Antonia Aguiar
Sherry Brier
Marti Cate
Lorien Fenton
Donnette Heath
Hilary Kretchmer
Janie Miklaunus
Vassilii Mountian
Nancy Ng
Cynthia Pepper
Miriam Phillips
Stacey Printz
Patricia Reedy
Annie Rosenthal
Kathryn Roszak
David Shepard Collaboration
Young Choreographer's Category:
With a BS in Creative Arts Education from University of Bridgeport, Connecticut, she has taught creative movement, ritual and trance dance, and various ethnic forms. Her main focus the past thirteen years is Oriental dance and Middle-Eastern folkloric dance. She studied in Egypt, Morocco and with the most respected instructors in the US and Europe.
Sherry directs the two Inner Rhythm resident dance companies: the 11-member Mystic East Dancers (1988-97) and Troupe ala Nar (1995-97) with ten dancers. Sherry has performed solo and with her companies at many Bay Area dance concerts and festivals including: Rakkasah Middle Eastern Dance Festival, 1988-97; Sebastopol Ethnic Dance Festival; Cairo Holiday Festival; San Francisco Whole Life Expo; and San Francisco International Dance Concert. She produced "Arabian Nights Live Middle Eastern Music and Dance Gala" on a monthly basis in San Rafael at Open Secret Rainbow Cultural Center, from 1994-96, and "Gathering of the Tribes" in 1995.
Sherry received the 1996 Achievement Award for outstanding contributions to the belly dance community from
the Magana Baptiste International Belly Dance Festival and Contest where she was a judge.
Marti Cate
Marti Cate began her dancing career at age 4-1/2 in the Nutcracker in Williamsport, PA.
As an adult she has studied a variety of dance forms, including kathak,
belly dance, and several folk styles. Favorite tap dance mentors include
Sherry Hines, Camden Richman and Kimi Okada. She has studied ballet with Alonzo
King and Nancy Gallenson, modern dance with Lucas Hoving, and performed with
the Lucas Hoving Performance Group from 1981 to 1984.
Also a professional mime and actress, Marti has toured solo shows combining dance, mime and spoken theater in Europe, Taiwan and Japan. She holds an MA from San Francisco State University in Interdisciplinary Arts.
Marti is owner of Unexpected Company, providing a variety of performers for
corporate, community and private special events.
Lorien Fenton
Lorien Fenton is a Marin Arts Council Choreography and Community Arts Grant
recipient. For the past 9-1/2 years, she has been the Artistic Director of
Dance Outre, a post-modern dance company whose work combines the best of
jazz, ballet, modern and theater techniques. Dance Outre has been seen throughout
the Bay Area each year and has performed several concerts to benefit causes such as
AIDS and the Homeless in Marin County.
Donnette Heath
Donnette Heath received her BFA and MFA in Performance and Choreography with honors from Sam Houston
State University. She was a graduate teaching assistant and founding member of the professional dance company,
The Raven Dance Project, and was a six-year member of the Dance Spectrum Dance Company. She was the
recipient of the Dance Excellence Award and the Dance Leadership Award and was recognized by the American
College Dance Festival Association as a scholarship student to Repertory Dance Theatre Summer workshop and
alternate to Bill Evans Summer Workshop. She has since received scholarships to Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company's
summer workshops where she remained with the company as director and master teacher of the Teen Board Project
while appearing in performance with RWDC in 1995. In California, she has received a scholarship to Limon West
Summer Workshop and was Graham technique demonstrator and guest at San Francisco Dance Center for one year
under Suzanne Saltmarsh. She is currently a free-lance dancer, teacher and choreographer and Artistic Director of
American Repertory Theatre, which exists to be the vehicle for providing a professional performance forum that preserves
modern dance works created within the academic system.
Hilary Kretchmer
Hilary Kretchmer has been an independent producer, choreographer and interdisciplinary artist for 17 years.
Her original productions have premiered in New York City, Los Angeles,
San Francisco and Marin County. She has focused primarily on creating her
own interdisciplinary performance projects, and has performed as a dancer in
a variety of dances for choreographers such as Lucas Hoving,
Joan Lazarus, Carolyn Lord, Sandra Neels and Tina Yuan, among others.
She has also performed as a choral, solo and ensemble vocalist for The Mayflower Chorus, The Octurnals, The Marin
Opera Chorus, and The Katy Hatfield Singers. Hilary has had the pleasure of teaching dance technique and composition at UC
Berkeley, The Marin Ballet, Dance Theater Seven, and The Branson School. She is
Artistic Director of the newly created Zero Gravity Dance Theater,
the co-founder and Development Director of The Marin County Festival of Dance, and
is currently Webmistress of WEBLINK.COM,
a web server managed by CHAT Communication
Services, Inc. Prior to her position at CHAT, she served as Development Associate at Yosemite
National Institutes, as Administrative Manager at Antenna Theater,
and as Production Coordinator at ROMA Design Group. Hilary holds an MA in
Interdisciplinary Creative Arts from SFSU and a BFA in Dance from California
Institute of the Arts.
