Summer 2023 Dance Residency

STUDY WITH INNOVATIVE CONTEMPORARY CHOREOGRAPHERS

Residency I: May 22 - June 9, 2023
Residency II: June 12 - June 30, 2023

This dance program is based on strong technical training, achieved by concentrating on the healthy and efficient use of the body to realize each person’s physical potential, and the development of the imaginative and creative elements of each individual. To this end, we integrate the instruction from Tisch’s permanent faculty of master teachers with that of major guest artists and company members.

Each residency is for the intermediate-to-advanced NYU and visiting dance student.

Residency I
DANC-UT 1400 (4 units)
NCRD-UT 5004 (Non-Credit)

Residency II

DANC-UT 1401 (4 units)
NCRD-UT 5005 (Non-Credit)

SCHEDULE OF 2023 PARTICIPATING DANCE COMPANIES

Residency I 
May 22 - 26, 2023 – Ronald K. Brown | EVIDENCE, A Dance Company
May 30 - June 2, 2023 – Sidra Bell Dance New York
June 5 - 9, 2023 – Gibney Company

Residency II
June 12 - 16, 2023 – David Dorfman Dance
June 20 - 23, 2023 – The Dragon Sisters
June 26 - June 30, 2023 – Doug Varone and Dancers

DANCE COMPANIES

Ronald K. Brown | EVIDENCE, A Dance Company
May 22 - 26, 2023
Artistic Director: Ronald K. Brown

About EVIDENCE, A Dance Company

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.

About Ronald K. Brown

Ronald K. Brown

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.

Sidra Bell Dance New York
May 30 - June 2, 2023

About Sidra Bell

Photo of Sidra Bell in an overlay style

Sidra's career has spanned for close to 20 years, and she is currently a Master Lecturer at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, and a recent artist-in-residence at Harvard University. She has also held Adjunct Professor and Lecturer positions at Ball State University in Indiana, Marymount Manhattan College, Georgian Court University in New Jersey, and Barnard College in New York City.

She has a BA in History from Yale University and an MFA in Choreography from Purchase College Conservatory of Dance. She was a University of Minnesota Theater Arts & Dance Cowles Visiting Artist and an artist in residence at Cornish College of the Arts (Seattle). Her body of work was featured in the Harvard University Theater, Dance & Media course Contemporary Repertory: Dance Authorship in the 21st Century[A dance technique and choreographic repertory class that focused on contemporary traditions and the repertory of three choreographers, engaging in the current discourse of contemporary dance.] Bell was the 2019 Honoree at CPR-Center Performance Research's Gala in New York City. Feature speaking engagements and presentations have included CalArts, The Juillard School, Yale University Master’s Tea (Silliman College), Yale Club of New York, Harvard University, MIT (Hacking Arts New Media Panel), University of Oklahoma, Kinetech Arts San Francisco, The Spence School (A.M. Perspectives), Gibney Dance Center, Ball State University, Cornish College, Yale The Mellon Forum of Life, University of Texas at Austin, Yale Alumni in Dance, Marymount Manhattan College, Studio @ 550 Boston with JCC Newton and University of Colorado at Boulder.

Awards: Bell has won several awards, notably a 1st Prize for Choreography at the Solo-Tanz Theater Festival in Stuttgart, Germany in 2011 for Grief Point. and a 2015 National Dance Project Production Award from the New England Foundation for the Arts. Additionally, NEFA awarded the company a Production Residency for Dance.The collaborating soloists on works she created also won performance awards for two different solos at the Stuttgart Solo-Tanz Theater Festival (1st and 2nd Prizes respectively). The company was one of 25 recipients of the Dance Advancement Fund from Dance/NYC in 2017. Her work has been seen throughout the United States and in Denmark, France, Austria, Bulgaria, Turkey, Slovenia, Sweden, Germany, China, Canada, Aruba, Korea, Brazil, and Greece. The company was lauded as #1 in Contemporary Dance by the Pittsburgh Examiner in 2014 for garment, in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette's 2010 Best in Dance for ReVUE, and in the 2012 Year in Review in ArtsATL's notable performances for Nudity. February 3 was named SIDRA BELL DAY by Mayor Thomas Roach in the City of White Plains, NY.

Commissions: Bell has received many commissions from institutions and companies internationally and created over 100 new works notably for BODYTRAFFIC, Ailey II, The Juilliard School, Harvard University, Boston Conservatory, River North Dance Chicago, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Sacramento Ballet, Ballet Austin, Alonzo King's LINES Ballet School, LEVYdance, Robert Moses' KIN, METdance, University of Minnesota, Point Park University, Visceral Dance Chicago, Springboard Danse Montréal, Uppercut Dansteater (Denmark), and Motto Dans Kolectif (Turkey) to name a few. Bell was a cultural ambassador in Sofia, Bulgaria in 2014 and 2015 (made possible by Movement Research, Trust for Mutual Understanding, and Derida Dance Center). In 2015 she collaborated with the internationally acclaimed women's chorus Karmina Slovenica in Slovenia, and before the pandemic she was to return with her company for the final production. She is the first Black woman ever to create a new work for New York City Ballet in October 2020.

