Summer 2024 Dance Residency

The mission of EVIDENCE is to promote understanding of the human experience in the African Diaspora through dance and storytelling and to provide sensory connections to history and tradition through music, movement, and spoken word, leading deeper into issues of spirituality, community responsibility and liberation.

Founded by Ronald K. Brown in 1985 and based in Brooklyn, New York, EVIDENCE, A Dance Company focuses on the seamless integration of traditional African dance with contemporary choreography and spoken word. Through work, EVIDENCE provides a unique view of human struggles, tragedies, and triumphs. Brown uses movement as a way to reinforce the importance of community in African American culture and to acquaint audiences with the beauty of traditional African forms and rhythms. He is an advocate for the growth of the African American dance community and is instrumental in encouraging young dancers to choreograph and to develop careers in dance.

Brown’s choreography is in high demand. He has set works on Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Ailey II, Cleo Parker Robinson Ensemble, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Jennifer Muller/The Works, Jeune Ballet d’Afrique Noire, Ko-Thi Dance Company, Philadanco, and others. He choreographed Regina Taylor’s award-winning play, Crowns and won an AUDELCO Award for his work on that production. “I hope that when people see the work, their spirits are lifted. I am interested in sharing perspectives through modern dance, theater and kinetic storytelling. I want my work to be evidence of these perspectives,” says Brown.

EVIDENCE now tours to some 25 communities in the United States and abroad. The company has traveled to Cuba, Brazil, England, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Mexico, Senegal, Nigeria, South Africa and Canada to perform, teach master classes and conduct lecture/demonstrations for individuals of all ages. EVIDENCE brings arts education and cultural connections to local communities that have historically lacked these experiences. Annually the company reaches an audience of more than 25,000.

Ronald K. Brown, raised in Brooklyn, NY, founded EVIDENCE, A Dance Company in 1985. He has worked with Mary Anthony Dance Theater, Jennifer Muller/The Works, as well as other choreographers and artists, and has been on the faculty of The Juilliard School. Brown has set works on Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Ailey II, Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Jeune Ballet d’Afrique Noire, Ko-Thi Dance Company, Philadanco, Muntu Dance Theater of Chicago, Ballet Hispánico, TU Dance, and Malpaso Dance Company.

He has collaborated with such artists as composer/designer Omotayo Wunmi Olaiya, the late writer Craig G. Harris, director Ernie McClintock’s Jazz Actors Theater, choreographers Patricia Hoffbauer and Rokiya Kone, composers Robert Een, Oliver Lake, Bernadette Speech, David Simons, and Don Meissner, and musicians Jason Moran, Arturo O'Farrill and Meshell Ndegeocello.

Brown is the recipient of the 2020 Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award. His other awards and recognitions include the AUDELCO Award for his choreography in Regina Taylor’s award-winning play Crowns, two Black Theater Alliance Awards, and a Fred & Adele Astaire Award for Outstanding Choreography in the Tony Award winning Broadway and national touring production of The Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, adapted by Suzan Lori Parks, arranged by Diedre Murray, and directed by Diane Paulus.

Brown was named Def Dance Jam Workshop 2000 Mentor of the Year and has received the Doris Duke Artist Award, NYC City Center Fellowship, Scripps/ADF Award, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts Choreographers Fellowship, New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, United States Artists Fellowship, a New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award, Dance Magazine Award, and The Ailey Apex Award.

Brown is Co-Artistic Director of Restoration ART Youth Arts Academy Pre-Professional Training Program / Restoration Dance Youth Ensemble, a member of Stage Directors & Choreographers Society, and a Creative Administration Research artist at NCCAkron.

Founded in 1987, David Dorfman Dance (DDD) is celebrating its 35th Anniversary and has performed extensively throughout the world - North and South America, Great Britain, Europe and was invited to tour countries in Central Asia: Turkey, Tajikistan, and Armenia with DanceMotion USA, with our most recent foreign tours taking us to El Salvador and Panama.

Closer to home DDD has regularly performed in New York City at major venues, including The Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Joyce Theater, The Kitchen, Danspace Project/St. Mark’s Church, The Duke on 42nd Street, The Met Breuer, and the 92ndSt. “Y”/Harkness Dance Festival. DDD celebrates its 16th year as Company-in-Residence at Connecticut College where David Dorfman earned his MFA in dance in 1981 and then returned as Professor of Dance in 2004. This is our 2nd Year as Commissioned Artist-in-Residence of Dancers’ Workshop in Jackson Hole, WY.

