robinson .
Jill Moshman is a choreographer, performer, and interdisciplinary artist. She holds a BA from Middlebury College in Vermont, USA and an MA from Bath Spa University in Bath, UK. Her work is primarily grounded in movement, while seeking to explore the intersections between dance, film, text, and visual media, and the ways in which movement can be captured for an audience. She is particularly interested in the influence of memory and physical landscapes on identity. Jill is a co-creator and co-director of JKL Collective, a multidisciplinary arts group based in process-driven creation that curates artistic exchanges worldwide.
For more information, visit jillmoshman.com.
Frances Rosario-Puleo danced with the Nancy Meehan Dance Company for more than 20 years. She currently performs with Craig Hoke Zarah and with Nancy Zendora and is a member of the Bergen Dance Makers. Frances is also a soprano who has sung with classical verismo opera companies in New Jersey and New York. She holds an M.A. in dance from Brigham Young University, studies dance with Patty Bryan, and studies singing with Susan Gregory. Frances’ work as a choreographer has been performed and presented on numerous occasions in the Greater New York Area.
March 5th
David Appel is a choreographer/dancer whose work has been presented in various contexts and settings throughout North America, Europe, and in Mexico since 1973. While primarily following his own path, he has also had the opportunity to perform with Simone Forti, Steve Paxton, City Dance Theater of Boston, as an instigator and/or part of several dance/music collaborative and improvisation groups, and with many other individual artists in different media. He has received a number of grants and awards, among them three NEA Choreographers Fellowships, and has been invited to festivals in both the United States and abroad. David’s work, in all of its manifestations, orchestrates an evolving and wide-ranging compositional blend of improvised and set material. His ongoing focus is to look for intersections between the body’s capacity to be more subtly articulate, the ways we find to move together, and our connections to and within the world around us.
Sloka Iyengar, PhD, PMP studied Bharatanatyam and Indian folk dance under Guru Smt. Maheshwari Nagarajan at the Darpana Academy of Performing Arts in Ahmedabad, India and currently performs in the New York City area. She also studies Carnatic music with Smt. Nivedita Shivraj.
La’Toya Latney, DVM, DECZM, DABVP began learning as an adult and has studied for 12 years. She completed her Arangetram in 2015 under Smt. Malini Srinivasan, and continues to study with many world-renowned exponents in the field. She has performed at several NYC cultural dance programs, including the NYC Fringe Festival.
Rachel Repinz is a New York based dancer, choreographer, teaching artist, and creative director. Rachel received her BA in dance and design from SUNY Buffalo State College, and is an MFA candidate in Temple University’s dance performance and choreography program. Rachel has presented her work nationally and internationally, at venues including the biennial Decolonizing Bodies: Engaging Performance conference at UWI Barbados, the 2018 NDEO conference held in San Diego, the 2019 NDEO conference held in Miami, DaCi’s 2017 national gathering, the Institute of Dance Artistry and more. In the past year, Rachel has been honored to perform premiere works by Dr. S. Ama Wray using Embodiology techniques, Enya-Kalia Creations, and Awilda Sterling-Duprey among others. In addition to her performance and choreography work, Rachel co-founded the National Honor Society for Dance Arts at Temple University, and has been a recipient of the Temple University Vice Provost Graduate Student Award, Hildsendager Fund, Cooper-Newell Foundation Performer Scholarship, and the Lucille and Jack Yellen Scholarship for Dance. Most recently, Rachel has returned from Tokyo, Japan, where she conducted fieldwork research on pedestrianism for the concert dance stage in preparation of her upcoming MFA thesis concert. This work is set to premiere in Philadelphia, PA in Fall 2020. To keep up to date with Rachel and view an archive of her past works, visit her at @RachelandDancers on Instagram.
Rachel will be performing with Megan Bridge, Peyton Eidle, Lindsey Garnhart, Alexis Lewandosky, and Mijkalena Smith.
J Michael Winward is an independent dance artist based in Boston. With influences in American-style ballroom, ballet, contemporary and somatic dance practices, his work places a strong focus on building connection: connection to one’s body, one’s self, one’s audience, connection between dance partners, connection within and across communities. His solo performances blend movement and memoir, and deal with a variety of topics, including: coming of age, institutional injustice, and the politics of being oneself. Through the Steps in Time program, Michael brings social ballroom dance classes and parties to senior, elder, and memory care communities throughout Greater Boston. Dancing with Peter DiMuro/Public Displays of Motion (PDM), Michael works to advance the PDM mission of cultivating dance/arts literacy, advocacy and engagement. Along with Maggie Cee, Michael produces Dancing Queerly, a festival of performances, workshops, discussions, and social dance gatherings by and for the LGBT+ community, friends, and allies. www.jmichaelwinward.com.
