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  • Tandy Beal
    Tandy Beal
    Performing Artist: Choreographer, Dancer
    Tandy Beal creates “dance that is exciting, mysterious, theatrical, humorous and energetic” (Seattle Post Intelligencer). “Her stage is a wondrous wayside where mystery unfolds.” (Los Angeles Times). She is “a choreographer of taste and intelligence…with a sure sense of theater.” (New York Times)  “Astonishing virtuosity…theatrical savvy…her solos are like jewels, all of which shine…” (Libération, Paris) Tandy began her career at age 16 touring world-wide with Alwin Nikolais Dance Theatre, performing off-Broadway, appearing as a guest with Atlanta Ballet, Momix, Remy Charlip, Murray Louis, Oakland Ballet, Carolyn Carlson in France and Bobby McFerrin, with whom she has worked for over 30 years. She has made 100+ works for her own company touring 4 continents. In 2014, she premiered a new show for Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company in Salt Lake City. Her off-the-map career has led her to opera, circus, music videos, corporate events, solo shows, animation, horse spectacles, commercials, and fundraising extravaganzas. A woman of diverse theatrical talent and expertise, Tandy served as Artistic Director for the Moscow Circus in Japan for 2 years and for the Pickle Family Circus for 10 years. Tandy has worked with many composers, including Art Lande, Lou Harrison, John Adams, SoVoSó and for 40 astonishing years with her co-conspirator, Jon Scoville. She was the choreographer for Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, MTV and the Emmy award-winning PBS special, Voice/Dance. She received awards from the American Film Institute to make a film on Hildegard von Bingen, and the San Francisco Museum of Performance and Design chose Beal for their video project Four Dance Icons of the West. Tandy has taught at the Centre National de la Danse Contemporaine (France), 30 years at the University of Utah as an annual guest artist, UC Santa Cruz and chaired the Cabrillo College Dance Dept. She is an articulate and inspiring speaker on creativity, arts, collaboration and arts education. (Dance USA, SF Business Bureau, Cherry Foundation, Arts Council Santa Cruz, Westaff and more.)
  • Maria de la Rosa
    Maria de la Rosa
    Performing Artist: Choreographer, Musician
    Maria de la Rosa earned both her BA and MA from Stanford University. For 20 years she has devoted her talents to the performance and production of dance in the Folklorico traditions of Mexico. Her works have been performed at the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival in 1999 and 2002. Featured in 2002 in the San Jose Mercury News as “Champion of the Arts”, Maria has taught Folklorico dance extensively in San Jose regional schools, has served as dance consultant for San Jose Ballet, is Programs Director for Mexican Heritage Plaza, and, as Assistant Director of Los Lupenos, continues to expand folk traditions with contemporary dance forms.
  • Diane Frank
    Diane Frank
    Performing Artist: Choreographer
    After completing a B.F.A in Theater (Ohio University) and an M.A. in Dance (University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana), Diane Frank taught for four years in the Dance Department at the University of Maryland, where she was a founding member of the Maryland Dance Theater. She then moved to New York City to begin an eleven-year career with Douglas Dunn and Dancers, touring nationally and internationally. As a scholarship student, she was invited by Merce Cunningham to join the teaching staff of the Merce Cunningham Dance Studio, where she taught for eight years. At Cunningham’s request, she taught both technique and repertory at the American Center’s Atelier Cunningham in Paris. A frequent guest teacher at the Paris Opera, she assisted Douglas Dunn in both the creation of new work for the Opera and the setting of established repertory. Frank has been the recipient of