20th Anniversary Dispatch & Updates
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We invite you to join the Luna community at the following anniversary events as we celebrate 20 years of bringing dance to more than 20,000 children each year:
March 8th
Luna’s official birthday
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March 10th
The big fundraising party, An Evening of Luna-cy, held in Emeryville.
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April 25th
20/20 Points of View: 20 Choreographers Celebrate Luna’s 20th Anniversary
Join us at our Open Choreographer’s studio as part of Bay Area Dance Week. A chance to drop in any time all day and see what choreographers actually do in the studio – create, improvise, rehearse, perform, seek feedback. Twenty choreographers have already scheduled in to share their work from 9:30AM-7:30PM at Luna’s Emeryville studio. Email Jochelle for more information or to reserve a spot for a large group: jperena@lunadanceinstitute.org
free event
Schedule of the Day (subject to change – please check back for updates!)
9:30 Jochelle Perena & Ashley Trottier with The Thick Rich Ones
10:00 Alisa Rasera
10:30 Megan Nicely
11:00 Deborah Karp
11:30 Kendra Kimbrough Dance Ensemble
12:00 Colin Epstein
12:30 Greacian Goeke with Impromptu No Tutu and Stagebridge Senior Theatre Company
1:00 Alyce Finwall
1:30 Bianca Brzezinski
2:00 Byb Chanel Bibene
2:30 Marlita Hill
3:00 Deborah Slater
3:30 Yukie Fujimoto & Sonya Delwaide
4:00 Sheldon Smith
4:30 tbd
5:00 Anne Bluethenthal
5:30 Dana Lawton
6:00 Shinichi Iova-Koga/inkBoat
6:30 Claudine Naganuma
7:00 Jeanette Male & Glenn Corteza
Some of our featured artists:
Byb Chanel Bibene. Most of the time, I’m asked what do you do? How do I describe my work? Well, I really don’t know even though I know. I work on contexts. I see my work as some words addressed to human beings, what messages they get out of it. It could be political, social, fun, sad, maybe, nothing, maybe, contemporary, yes. I create works when an idea or an event tickles me. The truth is you have to meet me, my works, before you frame it. kiandanda-dance.com youtube: myworlddancestuff
Anne Bluethenthal is renown in the SF Bay Area as a dancer’s dancer and a dancer’s choreographer. Her choreography is respected both for its formal sophistication, its eloquence, and its rare ability to effortlessly bridge the worlds of formal concert dance, political art, and ritual. Bluethenthal’s award winning work spans subjects such as Israel-Palestine, globalization, the environment, genocide, and the gift economy. “… Her work is brainy, her own, and full of soul … She seems to dig from the earth, or the human body whatever rapture and harmony we are capable of.” (Rita Felciano) “…With a richly sensual manner of moving and a feel for the private history of each phrase of movement… Bluethenthal doesn’t invent steps, she reveals them…as a bit of organic reality preselected for our enjoyment.” (Janice Ross) abdproductions.org
Bianca Brzezinski is the artistic director of Opal Street DIT, with a firm belief in the healing power of movement. Her training spans hip hop, modern, ballet, improvisation, theater, yoga, and Alexander technique. A graduate of Mills College, she obtained her BA in dance with a focus on choreography. She has worked with choreographers Sonya Delwaide, Brenda Way, Shinichi Iova-Koga, Trisha Brown, Richard Siegal and Sean Curran. Her repertoire concentrates on psychological and social movement, exploring the ways in which movement can help heal our society. She has performed around the Bay Area, France and Poland. She began Opal Street Improvisation Dance Theater in 2010, a place where theater and improvisation meet. Through the use of authentic movement dancers create work about freedom, the act of being, and an ever fluid attitude towards life. biancabrzezinski.blogspot.