“To get the whole world dancing” is at the core of DDD’s mission to promote the appreciation and critical understanding of dance by bringing the company’s work to broad and diverse audiences. David and his company seek to destigmatize the notion of accessibility in post-modern dance by embracing viewers with visceral, meaningful dance, music, text and visuals. By sustaining a vision to create innovative, inclusive, movement-based performance that is radically humanistic, DDD maintains a commitment to examine and unearth issues and ideas that enliven, incite, and excite through dialogue and debate about social change, personal growth, agency and a myriad of other topics. For this work David and the company’s dancers and collaborators have been honored with eight New York Dance and Performance (Bessie) Awards.

DDD’s works include tonight’s (A)Way Out of My Body (2022); Aroundtown (2017); Come, and Back Again (2013); Prophets of Funk (2011), set to the music of Sly and the Family Stone; Disavowal (2009), inspired by radical abolitionist John Brown; underground (2006), inspired by The Weather Underground; Older Testaments (2005), set to music by composer/trumpeter Frank London of The Klezmatics; Lightbulb Theory (2004), original commissioned score by Michael Wall; Impending Joy (2004), original commissioned score by Chris Peck; and See Level (2003), original commissioned score by Chris Peck and visual design by Samuel Topiary.

Throughout the past thirty-five years, DDD has engaged audiences worldwide, with community-based projects playing an important role, particularly in the 1990s. In Out of Season (The Athletes Project) and Familiar Movements (The Family Project), the members of the company rehearsed and performed with groups of volunteer athletes or family members selected in the communities to which the company toured. In No Roles Barred, DDD examined the personal roles assumed, formed, and interwoven in our modern social construct, engaging groups ranging from corporate executives and underserved youths to college administrators, doctors, carpenters, and social dance enthusiasts. These three community projects have been presented over 30 times in 18 states and two foreign countries. The company’s recent work in foreign communities have been projects such as the collaboration in El Salvador with Glasswing International and the United States Agency for International Development. Together there our company and youth volunteers, in centers dedicated to the prevention of violence, pledged to use our bodies for peace and co-created movement vocabulary celebrating the possibilities of freedom through movement. All of these efforts help DDD promote its mission of Kinetic Diplomacy: the idea that if you’re dancing, you’re not hurting another human being.

Choreographer and Dance Activist David Dorfman has been making movement-based dance theater since graduating with an MFA in Dance from Connecticut College in 1981. In 1987 he founded David Dorfman Dance in NYC with the intention of creating politically and socially relevant work. DDD has toured the world from Tajikistan to El Salvador, will premiere “(A)Way Out of My Body”, inspired by out-of-body experiences, at NYU Skirball April 22, 23, and is at work on a new evening entitled “Truce Song”, about healing and the possible reincarnation of trust. A life-long educator, David has been a professor at Connecticut College since 2004 where DDD is Company-in-Residence. David choreographed Broadway's “Indecent,” for which he was given a Lortel for its Off-Broadway run, and has also received a 2019 USA Fellowship in Dance, a Guggenheim, 4 NEA fellowships and a Bessie. In his copious spare time, he has co-created and toured internationally a body of tragi-comic physical theater with dear friend Dan Froot, entitled “Live Sax Acts” – and he continues to dance profusely with wife Lisa Race and son Samson Race Dorfman. DDD taught in one of the first years of the Summer Dance Residency Program over two decades ago, has done so every year since, and gleefully considers it one of the longest running support/growth systems for his life/artistry and company.

Lily Gelfand is a Brooklyn-based dancer, experimental cellist, composer, and teaching artist. Originally from Youngstown, Ohio, Lily received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance Performance and Choreography from Ohio University's Honors Tutorial College. While at Ohio University, she also began her dance musician training under the mentorship of Andre Gribou. As a dancer, Lily has had the pleasure of performing works by Kyle Abraham, Joanna Kotze, Kendra Portier, David Dorfman, Jasmine Hearn, Thryn Saxon, Serena Chang, and Ani Javian. As a cellist, Lily is currently on staff as a dance musician at The Juilliard School, and has composed and performed original collaborative works for Christina Robson, Jasmine Hearn, Dance Lab NY, Toscana Dance Hub, Venza Dance, The Wooden Floor, Douglas Gillespie, and Nik Owens. Additionally, Lily is a 200 Hour RYT through the Yoga Alliance, and uses cello as a source of sound healing for a variety of meditations and restorative practices throughout the city. Her favorite color is green.

