Guest Artists

Angelica Burgos is of Dominican-Armenian heritage. She has received her MFA in Choreography from Jacksonville University in Florida, she also has a Bachelor of Arts degree from LEAP Program with Saint Mary’s College of California and is an ABT Certified Teacher who has successfully completed all of ABT Teachers National Training Curriculum. Over the 16 years of her performing career, she danced with the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago under Gerald Arpino, Sacramento Ballet under artistic directors Ron Cunningham and Carinne Binda, Ballet Hispanico under founder Tina Ramirez and in the West Side Story on Broadway revival in 2010. She has worked with artists such as Pedro Ruiz, Margo Sappington, Ramon Oller, John Clifford, Annabelle Ochoa Lopes, Val Caniparoli, Trey McIntyre, Septime Webre, Dwight Rhoden, Graciela Daniel, Sergio Trujillo, and Ron Cunningham.

Additionally, she has taught for Western Kentucky University for three years and the University of Richmond and Virginia Commonwealth University. Burgos’s choreography has been commissioned by the Western Kentucky University spring performance and Virginia Commonwealth University Freshman Repertory course show, University of Richmond, Fullerton University, and Duke University Dance Program. Her choreography has competed at the 2020 and 2021, and 2022 Youth America Grand Prix and placed Top 12 Contemporary category and Universal Ballet Competition. 

Burgos has been featured on the cover of Dance Magazine. Burgos’s television credits include PBS’s Setting the Stage 2007, NBC’s ‘20th Hispanic Heritage Awards, PBS’s documentary “Pedro Ruiz Coming Home” 2011. She is also fluent in Spanish, Russian, Armenian and English languages.

Tashara Gavin-Moorehead is a dance storyteller, who is deeply passionate about her African American heritage. She holds a BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University, and an MFA from CSU-Long Beach. She has toured both domestically and internationally with Deeply Rooted Dance Theater, Lula Washington Dance Theater, and Jazzantiqua Music and Dance Ensemble. As an independent choreographer she has presented her one woman shows through festivals such as, The Los Angeles Dance Festival, LA’s Women’s Theater Festival and Highways Performing Arts Space. She uses an ethnographic approach to her work by studying African American history, her southern roots and her family’s lineage.  She is currently researching the relationship between the Nguzo Saba,the seven principles of Kwanzaa, and jazz improvisation as a liberation practice, as well as the potential link between jazz improvisation and non western healing methods for African American women's health issues. Her mission is to create theatrical dance stories that uplift, inspire, and transform audience members through African American folktales, customs, and traditions. By merging dance, theater, and history she creates an immersive experience for the audience that produces both a collective and individualistic healing. 

Shannon Hummel is a professional choreographer, arts educator, and the Founding Artistic Director of Cora Dance. Hummel established her celebrated professional company, Shannon Hummel/Cora Dance, in 1998; a home for her company and its pay-what-you-can dance education arm in Red Hook, Brooklyn in 2009; and spearheaded the establishment of a permanent home for the organization in 2018. Driven to create access to dance for all people, Cora strives to make exceptional work and provide exceptional experiences in dance by supporitng and celebrating the talent in communities where people are often impeded from having on-going quality access to the art-form.

In the first 15 years of her career, she was repeatedly critically acclaimed by Style Magazine, Village Voice, Richmond Times Dispatch, and The New York Times where she has twice been a Top 10 Critics Pick for Dance and had her “finely wrought dances” called “poignant, funny, vivid and true, remarkably assured and perceptive” and “a rare gem.” Since opening Cora as a home space to merge her interests in choreography, education and serving her community of Red Hook, Brooklyn, she has evolved to become equal parts professional artist and community arts advocate, sharing her work as much in church basements, public parks and community spaces as on some of the country’s finest stages. While her choreography has been presented in over 30 NYC venues including the 92nd Street Y, BAM, BAX, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Danspace Project, La MaMa, LMCC, NYLA, among others, in the past 10 years she has come to be best known for hearitly rooting her work in the Red Hook, Brooklyn community and creating accessible grassroots performances in “everyday” and off-the-beaten-path places across the US, most extensively in KY, NY, NJ, OK, VA, VT and WV. 

Hummel has been an educational advisor, mentor and/or faculty member for hundreds of institutions including her alma mater James Madison University; enjoyed significant residencies in support of her choreography from Vermont Performance Lab, BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange among others; and taught/lectured widely at American Dance Festival, ACDFA, NYLA, Rutgers, William & Mary, Marlboro College, Virginia Commonwealth University, Washington & Lee, among others.  She is most proud to be single mom to her 13 year old son, Henry.

Photo by Hunter Carrico Photography.

Learn more about Cora Dance here.

Johnnie Mercer (a native of Richmond, Virginia, a graduate of the Appomattox Regional Governors School, and a BFA graduate from Virginia Commonwealth University’s Department of Dance and Choreography) is a maker, freelance-performer, educator, and artistic entrepreneur based in New York City. As the Choreographic/Company Director of Johnnie Cruise Mercer/TheREDprojectNYC, his work has been presented/commissioned/shared at The Center for Performance Research-CPR, Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance (BAAD!), The Dance Place of DC, Gibney: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, Judson Church Movement Research, Greenspace, The Bolls Theater of Detroit, The Jamaica Performing Arts Center, 92Y Harkness Dance Center, The Billie Holiday Theater (RestorationARTS), York College’s The Milton G. Bassin Performing Arts Center, NYU Tisch School of Dance, Brooklyn Arts Exchange (BAX), NYU Skirball's AUNTS, the NADA Conference, as well as recently at the 2018 Fusebox Festival where he received the 2018 Austin Critics Table Award for Best Toured Performance 2018. As an artistic leader/educator, Mr. Mercer facilitates and teaches within the New York Public School system through The Leadership Program- a mentorship based organization that uses art to foster/engage conversations on self and managing success. Mercer has also been on teaching faculty/a guest artist at The American Dance Festival, Bates Dance Festival, NYU Tisch Summer Dance Program, Gibney, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Desales University, Muhlenburg College, and the University of Texas at Austin (in residence as their 2016 Vangaurd Choreographer). Johnnie is currently a 2018 Choreoquest AIR at RestorationARTS , and an inaugural recipient of 2018 Partnership Residency at the Stephen Petronio Residency Center (in collaboration with Danspace and DanceForceNYC). 

Learn more about Johnnie Mercer and TheREDProjectNYC here.