Maria Bauman-Morales 2019

Maria Bauman-Morales (MB Dance) is a multi-disciplinary artist and community organizer from Jacksonville, FL. Her choreography is based on physical and emotional power, desire for equity, and fascination with intimacy. She uses multiple genres to create and to add to the world, including visual art, singing, writing, and her artistic engine: dance. She has been recently honored with a Bessie Award for Outstanding Performance (Skeleton Architecture), as well as the Beth Silverman-Yam Social Action Award and the Katherine Dunham Award for scholarly/creative research. In New York, her work has been showcased at Dixon Place, BRICstudios, and DTW (now NY Live Arts), Harlem Stage, 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center, the Kumble Theater, the Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance (BAAD!), WOW Café Theater, and SummerStage NYC. I’ve also shared work across the U.S. and in Singapore. As a performer, she has danced with Urban Bush Women, Nia Love, Adele Myers and Dancers, Angela’s Pulse, Mendi + Keith Obadike, Jumatatu Poe, and jill sigman/thinkdance, and apprenticed with Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance.

David Dorfman Dance (DDD) 2018

DDD Dancers Jasmine Hearn and Simon Thomas-Train came to reimagine one of David’s most beloved works, Prophets of Funk, for our Ensemble. DDD is a NYC-based contemporary company that promotes the appreciation and critical understanding of dance by realizing the creation of new works by choreographer David Dorfman and his artistic collaborators. In advocating his mission “to get the whole world dancing,” Dorfman’s work has enjoyed broad and diverse audiences nationally and internationally. DDD creates dance that seeks to de-stigmatize the notion of accessibility and interaction in post-modern dance by embracing audiences with visceral, meaningful dance, music and text. By sustaining a vision to create innovative, inclusive, movement-based performance that is radically humanistic, DDD maintains a core commitment to examine and unearth issues and ideas that enliven, incite, and excite audiences in dialogue and debate about social change and a myriad of other topics.

Simon Thomas-Train 2017

Simon Thomas-Train began dancing at Middlebury College, transitioning from an extensive background in competitive cross country skiing to graduate with a BA in Dance and Architectural Studies in 2009.  Since then he has had the pleasure of working with Tiffany Rhynard/Big Action Performance Ensemble, Satya Roosens, Attack Theatre, Megan Bascom and Dancers,  Alexandra Beller/Dances, Tiffany Mills and Company, Rosie Herrera Dance Theater, Red Dirt Dance, Vanessa Anspaugh, Pavel Zustiak|palissimo, Rosie Herrera Dance Theater, Boomerang, David Dorfman Dance and most recently with the Bessie-winning Then She Fell and The Grand Paradise, both by Third Rail Projects.  He is the co-founder and co-artistic director of The Space We Make.

André Zachary 2016

Andre Zachary is a Brooklyn, NY based interdisciplinary artist, scholar and technologist. André holds a BFA from Ailey/Fordham University program (2005) and a MFA in Performance & Interactive Media Arts (PIMA) from CUNY – Brooklyn College (2014). Zachery’s practice, research and community engagement artistically focuses on the merging of choreography, technology and Black cultural practices through multimedia work. He is the artistic director of Renegade Performance Group and through the company has presented work extensively throughout New York City and domestically.

Michael Jagger 2015

Michael Jagger is a International Lindy Hop dancer and teacher based in New York City.  He brings an exuberant energy and joy to every project.  His resume spans the globe, and together with his partner, Evita Arce, he has performed on prestigious stages and danced with Philharmonic Orchestras, toured with Broadway shows, worked with Jazz at Lincoln Center and has made appearances on “So You Think You Can Dance.”  Michael and Evita have worked together for over 10 years and have been dancing Lindy Hop for 17 years.

Jennifer Weber 2014

Jennifer Weber is an award-winning director-choreographer whose career has spanned concert dance, commercial events, theatre and TV.  A physical storyteller at heart, Weber brings projects to life with her unique sense of visual narrative. Weber is the director-choreographer of the international touring hit The Hip Hop Nutcracker, as well as the founder and director of Brooklyn-based hip hop theatre company, Decadancetheatre, for which she was nominated for the “Outstanding Emerging Choreographer” New York Dance and Performance (Bessie) Award and won two  Excellence in Choreography awards from The New York International Fringe Festival.