seven NEA Choreography Fellowships for collaborative choreographic projects with Deborah Riley, as well as commissions from the Jerome Foundation, DTW, Dance Bay Area, and Meet the Composer, and Arts Silicon Valley. Her work has been performed both in the United States and abroad. At Stanford since 1988, Frank teaches intermediate and advanced modern technique, choreography, and mentors graduate and undergraduate student dance projects. She organizes and advises Stanford’s student participation in the American College Dance Festival as well as other Divisional dance education and performance projects on- and off-campus. She is the Co-Director of the Dance Division’s annual concert. She also organizes numerous choreographic commissions by guest artists for Stanford student dancers, frequently acting as Rehearsal Director, setting and maintaining works by choreographers as diverse as Elizabeth Streb, Holly Johnston, Brenda Way, Parijat Desai, Hope Mohr, Janice Garrett, among others. In 2005, she played a significant role in the development of Stanford Lively Arts’ campus-wide interdisciplinary arts event “Encounter: Merce,” organizing its “Music and Dance by Chance” commissions, as well as an IHUM lecture series on Cunningham’s video dances and concert repertory. She has twice taught Cunningham repertory in Stanford workshop classes. Frank has been instrumental in developing a number of residency projects and artistic collaborations for the Dance Division. Highlights include: the repertory reconstruction project of Anna Halprin’s “Myths”; Hope Mohr’s “Under the skin,” a collaborative performance project bringing together artists, physicians and residents from the Medical School, and community performers; Elizabeth Streb’s “Crash” performed with Streb’s company on Stanford’s Memorial Auditorium stage; and “Cantor:Rewired,” site-specific outdoor iterations of Parijat Desai’s work fusing Southeast Asian classical Indian dance with post-Modern choreographic strategies. Originally performed throughout the galleries and grounds of Stanford’s Cantor Arts Center, this work was most recently performed at San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum in May 2010. in Spring 2010, she assisted Ann Carlson in the organization of her walking performance event, “Still Life with Decoy”. In 2011, she is assisting in the reconstruction of Anna Sokolow’s signature masterpiece, “Rooms”. Frank also teaches “The Duets Project,” a performance class that examines partnering through duet repertory. Strongly interested in site-specific performance, Frank has taught the theory course “Figure/Ground: Site-Specific Dance Performance in Outdoor Environments.” Complementing this course, she conceived and organized “Red Rover,” a series of commissioned site-specific dance performances traveling the grounds of Stanford campus. Frank instituted and currently directs the Firework Series, a quarterly informal showing of student work followed by discussion among artists and audience. She also conceived and organized the Bay Area Dance Exchange, a day-long intensive hosted by Stanford for Bay Area college and university dance programs; eight schools gather to share studio practices, creative processes, and performances of works. Frank’s recent choreography includes the site-specific duet “Cleave,” from which she developed a video dance with film maker David Alvarado, as well as “Sea Change,” a series of duets. Her current work, “Twilight Composite” will be performed at the American College Dance Festival in March 2012. Frank is a frequent guest teacher at Bay Area dance studios, colleges, and universities. A strong proponent of arts education, she consults and volunteers in the development of dance and live arts activities for public schools and the community. She has also directed the Dance Division’s summer dance intensive for high school students through US Performing Arts. Frank is Acting Director of the Dance Division for the Academic Year 2011-12.
