Kent Zimmerman was raised on a farm in Indiana, so he’s amazed to have recently celebrated his 10th year as a resident of New York City. He began his training upon arriving at the University of Cincinnati: Conservatory of Music. As a 1996 graduate, his college credits include: Carousel; West Side Story; Runaways; Lady Be Good; Assassins; Little Me; Falsettoland; Das Barbecu and Starting Here, Starting Now. His regional theater credits include: A Few Good Men; Singing in the Rain; Anything Goes; Into the Woods; damn Yankees; Guys and Dolls, The Unsinkable Molly Brown; Good News; An Evening with George Gershwin, Randy Newman’s Faust; A Chorus Line, 42nd Street and West Side Story. Four months after moving to New York, he was blessed to find himself on tour with the revival of Show Boat. Other national tours include: Footloose, Guys and Dolls and The Producers. He was also invited to be a part of London’s West End production of Show Boat. While in London, he appeared in Sondheim Tonight at the Barbican Theater. Kent has shared the Broadway stage with Cheryl Ladd, Bernadette Peters and Reba McEntire in the revival of Annie Get your Gun. He was also in the original Broadway cast of Thou Shalt Not. Kent can be seen on the PBS special Our Favorite Broadway: The Love Songs featuring Julie Andrews, Bebe Neuwirth and Chita Rivera, to name a few. He can also be seen on the big screen in The Shawshank Redemption and The Producers. In 2006, Kent graduated from the Swedish Institute with an Associates Degree in Applied Sciences and is a licensed Massage Therapist. He recently performed on stage in The Producers at the Paris Casino in Las Vegas. He is currently peforming in Portland at the Gerding Theatre in Guys and Dolls He would like to thank Felice for the opportunity of working with the ladies in the company and wishes he could be there. All my love to Felice and Sonny. IABWY, PJ. Psalms 91:11.
Archive for the 'Guest Artists' Category
T.J. Yale is a twenty-one-year old choreographer/dancer, as well as a six-year veteran and principle dancer with the Jefferson Dancers. He has taught tap and hip-hop classes at numerous studios in the northwest, including Dance Vision Studios, Vega Dance Lab and Stites Performing Arts Center. He has danced with the Northwest African Ballet company, for various Nike Industrial shows (most recently for the “Nike Global Appreciation Fashion Show – June 2005) and for the Portland Fire WNBA Hip Hop Squad. T.J. has opened for many recording artists including Ashanti, Fabulous, 112, for Snoop Dogg’s “Da Bomb Concert – June 2005″ and for hip-hop’s local radio station Jammin ‘95.5. His skills have given him opportunities to perform and teach throughout the U.S. and overseas tour in the south of France. He has studied with many great teachers including: Julane Stites, Terry Brock, Steve Gonzales, Sarah Slipper, Derrick K. Grant, Roger Lee, Kevin Maher; and has had the honor of working with living legend Savion Glover, and the infamous Gregory Hines. In the spring of 2004 T.J.’s choreography, Frequency, was performed at the 7th National High School Dance Festival in Philadelphia and merited second place in the student choreography showcase. He has recently set new works on the Jefferson Dancers, Dance West, Tap Co. of Idaho, Portland Dance Project and the Detail Hip-Hop Company. In the summer of 2005, he participated in a three-week ballet intensive with the Northwest Professional Dance Project where he studied with dance makers from companies such as Hubbard Street Dance Theatre, Nederlands Dans Theatre, and Thaddeus Davis. He is currently on staff for the traveling workshop of the Northwest Professional Dance Company and spends a lot of time traveling between Portland and Los Angeles.
Gérard Théorêt is a full Professor at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle. He is equally at home with classical and contemporary styles and has been performing, teaching, choreographing and directing theatre and dance for over 25 years. He has worked for stage, film and television and has had the pleasure of working with and learning from such world renowned directors and choreographers as Hal Prince, Agnes de Mille, Hans van Manen, John Neville, Ann Reinking, and Gillian Lynne. Career highlights include tours to Europe and the U.K. dancing Principal roles with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, acting on such stages as London’s Young Vic Theatre and Canada’s Stratford Festival, serving as Ballet Master for the International Opera Federation inTokyo, Japan and serving as Associate Director on productions of The Banff Centre’s Opera As Theatre Program. In the Seattle area he has choreographed for Spectrum Dance Theatre, ARC Dance Productions, Aria Dance Company, the University of Puget Sound, The University of Washington Ballet Company and the Festival of Men In Dance of which he is also a founding member and co-producer. He directs and choreographs for Cornish Dance Theater and is an active recruiter for the Dance Department. He is currently directing the Opera Dido and Aeneas for the Cornish Music Department.
