In 2016, I discovered the African American trail on Martha’s Vineyard. It opened up my openness to interpretation of soil, water, monuments, voyage, time periods, arrival, the survivors I hail from who made it through the middle passage and the complex ways we move through spaces today. 

As always, I thank this incredible flock that I have the honor to fly with: our board, Jenn Jenn everything, mon Raph et Emilie pour la vie, Latra the hit, to Nyla quick as light, and Jamal who slipped in and wears it all, you have my heart. Cathy, our fierce defender, our whole office team of Joshua who makes it all happen, Alton, Misha, Cora, Jill, Duke Performances, Martha’s Vineyard Museum, and The Yard for their support and encouragement. Paul you hear me, Shane you know how to see me, Manu quel rêve. Finally my family, Dad - I know you see it. Mom thanks to you, I know how to be patient which was really necessary with this one. My darling Filomène et Tété - chéri, it all started on the A-Train. #WelcomeToBirdland and enjoy.

— Stefanie Batten Bland

Stefanie Batten Bland & Company SBB History

Child of a jazz composer/producer father and writer mother, and raised in Soho when it was still led by artists, Stefanie Batten Bland was clearly destined for a future in the arts. A global artist, Batten Bland exhibits a unique blend of African American flamboyance and European sensibility. Her work is situated at the intersection of dance-theatre, film, and installation, with a focus on the interrogation of symbols in contemporary and historical culture. Undeterred by convention, the emotional content of Batten Bland's choreography is directly accessible; its social and philosophical message is visceral. 

As artistic director of Company SBB, Batten Bland established the company in France in 2008 while positioned as head choreographer at the Paris Opéra Comique. Upon returning to New York City, she received the support of Mikhail Baryshnikov and his residency program at Baryshnikov Arts Center, where she continues as a resident artist. Before establishing her own company, Batten Bland danced for Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, Tanztheater Wüppertal Pina Bausch, Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More, Hungarian Pal Frenák and Ivorian Coast creator Georges Momboye. 

Known for her unique visual and movement aesthetic, Batten Bland served as movement director for Eve’s Song at the Public Theater (Forbes 2018 Best Theater) and is currently casting and movement director for Emursive Productions, as well as their performance and identity consultant for Sleep No More. Her article in the August 2022 issue of Dance Magazine details her advocacy in immersive theater for performers, through costuming, character direction and lighting approaches. 

She has created for fashion and lifestyle partners Fleur du Mal, Louis Vuitton, VanCleef & Arpels, Hermés, and Guerlain. Her choreography is currently in active repertory at American Ballet Theater, Alvin Ailey II, Transitions Dance Company in the UK, and Frontier Danceland in Singapore. Batten Bland has created 14 dance cinema films that have been shown in international festivals from South Africa to Buenos Aires and Greece to Germany. Her latest dance film, Kolonial, has received thirteen US and international film awards, and was nominated for 3 Bessie Awards. Her work has been presented at Lincoln Center Restart Stages, The Yard at Martha’s Vineyard, La MaMa Experimental Theater, Duke Performances, Bates Dance Festival and internationally at the Spoleto Festival in Italy, Danse à Lille in France, and Tanztendenzen in Germany.

In 2021, Batten Bland was awarded a New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project Production Grant for her work Embarqued: Stories of Soil, which premiered at Duke Performances in April 2022. Other awards include a Jerome Robbins Award, Bessie Schonberg Fellowship at The Yard, and Toulmin Creator at NYU Center for Ballet Arts. She has been featured in The New York Times, Dance Magazine, Marie Claire, and Dance Europe. Batten Bland received her MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts from Goddard College and is currently an Assistant Professor at Montclair State University’s Department of Theatre and Dance and lives in SoHo with her family.

Jamal Abrams

Jamal Abrams is an interdisciplinary artist born and raised in Baltimore, MD.  He received his BFA in dance from The University of the Arts. He has worked with Tariq Darell + The UNUM Dance Collective, haus of bambi, as well as Punchdrunk in Sleep No More NYC. He is currently in his first season with Company SBB. As a maker, he has received the 2018 New Releases Commission at Dance Place. He has also been selected as a 2020 fellow at Halcyon Arts Lab. As well as being presented at The Blacklight Summit hosted by The Clarice in 2021. As an educator, he has had the opportunity to teach at the Baltimore County Public School Choreography Showcase, as well as Dance Fest in Shanghai, and most recently he has served as guest faculty at The University of the Arts in the fall of 2021.