  • Karen Gabay
    Karen Gabay
    Performing Artist: Choreographer, Dancer
    Karen Denise Gabay was born in San Diego, California and began her ballet training at the age of eight at the California Ballet School, and later studied at the School of American Ballet in New York City. A principal dancer with Ballet San Jose, Miss Gabay’s diverse repertoire includes Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, Odette/Odile in Swan Lake, the title role in Giselle, Swanhilda in Coppelia, the pupil in Fleming Flindt’s The Lesson, the title role in Roland Petit’s Carmen, the principal female in George Balanchine’s Theme and Variations, Tarantella, and Serenade, the Cowgirl in Agnes DeMille’s Rodeo, and is most recognized for the ballets created for her by choreographer, Dennis Nahat. Always an audience favorite, Miss Gabay has been a guest artist with North Carolina Dance Theater, Ballet Tucson, Ballet Nuevo Mundo, The Eglevsky Ballet, Atlanta Ballet, and Los Angeles Classical Ballet and has toured with Cynthia Gregory’s Dance Galaxy throughout South America. She has performed at various galas and festivals that include the Vail International Dance Festival, the Career Transitions for Dancers Gala in New York City, and the Spoleto and Edinburgh Festivals with Rudolph Nureyev. In 2006, she assisted the late Fleming Flindt in rehearsing The Lesson, for the Kings of the Dance with Angel Corella, Johann Kobberg, and Nikolay Tsiskaridze, and later that year performed in the Hungarian Festival of Freedom Tribute with members of the Cleveland Orchestra. In 2011, Miss Gabay was honored by the Arts Council Silicon Valley and was given the Artist Fellowship Award for Choreography. She has created over forty ballets, twenty of those for Pointe of Departure. Miss Gabay has created world premieres for Ballet San Jose,the International Ballet Competition and Gala in Jackson, Mississippi, the Cleveland Orchestra, Minnesota Ballet, Chautauqua Dance Company, Cuyahoga Youth Ballet, Dancing Wheels, and the Cleveland Composer’s Guild. Miss Gabay enjoys her role as rehearsal assistant for Ballet San Jose, staging and rehearsing the repertoire of the company and teaches company class. She is frequently invited as a guest teacher for many ballet schools across the nation, and is brought in as a guest instructor for master classes in the Bay Area and in the nation. Miss Gabay has worked for the Ford Model Agency branch in Cleveland, Ohio and her film and television credits include the feature film, RENT, The Drew Carey Show, the PBS Emmy-nominated Blue Suede Shoes, the independent film, “Twisted”, the Queen of Denmark’s silver anniversary gala for Scandinavian television and the KTEH show, This is US! , that profiles her career of thirty years as a Prima Ballerina. The summer of 2012 brings delight to Miss Gabay as Pointe of Departure embarks on their annual tour to Northeast Ohio and their presence in the Bay Area.
  • Judith Komoroske
    Judith Komoroske
    Educator; Performing Artist: Choreographer, Dancer; Visual Artist: Painter
    Dancer, choreographer and teacher Judith Komoroske is now retired after a 38 year career. She now pursues creative expression through painting and writing.
  • Mythili Kumar
    Mythili Kumar
    Performing Artist: Choreographer, Dancer
    Artistic Director Mythili Kumar founded Abhinaya Dance Company of San Jose in 1980 to present professional–quality and innovative performances of South Indian classical dance. Now celebrating 35 years of performance and instruction, Mythili has been Abhinaya’s Artistic Director throughout its growth as a regionally and nationally-recognized dance program. She has nurtured over 1600 Indian American girls, training a generation of exceptional dancers. Through Mythili’s direction, Abhinaya Dance Company is known for its adherence to traditional dance as well as its inventive programming and collaborations with other artists, including San Jose Taiko. A dedicated teacher and expressive choreographer, Mythili has garnered many awards, including Choreographers Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts (1989-1993), Outstanding Artist Award from the Federation of Indo-American Association (1990), the Malonga Casquelourd Lifetime Achievement Award by the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival (2010), and an Isadora Duncan Sustained Achievement award from the Bay Area Izzies Committee (2011).
  • Gary Masters
    Gary Masters
    Performing Artist: Choreographer
    Gary Masters (Founder and Co-Artistic Director) for sjDANCEco is the 2014 Isadora Duncan Awardee for Outstanding Achievement in Restaging/ Revival/Reconstruction for the company’s 2012 production of Joseé Limón ‘s The Moor’s Pavane and the 2007-8 Awardee for ‘Sustained Achievement’. He has been a  Professor of Dance at San Josée State University since 2001. A graduate of the Julliard School, he has been associated with the Limón Dance Company/Foundation as Dancer, Artistic Associate, Reconstructor, Director of the Limón West Dance Project and the Limón Dance Company’s San Joseé Operations since 1969. He has been hailed by Dance Magazine as “…one of the most gifted performers in contemporary dance…” and his choreography as a “…dance with symbolism that may be seen as something deeply spiritual, a kind of seeking into the unknown…” Besides choreography for sjDANCEco, he has created work for the Limón Dance Company/NY, Limón West Dance Project/San Joseé, Diablo Ballet/Walnut Creek, Nashville Ballet, Dance Kaleidoscope/Indianapolis, Path Dance Company/Baltimore, Cabrillo Music Festival and Opera San Joseé. For more than a decade together with Fred Mathews, he directed the Mathews-Masters Dance Company/New York that toured the US, Canada and abroad. Other awards include Council Silicon Valley’s 2005 Artist Fellowship for Choreography and two National Endowment Choreography Fellowships.