Glenn Corteza and Jeanette Male are happy to share their mutual love for Argentine tango social dance and music. As an instructor of tango, Glenn focuses on the essentials of social dancing and promotes mastery of the basics. He has been dancing for 14 years and has studied with many of the Argentine masters. He has performed in stage productions, appeared on commercials, and performed in many public and private events. He is also a member of the group, Quinteto del Bailongo, where he plays the double-bass. For more information about classes please check their website SFOTango.com.
Jeanette has been dancing tango for almost ten years. In addition to her love of tango, she is also a professional modern dancer, who is currently taking a hiatus in order to pursue her MFA in Dance Performance and Choreography at Mills College in Oakland. She has performed with the Mills Repertory Company, CCSF Repertory Company, HERPIC Dance, Ishika Seth and Dancers, Strong Current, and most recently with BadMarMar Dance in Seattle, WA.
Colin Epstein started dancing thanks to a computer error, starting flying thanks to his neighbors, and never looked back. He is, in no particular order, a dancer, acrobat, circus & gymnastics coach, aerialist, lighting designer, and sometime clown. Colin has performed on the ground and in the air in California, Colorado, Vermont, NYC, and Taiwan; his choreography has been performed at Colorado College, New England Center for Circus Arts, LaMaMa ETC, Taipei Museum of Contemporary Art, and Sun-Shier Dance Theater. As always, many thanks to Linda Carr & Terry Sendgraff for starting him on his path.
Alyce Finwall’s work has been performed through out the U.S.and in Europe, and has received numerous grants and awards. She started Alyce Finwall Dance Theater in 1999, developing a uniquely creative and theatrical style, noted for having a “fierce fluidity in performance and a brooding surrealism in the choreography” by the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and an “impressive and accomplished choreographic symphony” by the SF Examiner. Alyce’s wide ranging dance career began with the Minneapolis based avant-garde company, Ballet of the Dolls, and she has also worked with Rincones & Company in Washington, DC and has studied with the Cullberg Ballet in Sweden, and the Cunningham Dance Foundation. Alyce holds an MFA from Mills College and has taught and choreographed for college and pre-professional programs such as the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance, Mills College, Radford University in VA and Cedar Crest College in PA. afdancetheater.org photo by Mark Andrew Wilson
Greacian Goeke, Artistic Director, Impromptu No Tutu elder movement ensemble in Albany and Storybridge Director, Stagebridge Senior Theatre Company, Oakland. At Stagebridge Greacian teaches movement to elders in the Performing Arts Training program and directs two federally funded storytelling in the schools programs that integrate language, movement and music for developing literacy skills. Greacian has served as a community teaching artist for all ages since 1989, creating and directing original projects in drama, movement, music, oral history, poetry and visual art. At Mills College Children’s School, she teaches movement and music to 2- to 5-year-olds and directs an Orff Schulwerk program for classroom teachers to strengthen their movement and music skills. She holds an M.F.A. in Performance from California College of Arts and Crafts (now CCA) and a B.A. in English from Cornell University. She received a Level III Certificate in Orff Schulwerk through Mills College in 1999 and has trained in modern dance with Peggy Lawler and Janice Kovar; trapeze dance with Terry Sendgraff; percussion, improvisation and choral singing. She is Past President of the Northern California American Orff-Schulwerk Association of music teachers.