Kellie Ann Lynch (she/her) has been making, laughing, and performing with David Dorfman Dance for several years. She lives in Connecticut and is a Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director of Elm City Dance Collective based in New Haven (elmcitydance.org). Other companies Kellie has had the great privilege of dancing with include Kate Weare Company, Doug Elkins Choreography, Etc, Wire Monkey and Adele Myers and Dancers, with whom she danced for 10 years. As a freelance dance artist, she has also had the opportunity to work with incredible independent choreographers along the East Coast.

Kellie has received artist fellowships from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and Connecticut Office of the Arts, and her work has been commissioned, produced and performed throughout the Northeast including at Bates Dance Festival as an Emerging Choreographer. In addition to making and performing dances, she maintains a private teaching practice in New Haven and is working toward her Feldenkrais certification. Kellie has a BA in Dance from Rhode Island College and an MFA in Dance from Smith College.

Nik Owens began his movement experience as a competitive gymnast for 17 years and started his dance training in his senior year of high school and continued at Wesleyan University, where he received a BA in Dance and a certificate in Environmental Studies. He has worked with Nicholas Leichter, Tania Isaac, and Kyle Abraham/Abraham.In.Motion and has performed works by The Dance Exchange, Gierre Godley’s Project 44, Aaron McGloin Dance, Raja Kelly/The Feath3r Theory, Bryn Cohn and Artists, Helen Simoneau Danse, The Bang Group, Abdul Latif D2D/T, Dual Rivet, and 10 Hairy Legs. He has worked on several duet projects and has been commissioned to create works at Rivertown Dance Academy in New York and The Wooden Floor (under David Dorfman Dance) in California. He currently collaborates and performs with Tiffany Mills Company, David Dorfman Dance, and Kayla Farrish Decent Structure Arts, and is working on a solo of his own creation titled The Right Kind.

Myssi Robinson is a Bessie-nominated performer and maker from Richmond, VA. She has interpreted many dances. Her own art practice currently involves creative archiving, mixed-media marking and spatial design. Intuition and empathy play with maximalist instinct to give life to the art that she makes. It whispers may we all heal. Gratitude to Carolyn Johnson and Darrin Robinson for her life and abilities to create freely within it.

DUAL RIVET is a women-led dance company focused on creating and sharing highly physical contemporary dance to a wide audience. Based in NYC, Dual Rivet creates work for stage and film that exchanges a cinematic and visceral language to influence both platforms. Directors Jessica Smith and Chelsea Ainsworth have been making and presenting work since 2017. They have performed and set work at Festival PRISMA (Panama), Centro Cultural Los Talleres (Mexico), Oklahoma International Dance Festival, Barnard College/Columbia University, West End Theatre, Kittery Maine, Musikfest Pennsylvania, Peridance Capezio Center, CreateArt, Arts On Site and many more. The company teaches a myriad of classes, throughout the United States and internationally, with an emphasis on contemporary partnering and floorwork. Dual Rivet is currently on faculty at The Juilliard School, Gibney, Peridance, SUNY Purchase and Adelphi University. The company hosts an annual choreography festival, MADE BY WOMEN, highlighting women choreographers and creators.

For more info: www.dualrivetdance.com.
Instagram: @dualrivet

JESSICA SMITH (she/they) is a New York City based dancer from New Orleans, Louisiana. She studied at New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, London Contemporary Dance School, and received her BFA in dance from the Conservatory of Dance at Purchase College. She has performed with companies such as Punchdrunk's Sleep No More NYC, Vim Vigor Dance Company, ZviDance and Kizuna Dance. She continues to teach and set work at schools, festivals, and training programs throughout the U.S. and internationally. Jessica was one of eight choreographers chosen for The Jacob's Pillow Ann and Weston Hicks Choreographic Fellowship in 2022. She was the Associate Director of Arts On Site NYC, a non-profit arts organization, for 4 years. Jessica is the Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director of Dual Rivet, a highly physical contemporary dance company based in NYC. Jessica is currently on Faculty at The Juilliard School, Purchase College, Gibney, Peridance and STEPS.