Film/Theater/Magazines: In 2012, Bell was commissioned as the choreographer for the feature film TEST set in San Francisco during the height of the AIDS crisis in 1985 written/directed by Chris Mason Johnson (Frankfurt Ballet/White Oak Project).TEST was awarded two grand jury prizes from Outfest. The film had many screenings at festivals worldwide, including The Seattle Film Festival, Frameline37 (San Francisco), Outfest (L.A.), Berlinale, and New York City Lincoln Center's NewFest Festival. The movie is enjoying a theatrical release and was a New York Times Critic's Pick. It is currently available on VOD, iTunes and Netflix.

Other commercial work includes casting and event coordination for MTV, Revlon, BookAFlashMob, Interview Magazine with photographer Billy Kidd and stylist Katie Burnett, NOWNESS with directorJovan Todorovic & all:expanded, Daisies Art Fair with director Sandra Winther & all:expanded, fashion photographer Lloyd Stevie & stylist Alison Mazur, New York Times' T Magazine (New York Times' Style Magazine), Granary 1 Magazine, and Paris Fashion Week for Baserange.

Master Teacher: Bell is a sought after Master Teacher and her alternative pedagogy, Contemporary Systems-an interior & material approach was featured in Dance Magazine, Dance Teacher Magazine and Dance Studio Life Magazine. She has taught her unique creative practice at major institutions for dance and theater throughout Canada, Europe, South America, and the United States.

• She was one of the inaugural choreographers at University of North Carolina School of the Arts Professional Studies Program and a founding collaborator of the Movement Invention Project.

• She was also the inaugural teaching artist at University of the Arts Sophomore Coaching Performance progress where she has led a teaching team under her pedagogical methods since 2012. The company was an inaugural collaborative partner of Ball State University's charter program Innovation2Impact made possible by the Provost Office and an Immersive Learning Grant. I2I was a three phase program bringing BSU students to NYC and the company to Indiana for an immersive learning experience.

• In addition to extensive master classes at institutions for dance and theater, Bell's workshops have been presented internationally by STEPS NYC Contemporary Masters, SpringboardX, University of North Carolina School of the Arts Professional Studies Program, Movement Invention Project, Broadway Dance Center, Danskappellet Copenhagen Denmark, Gibney Dance Center, Peridance Capezio Center, The Ailey School, Mark Morris Dance Center, Velocity Dance Center Seattle, Visceral Dance Chicago, International Festival of Goainia Brazil, Derida Dance Center Bulgaria, Motto Dans Kolectif Istanbul, Alonzo King LINES Ballet Dance Center, ODC School San Francisco, YoungARTS Miami, Harvard Dance Center, Yale University, Dancing Grounds New Orleans, MODAS Alberquerque, Karmina Slovenica Slovenia to name a few. She is the Creative Director of the award-winning MODULE a New York City-based immersive laboratory for movement and theater artists.

Gibney Company
June 5 - 9, 2023
Artistic Director: Gina Gibney
Co-Directors: Amy Miller and Nigel Campbell
Artistic Associates: Zui Gomez and Leal Zielińska

About Gibney Company

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

About Gina Gibney

Gina Gibney

Founder, Artistic Director, and CEO

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.

About Nigel Campbell

Nigel Campbell

Company Director

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.

About Amy Miller

Amy Miller

Company Director

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.

About Gilbert T Small II

Gilbert T Small II

Curatorial Director of Training and Rehearsal Director

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.

 

David Dorfman Dance
June 12 - 16, 2023
Artistic Director: David Dorfman

About David Dorfman Dance

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.

About David Dorfman

David Dorfman

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.

About Lily Gelfand

Lily Gelfand

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.

About Kellie Lynch

Kellie Lynch

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.

About Nik Owens

Nik Owens

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.

About Myssi Robinson

Myssi Robinson

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.

The Dragon Sisters
June 20 - 23, 2023

Image of The Dragon Sisters

Photo by Alex Justimbaste

About The Dragon Sisters

The Dragon Sisters (Issa & Odessa) are an award-winning multi-hyphenated performance duo based in Brooklyn. Their collaboration began while studying at the Conservatory of Dance and Performance at SUNY Purchase College. Their careers as professionals includes contracts with The Martha Graham Dance Company, GALLIM Dance, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, Punchdrunk Sleep No More and the Metropolitan Opera. 

The Dragon Sisters have presented work with Mana Contemporary, Tribeca Performing Arts Center, Center for Performance research, Triskelion Arts, Chelsea Music Hall, George Bergès Gallery, and Gibney Dance. They won 2021 Glam Awards for Best Duo and Breakthrough Performers. Their debut EP, The Fine Print, was released in 2021. They have presented live music in collaboration with SummerStage Festival, Lady Land Festival, Mercury lounge, NYC Pride Festival and SONY Hall. Their work as artists and culture leaders has been covered in media outlets including New York Times, Billboard, Vogue, PAPER Magazine and TelfarTV. In 2022 the duo taught and choreographed at SUNY Purchase and Berkeley College /Boston Conservatory.

The Dragon Sisters were born out of a decades-long friendship and collaboration between Issa and Odessa. Years spent training, creating, and growing together has defined their practice. They are each other’s superpowers. The Dragon Sisters’ path is set toward achieving larger platforms to develop bigger work to create transformational change in their communities. The Dragon Sisters are the future.

Doug Varone and Dancers
June 26 - 30, 2023

About Doug Varone and Dancers

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.