Marlita Hill teaches dance full-time at the Ramon C. Cortines School for the Visual and Performing Arts in downtown Los Angeles. She recently launched an online project, The Choreography Clinic, that fosters dialogue among dance makers about making dance. Marlita received her BFA in Dance Performance with K-12 Certification from Towson University in Maryland. In 2008, she published her book, “Dancers! Assume the Position,” which examines the role of dance in worship. She serves as a board member and Children Show Coordinator for Rhapsody In Taps, Inc., a Los Angeles based tap company under the direction of Linda Sohl-Ellison. choreoclinic.com
Founded by Artistic Director Shinichi Iova-Koga in 1998, inkBoat is a performance collective working in fractured, filmic, delicate and decayed environments. inkBoat’s performances evoke both the traditional and the experimental, drawing heavily from movements (political, artistic, personal) of challenge. Each performance is a dialogue between apparent and hidden worlds. Built by and with the collaborative efforts of choreographers, dancers, musicians, visual artists, directors and actors, all collaborators are independent visionaries that assemble according to project parameters. Living in San Francisco, Berlin, New York, Tokyo and Seattle, these artists contribute to projects as called upon. For this event, inkBoat collaborates with Mills College, Molissa Fenley, Sheldon Smith, Katie Faulkner, Ann Murphy, Allen Willner, Suki O’Kane, Yukie Fujimoto, Dana Iova-Koga, Joshua Kohl and Haruko Nishimura. inkboat.com
Deborah Karp is a recent Bay Area transplant after seven years as Brooklyn-based dance artist. Her work has been shown throughout New York at Dixon Place, Triskelion Arts, Whitewave, The Tank, Death By Audio, Chashama, and as part of Bushwick Open Studios. Deborah has performed with Nancy Meehan Dance Company, Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, Rebecca Davis, Mariangela Lopez and The Accidentals, David Byrne and the Band at Radio City Music Hall, and Celeste Miller at the Kennedy Center. She is a Dancer Instructor for the San Francisco Ballet’s Dance in Schools and Communities. Deborah is delighted to participate in Luna’s 20/20 Points of View and will use the feedback she receives to develop her work for 2nd Sundays in May and a fall residency at The Garage. deborahkarpdanceprojects.com/
Director Kendra Kimbrough Barnes holds a BA in Dance, from San Francisco State University and an MA in Arts Administration from Golden Gate University. In 1996 she founded K*Star*Productions, home of the Kendra Kimbrough Dance Ensemble (KKDE) and co-produced the Black Choreographers Festival: Here & Now. In 2002 she co-founded the Black Performing Artists Network (B-PAN) (since resolved in 2005) which co-presented the 2005 Black Choreographers Festival: Here & Now and produced an open forum 2002 and Beyond, discussing opportunities & challenges facing Black dance in the Bay Area. Kendra currently teaches dance to children ages 7-18 through Dimension’s Rites of Passage program in Oakland, holds Contemporary Blend workshops, and teaches Yoga, Pilates, Jazz, Modern, African-Haitian, and Dance Fitness at City College of San Mateo and City College of San Francisco. She aspires to open a performing arts center for youth. kkde.org
Dana Lawton is a tenure-track faculty member at Saint Mary’s College, faculty member at Shawl-Anderson Dance Center, and a certified yoga instructor. Dana is the Director of Dana Lawton Dances and was a founding member of Bay Area’s acclaimed dance company, Janice Garrett & Dancers. She holds an MFA in Choreography from Mills College and a BFA in Dance from California Institute of the Arts. danalawtondances.org
dNaga danceNAGANUMA was created in 2001 by Artistic Director Claudine Naganuma. This year marks the company’s 11th season. It is a unique ensemble made up of multi-cultural/generational dance artists. The ensemble is in residence at Danspace in the Rockridge Area of Oakland. dNaga danceNAGANUMA ’s mission is to perform work of cultural and political importance. dNaga will be showing excerpts of “Noodle Women,” a dance exploring the idea of being developmentally delayed and growing up Chinese in America, and “PEACE about life: Dancing with Parkinson’s,” inspired and danced to the interviews of members of the Brooklyn Parkinson’s Group. dNaga.org Video work at youtube.com/watch?v=ubpXMgJ8JHs&noredirect=1 Photo by Matt Haber. Left to right: Carly Boland, Warren Brunetti, Elias Coerver, Andrew Hansen.
Megan Nicely is a performer/choreographer working at the intersection of contemporary dance and butoh. She has performed in the US, UK, and Europe, including: Admeto directed by filmmaker Doris Dörie at the Edinburgh International Festival, Movement Research/ Judson Church, and the NY Butoh Festival. In the past two years she has focused on collaborative projects using sound and video to create live performance environments with SF sound artist Jim Brashear and St. Louis choreographer Dawn Karlovsky. Her writing has appeared in Performance Research, TDR, and Movement Research Journal. She holds an MFA from Mills College and is completing her PhD in performance studies at NYU. She teaches at USF in their Performing Arts Department, which focuses on social justice and the arts.