  • Dennis Nahat
    Dennis Nahat
    Performing Artist: Choreographer, Dancer
    Dancer, choreographer and artistic director American, born in Detroit, Michigan on February 20, 1946… Dennis Nahat studied dance at the Juilliard School and at the School of American Ballet in New York. He made his debut with the City Center Joffrey Ballet in 1965. Between 1968 and 1971 he was principal dancer of the American Ballet Theatre, where it premiered The River (1970) by Alvin Ailey and Texas Fourth (1976) of Agnes de Mille. Soon it began as a choreographer, and his first creations include: Brahms Quintet (Brahms, 1969), Monumentum (Tchaikovsky, 1969), Ontogeny (Husa, 1971), Some Times (Ogerman, 1972) and Mendelssohn Symphony (Mendelssohn, 1973). He worked for the London Festival Ballet and the Royal Swedish Ballet, this last group played in the IX Festival international de Danse de Paris his Brahms Quintet. In 1974 he was appointed resident choreographer and artistic director of the Cleveland/San José Ballet, a company which he himself had founded with Ian Horvarth. Subsequently he served as artistic director of the group as well as the associated school. Among his latest creations for this formation is Blue Suede Shoes (Presley, 1995) and Go Daddy-0 (Duncan, 1998). The last time that you took to a stage was in 1994 to participate in the revival of the ballet The Overcoat, created in 1990 by Flemming Flindt for Rudolf Nureyev.
  • Gary Davis Palmer
    Gary Davis Palmer
    Performing Artist: Choreographer, Dancer
    Gary Palmer began his career in the 1970s as a San Francisco–based dancer with the Lucas Hoving Performance Group, the San Francisco Opera Ballet, and Christopher Beck & Company Dance Theater. In the late 1970s, he performed in numerous works by Beck, from “Night Vision” (1976) to “Unspoken” (1979). In 1977 Palmer set up the nonprofit Centerspace Dance Foundation to support Centerspace, an alternative dance venue that he founded at Project Artaud. He also organized his own troupe, Gary Palmer Dance Company, for which Centerspace served as home base until the early 1990s.[2][3] Palmer’s choreography for Gary Palmer Dance Company is highly kinetic, featuring open balletic movement in tension with tighter gestures. He developed his dance sequences in response to his dancers’ individual strengths rather than setting predetermined movement on them. The result is choreography with strong theatrical values and frequent speed changes reminiscent of the work of Lucinda Childs. By the late 1990s, he was being called a “key performer and innovator in the San Francisco contemporary dance scene”. Over the years, Palmer has worked with many musicians, including Jay Cloidt, Pamela Z, Paul Dresher, and Christopher Fulkerson. Dancers in his company have included Betsy Ceva, Jonny McPhee, Robert Allen, Charles Chism, and Melissa Moss. In 1982, Palmer inaugurated a series called “Men Dancing” that featured only male dancers and choreographers in order to “give male dance artists a creative space outside of traditional roles (as partners to ballerinas) or archetypes (heroes or villains)”. With works by such luminaries as Remy Charlip and Jose Limon alongside lesser-known choreographers, it became a popular annual event in the Bay Area, offering a forum for meditations on gay culture ranging from the oblique to the confrontational to the formal. In 1993, Palmer received an Isadora Duncan Dance Award for founding this long-running series, which lasted through 1998. In 1991, Gary Palmer moved his company from San Francisco to San Jose, where he performed at various South Bay venues such as the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts. He toured his company to Lima, Peru, in 1996 and subsequently collaborated with the Ballet Nacional de Peru on the ‘Americas Series’, which premiered at the Montgomery Theater in San Jose in 1997. In 1997, Palmer was hired to be the executive director of the nonprofit San Jose Dance Theatre, which he subsequently merged with his own company to form a combined entity that included both a professional company and a classical ballet school intended to serve around 150 students.