Shane Ballard

Shane Ballard has been a collaborator with Company SBB since 2018. He designed Company SBB’s costumes for the films Kolonial and Current, as well as their dance-theatre productions Embarqued and Look Who’s Coming To Dinner. Costume design credits also include: Charlotte Ballet’s Innovative Works, Beyond The Mint dance series, Gibney Dance Company’s Both/And dance series, Cardboard Piano - The Juilliard School, Hair - Berkshire Theater Group, An Octoroon - Rutgers Theater Company, Madame Infamy - The NY Musical Theater Festival, One Day - 3LD Art and Technology Center and Oliver The Musical - El Museo del Barrio.  Ballard currently teaches Costume Design and Illustration at Rutgers University, Mason Gross School Of The Arts.

F. Emmanuel Bastien

F. Emmanuel Bastien is a photographer and seasoned videographer based out of New York and Paris with over 30 years of experience shooting documentaries, commercials, fashion, live performances, and breaking news, on every continent.

Born in France, Emmanuel spent his childhood in remote parts of the world, witnessing political instability and poverty from an early age. In 1973, at the height of the Cambodian war, Emmanuel, then 9 years old, saw the devastating effects of war through the eyes of the many photographers and journalists that frequented his parents’ home in Phnom Penh. Fascinated by their stories, Emmanuel became aware of the power and importance of photography and later cinematography for expressing social issues and personal struggles. 

The social dimension and unique vision of Company SBB and Stefanie Batten Bland’s choreography inspired Emmanuel to create visual content for the company working first with video and photography. His experience as a sailor and sailboat captain naturally grew into collaborating to develop and adapt a set for Company SBB’s performance Embarqued: Stories of Soil. Emmanuel is a published photographer and has had a number of gallery exhibitions in the US and Europe. He is represented by galleries in New York and Rome and a photo agency in London. 

He has collaborated on numerous documentaries that have taken him around the globe from North Korea to Africa. Working with film and as a studio Lighting Director have given him a deep understanding of lighting techniques and work with multiple camera angles. Throughout his career, Emmanuel has been a contributor for the press agencies Reuters and The Associated Press. He is now directing and producing as well as developing documentary projects.

Emmanuel received a BA in Film and Television from New York University and speaks English, French and Spanish.

Emilie Camacho

Emilie received her primary training with the Jeune Ballet de Paris. While pursuing her university studies, she joined l’Atelier de l’Envol, a company of young contemporary dancers.  In 1999, she joined the CCN (National Choreographic Center) for Jean-Claude Gallotta and spent five years working with Compagnie Linga and alternative arts creators in Switzerland.  She most recently worked for Jean Paul Goude, Blanca Li, Stromae Papatoutai, Stéphane Braunschweig Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Marion Levy and Philippe Jamet at Palais de Chaillot. Camacho currently develops her own work within the collective, Rabbit Research. In 2008, Camacho helped found Company SBB in France.

Raphaël Kaney Duverger 

Raphaël Kaney Duverger has worked as a dancer and a choreographer for musicals in France (Fame, Hair, Footloose, Cleopatra, Pinocchio) and dance and theatre companies (Blanca Li, Pal Frenak, Georges Momboye). He is a founding member of Company SBB // Stefanie Batten Bland.

Paul Damian Hogan

Paul Damian Hogan writes and records music for film, dance, installations and albums. He earned his doctorate in music composition from Columbia University with a focus on chamber and electronic music. He has collaborated with choreographer Stefanie Batten-Bland on works premiered at La Mama Moves Dance Festival, Lincoln Center’s New Dances, Crossing the Line Festival, as well as multiple dance videos. He scores narrative and documentary films, earning an Emmy nomination for his soundtrack for Birders: The Central Park Effect. His music is featured in artworks in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum and MOMA. In his spare time, he also makes albums about dreams, traveling and dreaming about traveling.