Alisa Rasera has been on the Luna Dance Institute faculty since 2007 and in particular her teaching interests are in Middle School & Special Education. She earned a BFA in Dance from the California Institute of the Arts and at New York University she earned an MFA in Dance Performance and Choreography. From 1999-2007 Alisa danced with Oakland’s Physically Integrated, AXIS Dance Company. During these amazing 8 years she held the roles of Dancer/Performer, Education Director, Teaching Artist, and created several pieces for the company. Her work as a Dance Educator & Choreographer has been in many different settings including K-12 schools, universities, studios, camps, dance festivals & for musical theater companies. Alisa’s quirky repertoire of choreography (Frolikdance!) has been seen in shared concerts & self -produced around the bay area since 1997.
Deborah Slater, director, choreographer and performer, has worked in theater and dance for over 30 years. She is the Artistic Director of Deborah Slater Dance Theater, celebrating 22 years in 2012 and Studio 210, celebrating its 32nd year. A multi-media dance company, Deborah Slater Dance Theater does visually gorgeous, acrobatic, talking dance. The company is dedicated to the creation of full-length works exploring social issues through original dance, text and music. Ms. Slater is the recipient of a CHIME WITHOUT BORDERS Mentorship with David Gordon; a Gerbode Fellowship with Playwright Julie Hebert for NIGHT FALLS, a play with movement; a CHIME MENTORSHIP as mentor for Cynthia Adams/Fellow Travelers and, in 2007, an Isadora Duncan Dance Award (Izzie) for HOTEL OF MEMORIES, one of several nominations the company has received. She has also been awarded 9 NEA Fellowships for Choreography. Ms. Slater has a background in theater as well as dance and teaches workshops using improvisation, developing physical character and discovering story. deborahslater.org Video work at: vimeo.com/33557587 photo by Christoper Duggan
Sheldon Smith is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Dance Department at Mills College. Originally trained in ballet and French horn, his interests have since shifted. He has been making, teaching and performing dances in both the Midwest and the bay area for a long time. He is co-artistic director of the award winning Smith/Wymore Disappearing Acts, a dance/theater/multimedia company based in Berkeley. Recent works have explored the way in which technology can be used to augment our experiences of time, space and the real and the virtual. In the last year, he premiered a new evening-length work, Apparatus, at ODC Theater in SF; performed with Meg Stuart in her Auf Den Tisch improvisational experiment; created multi-channel video designs for Peggy Hackney, Ellen Bromberg/Lisa Wymore and Hentai Yap at UCBerkeley; composed music for the Irish integrated dance company Croi Glan; started work on an experimental dance video based on algorithmic techniques called It never sleeps; and created and performed an intimate telematic dance work for two simultaneous skype channels called Not a Love Story About Nowhere performed in Berkeley and seen by an audience in Chicago. smithwymore.org
The Thick Rich Ones (Jochelle Perena & Ashley Trottier) is a performance collective that invites spectators on fantastical journeys into the surreal. Through shapeshifting, storytelling & spectacle, these adventurers and their guests submerge into worlds of decayed decadence & soiled elegance, where, if lucky, they might hear the whispered secret confessions of their lost selves. Collaborating with movement, theatre, sound & visual artists, The Thick Rich Ones creates paradoxical characters who are at once friendly & sinister, imagined & very real, someone else & someone in the mirror. Visceral and raw, their dance theatre is based on curiosity and voyeurism, peeling back layers just to look at what’s inside, picking pores just to see what comes out. youtube.com/watch?v=TuT9G-CMHHo photo by Weidong Yang
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May 24
Celebration of Dance Learning & birthday activities for Luna students & families. 4-6:30pm at our Emeryville studio.
free event