Janie Miklaunus
Janie Miklaunus attained a BA in Dance from University of London, Laban Centre
for Movement of Dance. She has resided in the US for the past 15 years and during that time
has taught at such studios as The Marin Ballet and Dance Theatre Seven, and
choreographed numerous works for both adults and children, seen in venues around
the Bay Area. Recently, Ms. Miklaunus choreographed and directed musical
theater productions for Ross Valley Community for Schools, as well as other
community theater programs. She currently teaches at Dance Theatre Seven and Inner Rhythm,
and choreographs and teaches for the Marin Theater Company's Children's Program.
Vassilii Mountian
Vassilii Mountian is a ballet and character instructor at Stapleton School
of the Performing Arts in San Anselmo. He has over 30 years of experience performing, producing, and
choreographing. Born in Moldova, he began his training at age 7. He was a
principal dancer in the prestigious Moldavian Dance Ensemble and a leading
dancer with the Moiseyev Dance Ensemble, and has performed around the world.
Vassilii has been a guest choreographer for a variety of major Soviet companies.
Nancy Ng
Nancy Ng has been performing, choreographing and teaching various dance and movement
forms in the Bay Area for the past twelve years. She has taught at Luna: a dance world,
Third Wave Dance House and San Francisco State University. She has danced
with Nuba Dance Theater, Purple Moon Dance Project, Six Thumbs Dance Theatre
and Anne Bluthenthal and Dancers. During this time she performed throughout
the Bay Area, Los Angeles and San Antonio. She has danced and choreographed for
Unbound Spirit Dance Co. since 1991, and her own work has been presented throughout
Northern California by Asian American Dance Performances, Asian Heritage Council of
San Jose, Anne Bluthenthal and Dancers, Dancers' Group Footwork, Theater of
Yugen, and Theater Artaud.
Ms. Ng received her MFA in choreography from Mills College, her multiple
subjects teaching credential from SFSU and her BA in Psychology from
University of California, Santa Cruz. Currently, Ms. Ng is Administrative
Director of Asian American Dance Performances (AADP). Ms. Ng was awarded
a 1994-95 California Arts Council artist-in-residence grant to teach emotionally
disturbed adolescents in San Francisco day treatment centers. Ms. Ng strongly
believes in creating bridges between artists and the community.
Cynthia Pepper
Cynthia Pepper toured as a child with Virginia Tanner and the Children's Dance Theatre
throughout the world, performing creative dance for every venue imaginable. After receiving
a BFA degree in dance from California Institute of the Arts in 1984 and an MA in Interdisciplinary
Creative Arts from SFSU, Cynthia founded CPCollaborations, a non-profit presenting arts
organization. CPCollaborations has produced over 10 dance, music, and film events.
Cynthia has performed with many dance and opera companies including: The
Utah Opera, Bella Lewitzky Dance Company, Donald Byrd and The Group, Rebecca Jones and
Loretta Livingston. Since 1985 Cynthia has taught choreography and contemporary dance at
The Marin Ballet in San Rafael, California. She has received over $75,000 in grants for
choreography, film/video, teaching residencies, and dance festivals. She toured in 1995
under the California Presenters Canada Dance Tour. Recently, Cynthia directed, choreographed and
produced two dance films: "Zync" and "SandDance." Zync has been accepted
to several film festivals and will be shown on KQED (SF Bay Area Channel 9)
at 8:50pm on August 7, 1997. SandDance will be premiered at The Marin
County Festival of Dance FOOTAGE film festival, October 4, 1997.
Miriam Phillips
Miriam Phillips is a dancer, Dance Ethnologist, and Certified Laban Movement
Analyst. She has been actively involved in flamenco for over 15 years in the capacity
of student, performer, choreographer, teacher, researcher, writer and consultant.
Miriam has been a soloist in Israel, Spain and the US; a member of the dance companies
of Linda Vega, Roberto Amaral and the late Cruz Luna, and she made a number of
television appearances for American and Spanish programming. Miriam has
published extensively on flamenco, and is currently preparing her master's
dissertation, Both Sides of the Veil: A Comparative Analysis of Kathak and
Flamenco Dance for publication as a book. She has received fellowships
from the Thomas J. Watson Foundation, the Del Amo endowment, and the University
of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) for her dance research.
Miriam has taught at UCLA, Cal State Long Beach, California Institute of the
Arts, and most recently, Wesleyan University of Connecticut where she was
Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance. She returns to the Bay Area after eleven
years.
Stacey Printz
Stacey Printz is currently Director of the Dance Department at The Branson School.
In addition, she dances with RoCo Rosenthal and Company, and directs and
choreographs for the California Dance Collective. Stacey received her degrees in
sociology and dance from UC Irvine where she studied with Donald McKayle and Dr.
Janice Plastino.