CHELSEA AINSWORTH is a graduate of the Dance Department of The Juilliard School. After graduating she worked with Johannes Wieland/StaatstheaterKassel in Germany, Lorena Egan, Flexicure, Amber Sloan, Bryn Cohn + Artists and was on the modern/ballet dance faculty at Cap21 musical theater school and Chen DanceCenter. Currently she is dancing with The Bang Group, as well as ZviDance. She’s also the co-founder and Executive Director of Arts On Site, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting artists of all disciplines by offering affordable studio space and hosting monthly events to encourage community collaboration. She also built and curates residencies at a retreat and residency center in the Shawangunk mountains in upstate New York. In 2020 she joined the Dance Advisory Board of Marymount Manhattan College.

Founded by Gina Gibney in 1991, Gibney is a New York City-based performing arts and social justice organization that taps into the vast potential of movement, creativity, and performance to effect social change and personal transformation. Gibney deploys resources through three strategic and interwoven program areas: Gibney Center, a meeting ground for New York City’s artistic community comprising 23 studios and 5 performance spaces that provide critical space for training, rehearsal, professional development, performances, and convenings; Gibney Community, programs that use movement to help address a range of social issues with a focus on gender-based violence and its prevention; and Gibney Company, the organization’s resident dance ensemble. Gibney supports movement-based artists in every aspect of their creative development: classes, residencies, low-cost rental space, entrepreneurial training and incubation, presentation opportunities, commissioning, and operating a professional dance company.

gibneydance.org/company

Gina Gibney is a choreographer, director, entrepreneur, and Founder, Artistic Director and CEO of Gibney. She founded Gibney in 1991 as an arts organization dedicated to social action, and today the organization has rapidly emerged as a cultural leader operating 23 studios across two Lower Manhattan facilities. With the mission of tapping into the vast potential of movement, creativity, and performance to effect social change and personal transformation, Gibney works through three interrelated fields of activity—Company, the acclaimed resident dance ensemble; Center, two beautiful spaces at 890 and 280 Broadway; and Community, highly respected and impactful social action programs.

Considered a pioneer in connecting the arts with the broader community, she was inducted into the Vanity Fair Hall of Fame for "making art and taking action" in 2008.  Gibney is serving her second term as a Trustee of Dance/USA and has received the organization’s Ernie Award, given annually to a changemaker in the field. Gibney was a Founding Member of Dance/NYC’s Board of Directors, and continues to serve today. She was included in Dance Magazine’s 2017 list of The Most Influential People in Dance Today and named to the Out100 2016 list of influential members of the LGBT community. 

Gibney is a frequent panelist and speaker on topics of dance, entrepreneurship, and arts-community partnerships. She holds a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Fine Arts from Case Western Reserve University where she graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. In 2018, she received the University’s Distinguished Alumni Award.

Princess Grace Award-winning artist, director, and entrepreneur Nigel Campbell hails from the Bronx, New York, and received his B.F.A. from The Juilliard School. He has danced for the Metropolitan Opera Ballet, the Saarlandisches Staatstheater, Luna Negra Dance Theater, the GöteborgsOperans Danskompani, and Kyle Abraham’s A.I.M. In 2017, he was named a Director of Gibney Company after spending two years as an Artistic Associate. Campbell’s work has been recognized with a Martha Hill Mid-Career Award, a 2011 Princess Grace Award; and he is a National Young Arts Winner, a 2004 Presidential Scholar in the Arts, a NAACP ACT-SO Gold Medalist, and is featured in the National PBS documentary American Talent. In 2015, Campbell co-founded MOVE|NYC|, alongside Chanel DaSilva, with the mission of cultivating greater diversity and equity in the dance field and beyond. Campbell also serves on the board of directors for Culture For One, a non-profit that aims to transform the lives of New York City children in foster care through the power of the arts. He resides in New York City.

Amy Miller is a NYC-based dancer, choreographer, educator, administrator and advocate. Originally from Ohio, she began her career with the Ohio Ballet, and was a founding member of Cleveland-based Ground Works Dance Theater. Since 2012, she has been a Director and a performing member of Gibney Company. Miller focuses on Gibney’s Community Action initiatives, having worked closely with social workers toward facilitating movement experiences with survivors of gender-based violence, international trainings for artists, and violence-prevention workshops with young people. Miller co-facilitates creative spaces for advocacy alongside Gibney’s ‘Move to Move Beyond Storytellers,’ a group of survivors creating performances to witness the power of reclaiming one’s agency, and moving toward shared liberation. Miller is currently a teaching artist for the Bard College Dance Program/Gibney Partnership, a multi-year engagement that represents a wide-ranging vision of what dance can be in a liberal arts curriculum. Miller holds a BFA in Dance and has thrice been a Dance/USA Mentor through their Institute for Leadership Training.