  • David Popalisky
    David Popalisky
    Performing Artist: Choreographer, Dancer
    David Popalisky teaches dance history, modern dance and choreography. He has a MFA in Choreography from Mills College and an MA in Theatre Arts/Dance Emphasis from San Jose State University. Former artistic director of DaaPo, based in New York City, David has choreographed, performed and taught throughout the United States. He choreographed and performed for the Belize International Dance Festival in 1998 and in 1999 returned to set a work on the Belize Junior National Dance Company. In the past year he presented Enter Softly, CrossQuickly in San Francisco and San Jose and was commissioned to create Flames of Prayer for the Western Ballet Company. He has performed with Tandy Beal throughout California in Outside Blake’s Window and other productions including a concert with Bobby McFerrin. With the Throne Dance Theatre he toured Korea and Japan and performed in concert with the Dave Brubeck quartet. David has taught dance in Italy and Korea and has worked as a Master Dance teacher for the Bay Area California Arts Project and other summer arts workshops. David is married and has two sons. His relationship with his boys inspired “Dads Don’t Dance,” three summers of workshop for dads exploring issues of fatherhood through dance.
  • Bih-Tau Sung
    Bih-Tau Sung
    Performing Artist: Choreographer, Dancer
    Bih Tau Sung is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Dancing Sun Foundation, and is an acclaimed interpreter and choreographer of ballet, modern, and traditional Chinese dance opera techniques. Her professional career started in 1974 when she was recruited to join the prestigious Cloud Gate Dance Theater, Taiwan’s first professional modern dance company. In the decade that followed, she performed, instructed, choreographed and danced with recognition throughout major artistic centers in Europe, Asia, and the United States. Bih Tau independently continued her artistic quest after she moved to Cupertino in 1986. In addition to receiving her MA in Dance Emphasis from San Jose State University, she is also a certified Pilates instructor and Laban Movement Analyst, and has taught private and college level classes. In 1999, Bih Tau founded the Dancing Sun Foundation where she is the artistic director and has performed in the San Jose Downtown Arts Series and San Jose Performing Arts Series. In support of Dancing Sun Foundation, she has received numerous awards and grants.
  • Margaret Wingrove
    Margaret Wingrove
    Performing Artist: Choreographer, Dancer
    Margaret Wingrove has created over 80 works for her dancers. She has also been a frequent guest choreographer for other dance companies. These hosts have included the Palo Alto Ballet, Berkeley Ballet, San Jose Dance Theater, Janlyn Dance Company, and dancers from the San Francisco Ballet and the San Jose Cleveland Ballet. Wingrove has performed and studied extensively on both the east and west coasts with modern dancers Paul Sanasardo, Norman Walker, Lucas Hoving, and Richard Gibson. She also trained at the San Francisco Ballet School.