Patricia Reedy
Patricia Reedy has been performing in the San Francisco Bay Area for the past
twelve years, most extensively with Priscilla Regalado. She has performed in
works for Jill Togawa (Purple Moon Project), Colette Bischer-Choate, Cheryl
Chaddick and other independent choreographers. In 1988, Ms. Reedy co-founded Interchange of
Artists for Peace, facilitating a successful artist exchange program with dancers
in El Salvador where she taught extensively. She has also taught at Citicentre,
Footwork and Open Arts Circle. Patricia Reedy and Dancers was formed in
late 1993 with a group of talented dancers dedicated to performing
her work and sharing her ever-expanding community vision. The company has
performed throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. Ms. Reedy founded Luna: a dance
world in 1992 as a home base for her teaching and rehearsing and to provide a dance
resource facility for the East Bay community. Ms. Reedy received her undergraduate and graduate degrees from Mills College.
She currently teaches ballet, modern and jazz dance at UC Berkeley and
modern-jazz, improvisation and choreography at Luna: a dance world.
Annie Rosenthal
Annie Rosenthal is the Artistic
Director of Rosenthal & Company. She received her BFA in Dance from N.Y.U.
Tisch School of the Arts in 1990. While in New York, she performed the works of
David Dorfman and Shapiro and Smith and in San Francisco she was a member of the
Margaret Jenkins Dance Company and the Della Davidson Dance Company. Annie is the
owner and director of RoCo Dance & Fitness in Mill Valley, where she and
14 other instructors teach dance and fitness classes to children and adults.
Rosenthal & Company produces semi-annual student and professional concerts in
Marin; their most recent "Move One Face" premiered the first two weekends of
June '97 at RoCo Dance & Fitness. Rosenthal & Company has been selected to perform in
Summerfest Dance, San Francisco for the last two consecutive years.
Kathryn Roszak
Kathryn Roszak trained on Ford Foundation scholarships at San Francisco Ballet and
the School of American Ballet. She has worked as a performer, teacher, and
choreographer with many major companies including San Francisco Opera,
San Francisco Ballet and American Conservatory Theater. She has choreographed
for the California Shakespeare Festival, Kent Nagano's Berkeley Symphony,
Opera San Jose, Sacramento Opera, Oakland and Marin Operas. She has received
grants from Laurance Rockefeller, A New American Place, the Zellerbach Family
Fund and the Goethe Institute amongst others, a choreography residency from the
Djerassi Foundation and has participated in the national choreography program,
the Carlisle Project. She has produced her own work at venues
such as The San Francisco Mozart Festival, Theater Artaud, Cowell Theater, and
Dance Palace in Pt. Reyes.
Ms. Roszak is founding director of Independent Choreographer's Network and co-founder and Artistic Director of Anima Mundi Dance Company, the latter formed in 1995 with artist/composer Christopher Castle. In 1996, Anima Mundi performed at Theater Artaud and at Brady St. Dance Theater in San Francisco, at LaMaMa E.T.C. in New York City, and was presented by Third Culture Millenium, Copenhagen, as part of the European Cultural Capital program. In 1997, Anima Mundi will be presented by the Smithsonian Institute, Washington D.C., George Washington University, and the Carmel Performing Arts Festival.
David Shepard Collaboration
David Shepard will be collaborating with choreographer Rebecca Jones and dancer Haven Dorado.
David Shepard is a well-known Bay Area music personality. As a Conductor and Musical Director he has been the driving force behind many successful productions. As a pianist and cellist, Mr. Shepard is highly regarded as a dynamic and sensitive recitalist. Much sought after as an arranger and coach, David has been twice nominated Best Musical Director by the Bay Area Critics Circle. This year the Marin Arts Council awarded him a grant for music composition.
Rebecca O. Jones trained as a dancer with Leona Norman at Marin Ballet School.
She has danced with such companies as "Dance Through Time," Tandy Beal & Co., and
The Mother Lode Musical Theatre Troupe. As a singer, Ms. Jones has sung opera in
Europe, cabaret at the Copacabana, and performed Cassie in "A CHORUS LINE" in several
regional theatre companies. Ms. Jones teaches singing at The Rebecca Jones
School of Vocal Arts in San Rafael and produces The Vocal Arts Concert series
promoting new collaborations of local composers and poets. She is a Marin
Arts Council grant recipient for choreography and is a board member of the Marin
Music Chest.
Stephanie Gerson
Stephanie Gerson has been interested in dancing ever since she was very young and
considers dance one of her primary passions in life. She is most interested in
hip hop and modern dance.
Stephanie took tap dancing lessons at Happy Feet, ballet with the Ruth Langridge Company, and is currently enrolled in the dance program at the Branson School, while also taking classes at Studio Dance Fitness in Mill Valley.
For all inquiries please call Hilary Kretchmer at (415) 454-7796 ext. 119 or Cynthia Pepper at (415) 453-6705 ext. 24., or e-mail to Co-Producers at hilary@weblink.com.
The Marin County Festival of Dance 1997 is funded in part by the Marin Arts Council and is a program of CPCollaborations, Inc., a non-profit corporation.
