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Valerie Green
“Entropy” refers to the tendency towards disorder in a social system and chaos in motion. Dance Entropy is a professional modern dance company that abstracts the potential chaos of the body and creates order through expressive movement reflecting the world within which we live. Dance Entropy supports the vision of Artistic Director Valerie Green, who makes stage and site -specific work. A significant part of their mission is to perform works in locations and communities where the content of the work will have the greatest impact. Valerie Green became interested in dance as a child growing up in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1998 she formed Valerie Green/Dance Entropy, adding a permanent home for the company in 2005 - GREEN SPACE- in Long Island City, Queen. Ms. Green’s choreography has been presented at festivals and venues throughout New York City including Performance Mix and Dance Now @ Joyce Soho. Valerie’s choreographic work and teaching style is influenced by her apprenticeship with the Erick Hawkins Dance Company and her undergraduate work at University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Alex Escalante
Alex Escalante, originally from LA, graduated from SUNY Purchase and since has worked in NY with Donna Uchizono Company, Jennifer Monson/Birdbrain, Doug Elkins, Doug Varone, David Neumann, Gerald Casel, The Metropolitan Opera and has been fortunate to tour as Merce Cunningham’s personal assistant. You can also spot him in the musical film “Romance and Cigarettes” directed by John Turturro. His own work as well as choreography for theater with Division 13 Productions has been presented at Danspace Project, DTW’s Fresh Tracks series, Dixon Place, Judson Church “about town” at DTW, Joe’s Pub and Here Arts Center. Escalante also works as a freelance photographer and is an avid surfer. www.alexescalante.com Swallow Sand, a new trio by choreographer Alex Escalante, investigates the root impulses of social desensitization in reaction to a hyper frenetic environment. Utilizing an amorphic, highly kinetic movement vocabulary, the piece conjures up an uneasy landscape, inhabited by restless, anonymous and at times violent bodies. Performed by Escalante, Renee Archibald and Sarah White, the work is set to a live score by Jon Moniaci with lighting by Joe Levasseur and features an installation of hundreds of copper tin cans.
Stefanie Nelson is the artistic director of the Stefanie Nelson Dance Group, a contemporary dance company based in New York City. Since the company’s inception in 2000, Ms. Nelson’s choreography has been presented internationally in Toronto, Canada and throughout Italy. Nationally, the company has been presented in New York at the 92nd St. Y, Bowery Ballroom, Dance Theater Workshop, Debaun Auditorium @ Stevens Institute, Fieldston Ethical Culture School, Gowanus Arts Exchange, Hostos Cultural Center, Joe’s Pub, Jose Limon Institute, Stella Adler Conservatory, University Settlement and other venues. The company has received numerous awards and distinctions and has taught workshops in New York, New Hampshire and Lucca, Italy. Stefanie Nelson Dance Group, in collaboration with media artist Nell Breyer, present an excerpt from Out of Wonderland, which premiers in its entirety at Dance New Amsterdam, where Stefanie is currently an Artist-in-Residence, June 7-9, 2007. Inspired by the zany antics of a fictional girl named Alice, Nelson and Breyer create a fantastical world where dancers immerse themselves in full-scale video projections and time-based technologies, blurring the lines between reality and illusion. Based on raw, explosive solo performances, Out of Wonderland investigates feelings of fragmentation and dislocation.
Zach Morris and Tom Pearson
Rub the Sleep is a dream about waking up. In a hallucinatory landscape of hope chests, merit badges and Tupperware, the perfect housewife purees a cocktail made from gin and a homecoming queen's corsage; a Japanese war-bride makes a presentation to the Junior League; and a fierce and erotically aggressive series of collisions sends two young men stumbling. Rub the Sleep is an irreverent, rambunctious, limping sleepwalk that traverses the space between polished societal veneers and the unraveling, sometimes sullied, realities that tread just below the surface. Created by Tom Pearson and Zach Morris in collaboration with Donna Ahmadi, Marissa Nielsen-Pincus, Mayuna Shimizu, and Jennine Willett.