Gilbert T Small II is a dancer, choreographer, dramaturg and rehearsal director. He started his formal training at the Baltimore School for the Arts, and holds a BFA from SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Dance. While at Purchase, he had the opportunity to study at Codarts in the Netherlands. Upon finishing his education, he was invited to join Ballet British Columbia. While with Ballet BC, he worked with choreographers such as William Forsythe, Crystal Pite, Medhi Walerski, Johan Inger, Emily Molnar and Cayetano Soto. As a freelance artist, Gilbert has worked with Serge Bennethan, Sidra Bell, Zoe Scolfield and Kyle Abraham. Gilbert is based in Brooklyn, New York.

For more than 30 years, Doug Varone and Dancers has devoted itself to the humanity and virtuosity of dance, reaching out to our audiences well beyond the proscenium arch. We believe this philosophy has allowed us to endure, earning the reputation as one of the most respected dance companies working today. Over time, we’ve created an expansive legacy encompassing dance, theater, opera and film – establishing an impressive body of work.

The recipient of 11 Bessie Awards, the Company has toured to more than 125 cities in 45 states across the US and in Europe, Asia, Canada, and South America.

Stages include The Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York City Center, San Francisco Performances, London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall, Toronto’s Harbourfront, Moscow’s Stanislavsky Theatre, Buenos Aires’ Teatro San Martin, the Venice Biennale, and the Tokyo, Bates, Jacob’s Pillow and American Dance Festivals. In opera and theater, the Company regularly collaborates on the many Varone-directed or choreographed productions that have been produced around the world.

Doug Varone and Dancers continue to be among the most sought-after ambassadors and educators in the field. The company's multi-discipline residency programs take audiences deeper into the work, with a hands-on approach that moves beyond the studio to speak directly to people of all ages and backgrounds, both dancers and non-dancers alike. Our annual intensive workshops at leading universities have attracted students and professionals from around the country, and through our innovative DEVICES choreographic mentorship program, we are training the next generation of artists and dance-makers.

Ladies of Hip-Hop Dance Collective (LDC) is an all female intergenerational dance collective that creates dance works illuminating the strength, power, and diversity of women in Hip-Hop. Ever present in the work are the freestyle, cipher, and call-and-response origins of street and club dance culture, all while exploring the space of proscenium performance.

Under the direction of founder Michele Byrd-Mcphee, Ladies of Hip-Hop Dance Collective (LDC) interweaves the embodied experiences of women, creating a communal fabric that paints a picture of a more global women experience. Through their work, LOHH is reclaiming and transforming spaces, not only in the realm of dance but also within the broader cultural landscape. LDC asks audiences to celebrate the strength, resilience, and creativity of women from all walks of life, while sparking important conversations about gender equality and representation.

LDC creates works that celebrate and center feminist narratives examining the intersections of gender, race, and resistance.

Website: www.ladiesofhiphop.com/theco

SOCIALS:

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Ladies of Hip Hop (LOHH) is an organization that is dedicated to empowering girls and women in Hip-Hop culture. LOHH provides girls and women with a platform to be heard, seen, respected, and celebrated in the world of Hip-Hop. By providing resources and opportunities such as dance training, performance opportunities, mentorships, educational programs, career development support, and networking opportunities, we are building the next generation of hip-hop's changemakers.

We recognize Hip-Hop’s culture as one of resiliency and history. A culture worth preserving and archiving. LOHH serves as a living archive of Hip-Hop through the female lens. Centering girls and women, LOHH ensures that girls and women have an active role in defining the future of Hip-Hop culture.

OUR STORY

Since 2004, Ladies of Hip-Hop has been a driving force in the empowerment of girls and women in Hip-Hop. Beginning as a training ground for female Hip-Hop dancers, LOHH quickly grew from one day of dance workshops to a week-long international festival including female DJs, Mcees, graffiti & visual artists from around the world. LOHH has built an international tribe of girls and women supporting each other.