Note: balletango was originally created for Cornish Dance Theatre in 2000 where two of Julane Stites’ pupils, Bojohn Diciple and Marci Munnerlyn performed the pas de deux. It has been a pleasure working with the Dance West Company dancers.
Keith Terry is a percussionist/rhythm dancer/educator who has toured extensively in the Americas, Asia and Europe. He has collaborated with numerous artists, including Charles “Honi” Coles, Turtle Island String Quartet, Jovino Santos Neto, the Jazz Tap Ensemble, Gamelan Sekar Jaya, San Jose Taiko, and Bobby McFerrin. He is the artistic director of: the Crosspulse Percussion Ensemble; Slammin All-Body Band; and Professor Terry’s Circus Band Extraordináire. His large-scale works include the Body Tjak Projects, an on-going series of multi-disciplinary performances involving artists from Indonesia and the Americas, which began in 1980. FromLA’s Department of World Arts nd Cultures, where he designed and taught courses on the relationship of music and dance; deep listening; synchronicity, time and timing; and intercultural communication in the arts. In 2006 he conceived and directed the first international body music performance project in Salzburg with artists from Turkey, Finland, Spain, Austria and the U.S. For more information about Keith, visit www.crosspulse.com
Luis Figueroa was born in Panama and raised in Washington D.C. Pursuing a degree in Political Science, he became interested in performing after seeing a production of 42nd Street. Since that day his credits include: Broadway: 42nd Street, Regional Theatre: No No Nanette (Cape Playhouse), Evita (Pioneer Theatre), TV/Film: The Interpreter, Guiding Light and the most recent national commercial for Coke Zero. Luis is currently in the touring production of Wicked.
Will Armstrong, a native of Massachusetts, began studying dance at age 2 and hasn’t stopped dancing since! Active in the competition circuit, Will won many awards including two national Championships. After graduating from high school, he worked with the Walt Disney World Company, first in Florida as a Kid of the Kingdom Dancer, then at Tokyo Disneyland, and on board Disney Cruise Ships. Dancing has given him the opportunity to travel around the world and work with amazing people like Toni Tennille (of the Captain and Tennille) who he met when he was with the first national tour of Victor/Victoria. He has worked with Roger Bart, Will Farrell and Nathan Lane in the movie musical The Producers; and with Broadway and film legend Shirley Jones, when he made his own Broadway debut in the revival of 42nd Street at the Ford Center in New York. Will’s other passion is art. He studied illustration at the New York School of Visual Arts, and has recently launched his successful on-line store that sells a variety of T-shirt designs and more. (Feel free to check it out at willomania.com.) “I would like to express my gratitude for having the opportunity to meet and get to know these exceptional dancers. I wish them the best in all of their endeavors, and hope they will approach every challenge with the same determination and tenacity that they displayed in their rehearsals with me. If they can, then they are all assured future successes and achievement of their dreams.”
Donald McKayle – recipient of honors and awards in every aspect of his illustrious career, has been named by the Dance Heritage Coalition as “one of America’s Irreplaceable Dance Treasures: the First 100.” His choreographic masterworks, considered modern dance classics, Games, Rainbow Round My Shoulder, District Storyville, and Songs of the Disinherited are performed around the world. He has choreographed over ninety works for dance companies in the United States, Canada, Israel, Europe and South America. The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, the Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble, Ballet San Jose Silicon Valley, the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, and the Lula Washington Dance Theatre serve as repositories for his works. He is the Artistic Mentor for the Limón Dance Company. Ten retrospectives have honored his choreography. In April 2005, Donald McKayle was honored at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. and presented with a medal as a Master of African American Choreography.
In 2001, he choreographed the monumental ten-hour production of Tantalus, produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company in collaboration with the Denver Center Theatre Company. Five Tony Nominations have honored his choreography for Broadway musical theater: Sophisticated Ladies, Doctor Jazz, A Time for Singing, and for Raisin, which garnered the Tony Award as Best musical, and for which he received Tony nominations for both direction and choreography. For Sophisticated Ladies he was also honored with an outer Critics Circle Award and the NAACP Image Award. His most recent choreography for Broadway was showcased in It Ain’t Nothing But the Blues, which earned a Tony nomination for Best Musical. He received an Emmy nomination for the TV Special, Free To Be You and Me. His work for film included Disney’s Bedknobs and Broomsticks, The Great White Hope, and The Jazz Singer. His other media awards include a Los Angeles Drama-Logue Award for Evolution of the Blues and a Golden Eagle Award for On the Sound.