  • Yong Yao
    Yong Yao
    Educator; Performing Artist: Choreographer, Dancer
    Mr. Yao is an internationally renowned dancer, choreographer and dance instructor from Beijing. He began dancing with the Hubei Province Dance Company at the age of twelve. In this company he was trained in Chinese classical and folk dance technique as well as ballet basics. In 1980 Mr. Yao won a first place individual dancers award for Hubei Province and third place in the China National Dance Competition. Later that year, Mr. Yao was chosen for college level training at the Beijing Dance Academy, the most prestigious dance school of China. Even as a student in a select group trained by master to become masters themselves, Mr. Yao demonstrated his talents not only as a performer, a leader, but also a choreographer full of refreshing ideas in presenting a theme, a style, a tradition. Upon receiving a degree with honors in the teaching of Chinese dance from the Beijing Dance Academy, Mr. Yao was invited to join the academy faculty. During this period, besides his teaching responsibilities as a lecturer, Mr. Yao choreographed and performed a number of works, including the first place choreography and performance prize winning “Gallop”. In 1986, Mr. Yao was choreographer and director to China Young Children’s Company which toured New York, Washington D.C. and Los Angeles. He was then appointed choreographer and principal dancer of the China Premier Dancers Delegation on it 1987 tour to Singapore and 1988 appearance at the World Arts Festival in Utah, Idaho and Montana. He returned to Singapore in 1988 as choreographer and principal dancer for the Beijing Dance Academy Young Artists Delegation. The Delegation also performed in Hong Kong to rave reviews for his new work, “Yellow River Suite,” a contemporary piece which adopted modern dance techniques in depicting Chinese historical themes. “Yellow River Suite” won first place in choreography at the Beijing Dance Competition later that year. In 1989, “Yellow River Suite” was awarded first place in performance by the Ministry of Culture of China, while his classical piece “Goddess Luo” won third place in the same competition. In 1990, Mr. Yao came to the United States to study modern dance at Cunningham Dance School in New York. He then received an International Dance grant and taught Chinese folk dance and ballet at Snow College, Utah, until joining CPAA in 1991. In the capacity of Artistic Director, Choreographer and Principal Dancer of CPAA since its founding, Mr. Yao both provides artistic direction and choreographed many new works for the company. In the “Chinese Performing Arts Festival” of the past four years, Mr. Yao displayed his superb talent as a choreographer by a wide range of themes, techniques and flavor in his works: “Music in the Moonlight” and “Flower Drum Festival” in 1992;”Drums of Thunder” and the “Dandelion” in 1993; “Dream of Shangri-La” and “Anhui Lion Dance” in 1994; “Nocturne of the Muses,” “Princess Sweet Fragrance” and “Sorrow of the Great Wall” in 1995. “Sorrow of the Great Wall,” a dance drama, was especially well receive by critics and audiences alike. It was hailed as one of the most outstanding Chinese dances in recent years. In addition, Mr. Yao taught master classes at De Anza College, San Jose Dance Theater and CPAA’s own South Bay Dance Academy. His choreography for the tremendously popular Theatre Works production of M. Butterfly won high critical acclaim and was nominated for Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle’s “Choreography in a Drama” Outstanding Achievement Award in 1993. In the same year, he awarded a fellowship by the Arts Council of Santa Clara County for his choreographic achievements. In 1994, China awarded Mr. Yao the highest honor for a choreographer. In a nationwide critical evaluation of dance in 20th Century China, jointly held by China Dancers Association, Arts Research Institute of China, China Literary and Artistic Alliance and other prestigious arts organizations with the endorsement of the Ministry of Culture, Mr. Yao’s “Yellow River Suite” was voted one of 32 “20th Century Masterpieces by Chinese Dancers,” from 3,300 outstanding dances created in the past 100 years. CPAA is very fortunate to have an artist of his caliber at the helms to guide and insure high quality of it repertoire, artists and performances. Mr. Yao is listed in Who’s Who of Contemporary China. Mr. Yao and Dennis Nahat, Artistic Director of Ballet San Jose, jointly choreographed a full length dance drama “Middle Kingdom Ancient China”, which premiered in February of 2005. Mr. Yao also choreographed “Moon Reflection on Crystal Spring” for Ballet San Jose in April of 2006. He received the Santa Clara County Asian Hero Award in 2006, which was featured on ABC’s “Profile of Excellence” in 2008. He joined Hubei Opera and Dance Drama Theatre as Dance Director in 2010.
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