Yuki Nakase Link

Yuki Nakase Link (Lighting Designer) previously designed with Company SBB Stefanie Batten Bland: Look Who’s Coming to Dinner (La MaMa) based on the Original Lighting Design by Clifton Taylor. Recent design credits include Orpheus and Eurydice (San Francisco Opera); Four Saints in Three Acts (Target Margin Theater); In a Grove (Pittsburgh Opera); Red Velvet (Shakespeare Theatre Company); Our Town (Dallas Theater Center); When Monica Met Hillary (Miami New Drama); Seven Deadly Sins (New York City, Miami Beach); Blood Moon at Prototype Festival (Baruch Performing Arts Center); Triptych: Eyes of One on Another (Disney Hall, Kennedy Center, BAM Howard Gilman Opera House).  She was born in Tokyo, grew up in Kyoto, Japan and currently lives north of NYC in the woods of Hudson Valley. M.F.A.: NYU. https://yukinlink.com/

Jennifer Payán

Jennifer Payán is a Dominican-American movement artist originally from the Bronx, NY. She began performing with Company SBB in 2016 and serves as the Associate Artistic Director since 2021. Outside of Company SBB, Jennifer is a company member with the Trisha Brown Dance Company and appears often as a Guest Artist in Punch Drunk’s SleepNoMore. She has previously worked for Pam Tanowitz Dance, Netta Yerushalmy, UNA Productions, Yara Travieso, Jasmine Hearn Collaborates, Maleek Washington, Bobbi Jene Smith, among others.  Jennifer received her BFA in Dance at Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University with Magma Cum Laude. 

Emma Rivera

Emma Rivera (she/her) is the Space and Production Manager at The Performance Project @ University Settlement (NYC). Select freelance work: Company SBB Stefanie Batten-Bland (Look Who's Coming To Dinner, La MaMa, NYC; Bienvenue欢迎WelcomeBienvenidoأهلا بك, Spoleto Festival dei Due Mondi 2018; Spoleto, Italy; The Winter Yard, Martha’s Vineyard, MA), Karen Bernard (Showgirls, NYC; Poolside, NYC; Lakeside, NYC), and André Zachery/Renegade Performance Group (Dapline! NYC; August Wilson Cultural Center, Pittsburgh, PA; Untamed Space, Wexner Center for the Arts, OH). 

Guillame Segouin

Guillaume Segouin began his career as a professional actor at the age of 18 alongside Maria Casarès, Philippe Clévenos and Denis Lavant at the National Dramatic Center of Gennevilliers.  He worked with Kamel Ouali as an artistic assistant for "The Sun King" and "Cleopatra, The Last Queen of Egypt."  He is also a Professor of Theater at the International Academy of Dance, at the Conservatoire des Mureaux, Gennevilliers.

Junyla Silmon

Junyla Silmon, a native of Canton, MS, graduated Summa Cum Laude from Montclair State University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in dance performance and a minor in business administration. As a performing artist, she has worked with Susan Marshall, Roderick George, Christian von Howard, Yusha-Marie Sorzano, and Kayla Farrish, among others. Junyla is a company member with Company SBB//Stefanie Batten Bland, Accent Dance NYC, and Freespace Dance. Beyond performing, she recently completed a two-year fellowship program with JCM/TheREDprojectNYC and serves as a senior research consultant for Dance Data Project. Junyla's most recent work, "[EK]+[OH]", was presented at the 2022 Upsurge Dance Festival.

Latra A. Wilson

Latra A. Wilson is a Texas native and graduate from University of Missouri at Kansas City with a BFA. Ms. Wilson has since danced with artists and institutions across the creative spectrum from Paul Taylor 2 (NY), Opera Theater St. Louis (MO) to The Public Theatre’s annual Shakespeare In The Park (NY).  Ms. Wilson also shares dance to the community at large  as a teaching artist with both the Kansas City Friends of Alvin Ailey (MO) and Ailey Arts in Education (NY). Ms. Wilson, in addition to singing, dancing and teaching continues to hone her craft by assisting some brilliant and up coming artists Stefanie Batten Bland (Eve’s Song) Josh Prince (Dance Lab New York) and Karen Sieber, to name a few. Currently, Ms. Wilson is a certified Level 1 Gyrotonic teacher and continues to Co-Artistic Direct TheDynamitExperience, a dance project she recently co-founded with her husband in 2018. Ms. Wilson just recently accepted the position as Master Teaching Artist with Kansas City Friends of Alvin Ailey. Ms. Wilson is excited for another season with Company SBB and  grateful for the space to bridge her two worlds as an educator and performing artist.