In dance he has received the Capezio Award, the Samuel H. Scripps/American Dance Festival Award, the American Dance Guild Award, a Living Legend Award from the National Black Arts Festival, the Heritage Award from the California Dance Educators Association, two Choreographer’s Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Dance/USA Honors, an Irvine Fellowship in Dance, the Martha Hill Lifetime Achievement Award, the Annual Award from the Dance Under the Stars Choreography Festival, the Black College Dance Exchange Honors, the Dance Magazine Award, and the American Dance Legacy Institute’s Distinguished and Innovative leadership Award.
For his work in education, he has earned the Balasaraswati/Joy Ann Dewey Beinecke Endowed Chair for Distinguished Teaching, UCI’s Distinguished Faculty Lectureship Award for Research, and he is a recipient of the UCI Medal, the highest honor given by the University of California, Irvine. At the University of California, Irvine he has also been awarded the title of Claire Trevor Professor in dance, an endowed chair, and is a Bren Fellow. Mr. McKayle has served on the faculties of numerous international forums and many prestigious national institutions including the Juilliard School, Bennington College, Bard College, Sarah Lawrence College, the American Dance Festival, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, and was the Dean of the School of dance at the California Institute of the Arts.
His autobiography, Transcending Boundaries: My Dancing Life, published by Routledge was honored with the Society of Dance History Scholars’ de la Torre Bueno Prize®. A television documentary on his life and work, Heartbeats of a Dance Maker, was aired on PBS stations throughout the United States.
The UCI Etude ensemble, the resident chamber performance group of the University of California, Irvine Department of Dance, was founded in 1995 under the artistic direction of Donald McKayle. It has been presented in concert on campus and at national venues in California, Colorado, Texas, North Carolina, and at the International Festival of Contemporary Dance in San Luis Potosi, Mexico. The ensemble can also be viewed on the CD ROM, Herbie Hancock Presents Living Jazz, and is documented in the American Dance Legacy Institute’s first interactive volume on choreographer Donald McKayle, installed at the National Museum of dance in Saratoga Springs, NY. This small and select group of undergraduate dance majors, chosen by annual audition, has as its primary focus the seamless entry of its members into professional careers. Alumni have entered all genres of dance: the Mark Morris Dance Group, the Martha Graham Dance Company the Sean Curran Dance Company, Momix, the Limón West Dance Project, the Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble, The Hubbard Street Dance Company, the Joffrey Ballet, the Nashville Ballet, the Metropolitan Opera Ballet, The Lion King, Sweet Charity, Fame the Musical, and Swing among others.
David Ward – has been Director of Dance at Seabury Hall, a private college-preparatory school in Makawao, Maui, since 1988. He is one of Hawaii’s most prolific and celebrated modern dance choreographers, a six-time Choreographic Award recipient from the Hawaii State Dance Council. In 1999, Governor Ben Cayetano awarded him the prestigious SFCA Individual Fellowship for his outstanding contribution to the state of Hawaii in modern dance choreography. Besides four highly successful DanceQuake festivals, other David Ward productions include: Maui Choreographers Forum (1992-1995), Common Ground Dance Tours (1995-1996), The Graceful Edge concerts (2000), and The New Dance Project (2001).
Gretchen Spiro – is a dancer, yoga teacher, Gyrotonic® trainer, and movement therapist from Boulder, CO. She received a BFA from Cal Arts and an MA in Dance Therapy from Naropa University. Gretchen began exploring CI (Contact Improvisation) in 1982. Primary mentors have been Nita Little, Martin Keogh, Keith Hennessy, and Touch Monkey/Carolyn Stuart. Avidly practicing and teaching for the past 18 years, Gretchen aims to offer herself wholly to the mysteries of liquid dancing. Gretchen guides Tumblebones, a spirited CI collective investigating comradeship, artistry, and CI physicality true to the principles of the form. She teaches with humor, precision, and fiery enthusiasm. Now she’s doing the mama-dance with her six-month-old daughter, Quill.
Addam Stell – Hailing from Oregon with a BA in Philosophy from Portland State University, Addam began his dance career at age 7 as a clogger, and studied jazz, tap, ballet, modern and African dance. But he thinks of himself as a tapper and has taught, performed and choreographed tap throughout his entire adult life. He performed and toured with the Jefferson Dancers, the Skylark Tappers, and the Portland Tap Connection. Addam has appeared in many musical theatre productions including Oliver, The Music Man, and Anything Goes (serving as Dance Captain in two different productions). In addition to performing with New Jersey Tap Ensemble, Addam has his own company,Tap Cats, and is a member of the Foot and Fiddle Dance Company in NYC.