May 28th (Virtual)
Ilona Bito is a dance artist and educator living in NY since 2006. Her choreography, including “Tantrum Alchemy” and “Mat Time,” investigates contemplative action, play, and collaborative learning, and has been presented at BKSD (spring 2018 AIR), at STooPS, Panoply Performance Lab, Glasshouse, NYC Community Gardens and more. She has performed with Kathy Westwater since 2012 and Daria Faïn/ The Commons Choir since 2015. She has also worked with Brooklyn Touring Outfit/Pepper Fajans, Sarah Rosner/the A.O. Movement Collective, Carla Barragan/B.Q. Dance, and as a co-organizer of Occupy Dance. She is a member of Gamelan Dharmaswara Dance Ensemble and the Bo Law Kung Fu Demo Team. Ilona is certified to teach qi gong by the C O R E M O T I O N program with Daria Faïn and The Universal Healing Tao with Mantak Chia. She holds a B.A. and MS. Ed. from Sarah Lawrence College.
Ilona Bito will perform with Lydia Love on the cello.
Kameron Chatman is an Alabama native who utilizes movement as a tool to support social justice. She is a Spring 2020 BFA in Dance graduate from The Florida State University. She has interned with Camille A. Brown & Dancers and Urban Bush Women. Kameron was a part of Ann Carlson’s MANCC residency in 2016 and performed Carlson’s Flag 2 Redo, along with Urban Bush Women’s repertories Walking with ’Trane and Shelter. Additionally, Kameron has performed with Rosy Simas Danse in Simas’ work Weave and Dafi Altabeb in her recent work Fight or Flight. She has been selected to present her choreographic work as an undergraduate at Southeastern Conference of ACDA, Exchange Choreography Festival, Alabama Dance Festival’s New Works Concert and New Dance Alliance Performance Mix #34.
Ara Fitzgerald: The granddaughter of a vaudevillian leader of an all girl jazz band creates dance/theatre as a choreographer, writer, improviser and performer.
An early explorer of choreography with original text, current repertory includes: Watch The Bullies Dance; Slow Dancing Is Easy; Heavenly Display, Everything I Know About Astrology(A Very Short Dance); On Looking Back (Eurydice’s point of view), Words for Music Perhaps (poetry of WB Yeats, created with composer Wall Matthews), Pilgrimage (created with Clare Byrne), Life of a Flower and Conversations With An Ant-historicreconstructions of works by Lotte Goslar.
In addition to her own company, Ara was a member of Daniel Nagrin’s, The Workgroup and The Entourage Music and Theatre Ensemble. She has choreographed on and off Broadway and taught at Connecticut College, The National Theatre Institute, Trinity Square Conservatory, and served as a Director of Dance and Theatre at Manhattanville College.
June 11th
Callie Hatchett is a New York City based dance artist. She grew up in Alabama studying Vaganova based ballet under the direction of Meryane Martin Murphy. From her first pirouette, she was hooked. She continued her study of ballet, as well as other dance forms, and found her professional performing and choreographic career in the modern dance world. Callie holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Dance from The University of Alabama, a Masters of Fine Arts degree in Dance Performance and Choreography from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and a Masters of Science degree in Education and Special Education from Touro College. She is a certified Pilates instructor through the Pilates Certification Center. Callie currently teaches ballet for Chrystie Street Ballet Academy and BAAD! The Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance. She is also a teaching artist for New York City Ballet and Mark DeGarmo Dance.
Zjana Muraro is an independent dance artist, somatic movement practitioner and creative coder. Originally from NYC she currently splits time between London, New York and main land Europe. She has been performing across the UK, Europe, Asia the USA and the Middle East in contemporary dance projects working with many renowned artists including performance credits with: the Hartford Ballet under artistic director Kirk Peterson, Cleveland Repertory Project, performing the work of Vertigo, and choreographer Roy Assaf in Israel, performing with musical artists Shaggy and noise band Sonic Youth, working with interactive media artist Scott Snibbe and film director Harmony Korine. Her own choreographic works have been commissioned and performed in Hong Kong, New York, London, Oulu (Finland), Salerno (Italy), Ga’aton (Israel), Los Angeles and Barcelona.
José María, (@joseishere) is a queer, nonbinary, Puerto Rican recording and performing artist. They create glam electro-pop music and athletic dance for stage and screen. José’s work orients us towards Queer Future – queering narratives of love, power, and vulnerability. José has made work for YouTube, Radio City Music Hall, La MaMa ETC., NYU Tisch, The Flea Theater, Fordham University, with features in The Advocate, Logo NewNowNext, and WNYC/NPR. José has worked most recently with artists Sam Pinkleton, Ani Taj/Dance Cartel, Meredith Monk, The B52s, and YouTube’s Queer Kid Stuff to name an awesome few.
June 25th
JoAnna Mendl Shaw has been choreographing performance works for stage, rural and urban landscapes since the 1980’s. Artistic Director of The Equus Projects, Shaw tours throughout the States and Europe creating site-specific performance works that often bring dancers and horses into shared landscapes. The Equus Projects has created commissioned works in 18 States including the multi-year, Pullman Project, an immersive community based work in the historic Pullman District in south Chicago. Shaw has taught on faculty at NYU/Tisch, The Juilliard School, Ailey BFA Program, Marymount, Princeton, Mount Holyoke and Montclair State. The recipient of two NEA Choreographic Fellowships and multiple NEA grants for Interdisciplinary Performance, Shaw’s work has also been funded by the Rockefeller, Harkness, Jerome Robbins, O’Donnell-Greene and Oppenheimer Foundations and the National Performance Network.