Mary Seidman
Mary Seidman and Dancers was founded in 1990 to serve as a catalyst for the physical, emotional, intellectual and social development of dance artists and the general public through the creation and presentation of original contemporary dance works. Seidman approaches choreography as a communicative, interactive form that can provide an accessible way for audiences and participants to learn about their social natures. Her work has been commissioned for venues specifically because of its broad appeal and approachable subject matter. The company’s core consists of trained professional dancers; however, Seidman often incorporates other populations into her work (children, actors, and other non-professional movers), which lends an interesting landscape of bodies, ages, and perspectives. Ms. Seidman, a gifted teacher, was honored in 1998 at the Solomon Guggenheim Museum as an outstanding teaching artist with the Hilla Rebay Award. She was Artistic Director of her own school of dance, Keystone Dance for ten years before organizing her dance company. She has taught dance and the company offers many outreach performances through numerous artist in schools organizations in NYC, NJ, CT., and Pa., Currently, she tours as a guest artist to colleges and universities and is on the faculty at the Mark Morris Dance Center and the Third Street Music School.
Karl Anderson
Karl Anderson is a dancer, choreographer, and construction worker. He has the pleasure of performing with a bevy of talented creators including: David Lindsay-Abaire, David Dorfman, Keely Garfield, Joe Goode, Allyson Green, Molly Rabinowitz, Sally Silvers, Stephanie Skura, and Merián Soto. Karl's company, SLAMFEST, has been presented in New York at numerous venues including: DTW, Danspace, Joyce SoHo, The Kitchen, Movement Research, P.S.1, and P.S.122. His work has also been presented on tour domestically in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Richmond, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, and Syracuse; and internationally in Calgary and Edmonton Canada, Liverpool England, Puebla Mexico, and San Juan Puerto Rico. In 1986, Karl received a BFA in Dance from CalArts and he graduated from Pratt Institute with a Bachelor of Architecture in 1996 and a Master of Architecture in 1998. Endless love to Dawn! Say hello at slamfest@msn.com.
Alicia Dhyana House
Alicia Dhyana House is a theatre director, choreographer, curator, and educator. Her work has been seen at HERE, Proshanzsky Auditorium (Graduate Center/CUNY), The Looking Glass Theatre, and American Theater of Actors. In April 2005 & 2006, Ms. House curated and directed Spoken Word: Expression in the Right Direction at the BAM Harvey Theater for over three thousand NYC teens. The show featured award-winning playwright and actor Will Power and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa. She has taught theatre, movement, and mask making in New York and California and for the Asia People’s Theatre Festival Society, ADA (The Arts with the Disabled Association) in Hong Kong and Macau, and at Thammasat University in Bangkok, Thailand. Ms. House is an MFA candidate in the directing program at Columbia University. Alicia Dhyana House created Last Year I Had Two Wings after being inspired by Meredith Monk’s recent production titled impermanence. This work, in collaboration with Prisca Ouya, Daman Harun, and Teresa Fellion, is a collage of patterns, breath, expressions, and sensations. With the intention of mirroring the inner and outer world of impermanence, Last Year I Had Two Wings was conceived as a kind of parable on our troubled contemporary world.
Nina Buisson & David Kieffer
Nina Buisson studied on full scholarship and graduated with excellence from the Princess Grace Academy. She also received a musical training from the Prince Rainier III Music Academy . She won top prizes for her solo performance at several national dance competitions in France and Italy , Nina received her teaching diploma (approved by the delegation of the council for music and dance) in ballet and modern dance from the Cultural Ministry of France, Aix en Provence . Nina's choreography has been presented at the Bollywood Film & Music Awards, the Elan Awards at the Fashion Institute of Technology where she received the spirit award, the Latin USA Film Festival Party Extravaganza at Madison Square Garden as well as the Julliard Senior Graduation Showcase 2005. She has taught class for Cirque du Soleil and is currently on faculty at Peridance center. www.ninabuisson.net David Kieffer discovered dance while pursuing a degree in theater arts at the State University of New York at New Paltz. He has studied with Igal Perry, Graciela Kozak and the Boston Ballet Academy of Dance. Kieffer has also had the privilege to dance as a soloist with The Peridance Ensemble, Pascal Rioult Dance Theatre, Bat-Dor Dance Company of Israel, Noémie Lafrance, New Jersey Ballet and Ballet Theatre of Scranton as well as others. His choreography has been seen at various venues including Dance New Amsterdam, the remember project 10 at St. Marks Church, The Club at La Mama with the musical group M2O, and the Moving Men series at Dixon Place.
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