HIJACK

2013 Choreographer Fellow

Photo by Tim Rummelhoff

HIJACK is the Minneapolis-based choreographic collaboration of Kristin Van Loon and Arwen Wilder. HIJACK is the confluence and clash of two independent compositional/kinesthetic impulses. Their dances embrace juxtaposition. Their dances house unlikely intimates and question “who is the enemy?”

Specializing in the inappropriate, HIJACK is best known for "short-shorts:" pop song-length miniatures designed to deliver a sharp shock.

Over the last 25 years they have created over 100 dances and performed in venues ranging from proscenium to barely-legal. HIJACK manipulates context by employing a site-specific approach to every performance and toying with audiences' expectations. HIJACK has performed in New York (at DTW, PS122, HERE ArtCenter, Catch/Movement Research Festival, La Mama, Dixon Place, Chocolate Factory), Japan, Russia, Central America, Ottawa, Chicago, Colorado, New Orleans, Seattle, Philadelphia, San Francisco, at Fuse Box Festival in Austin Texas, and Bates Dance Festival in Maine and Seattle Festival of Dance Improvisation. HIJACK questions where and for whom contemporary dance is performed, gigging regularly in both social settings and concert settings.  

HIJACK has enjoyed long relationships with Red Eye Collaborations (as part of their Critical Core), Bryant Lake Bowl Theater where their 1996 "Take Me To Cuba" was the theater’s first ever dance concert), Zenon Dance School (where they have taught every Wednesday morning for 18 years), and Walker Art Center where they have performed in every imaginable context including the opening of the McGuire Theater, at Dyke Night, First Free Saturday children’s programming, in the sculpture garden, and in the light of the Benson Film Collection in the Mediateque. In 2013, Walker Art Center commissioned “redundant, ready, reading, radish, Red Eye” to celebrate twenty years of HIJACK and Contact Quarterly published the chapbook “Passing for Dance: A HIJACK Reader”.

Their 2018-20 projects include: performing End Plays with Lisa Nelson, curating and hosting Future Interstates (a series of dance improvisation performances initiated by HIJACK and Body Cartography in 2015), creation and premiere of Jealousy (a collaboration with sculptor Ryan Fontaine and lighting designer Heidi Eckwall at Hair + Nails Gallery), touring an evening of dance with films to micro-cinemas and managing & dancing in the 2019 McKnight International Choreography residency of Galia Eibenshutz at Cedar Cultural Center.

LINKS:

https://mancc.org/artists/hijack/

https://walkerart.org/calendar/2013/hijack-2

Emily Johnson

2013 Choreographer Fellow

Photo by Tim Rummelhof

Emily Johnson is an artist who makes body based work. Originally from Alaska, she is currently based in Minneapolis. Since 1998 she has created work that considers the experience of sensing and seeing performance. Her dances function as installations, engaging audiences within and through a space and environment—sights, sounds, smells—interacting with a place's architecture, history, and role in community. She works to blur distinctions between performance and daily life and to create work that reveals and respects multiple perspectives. Johnson received a 2012 Bessie Award for Outstanding Production for her work, The Thank-you Bar at New York Live Arts. She is a 2012 Creative Capital and Joyce Foundation grant recipient. She is a 2011-12 Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography Returning Choreographic Fellow, a 2012 Headlands and MacDowell Colony Artist in Residence, a 2011 Native Arts and Cultures Fellow, a 2012, 2010, and 2009 MAP Fund Grant recipient, and a 2009 McKnight Fellow. Current works include The Thank-you Barand Where (we) Live with SO Percussion, directed by Ain Gordon. Niicugni premiered at MANCC/Florida State University/Seven Days of Opening Nights and tours through 2013 with support from National Dance Project to MassMoca, The Redfern Art Center at Keene College/Vermont Performance Lab, The Coil Festival/PS122 at Baryshnikov Arts Center, TigerTail, Arizona State University/Gammage Theater, Northrop/O'Shaughnessy, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, and Bunnell St. Gallery in Homer, Alaska. Johnson is of Yup'ik descent and is a shareholder in the Calista Native Corporation. Her family is from Bethel and Akiak, Alaska and she was raised on the Kenai Peninsula. 

 

• For more information: Catalyst Dance

Karen Sherman

2013 Choreographer Fellow

Photo by Aaron Rosenblum

Karen Sherman moved to Minneapolis in 2004 from NYC. Her work has been presented nationally by P.S. 122, Walker Art Center, Danspace Project, Movement Research at the Judson Church, Dance Place, Fusebox Festival, Highways Performance Space, ODC, The Red Eye Theater, and many others. She has worked and collaborated with such artists as Morgan Thorson, Sally Silvers, Dan Hurlin, Emily Johnson, Lisa D’Amour, Katie Pearl, Nami Yamamoto, Neal Medlyn, NTUSA, The Love Everybody Players, Tanya Gagné, Circus Amok, and the feminist punk pop band, Le Tigre.

She has received numerous awards for her work as a choreographer, performer, and designer, including a 2007 “Bessie” Award for her work in Morgan Thorson'sFaker, McKnight Foundation Fellowships in Choreography (2006) and Dance (2009), a Bush Foundation Artist Fellowship (2009), Sage Awards for her work as a Performer (2006) and Scenic Designer (for her 2008 work, copperhead), City Pages Best Artist Awards as a Dancer (2007) and Choreographer (2009), MacDowell Colony Fellowships (2010, 2003), a Movement Research Artist Residency (1999-2000), and a Bogliasco Foundation Fellowship and residency in Liguria, Italy (2010).

She holds a BFA in Acting from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts (with a double major in Women’s Studies) and is also a singer, fifth-generation lasso spinner, and former student of flying trapeze. Her background in these areas, as well as her work in nearly every facet of arts production as a producer, production manager, technical director, scenic and sound designer, and technician, informs each aspect of her work. As Administrator and Production Manager of New York’s legendary Judson Church from 1994-2004, she co-created, produced, and curated START, a multi-disciplinary series integrating politics and arts. Her writing, including essays and poetry, has been featured on many live, web, and print forums, including The Movement Research Performance Journal, Culture Bodega, The Performance Club, and The Triumph of Poverty: Poems Inspired by the Work of Nicole Eisenman (Off The Park Press).

One with Others, incorporated dance, writing, and carpentry and toured in 2014 to TBA Festival (Portland), Red Eye Theater (Mpls), Fsebox Festival (Austin), DiverseWorks (Houston), and The Chocolate Factory (NYC).

Related

• Karen Sherman 2014 Solo Choreographer

• Karen Sherman Performance

Megan Mayer

2010 Choreography Fellow

Photo Credit: Sean Smuda

Megan Mayer is a choreographer, performing artist and photographer based in Minneapolis. Her dances resonate with audiences by fusing nuanced imagery gleaned from vulnerable situations with a strong sense of musicality and comic timing. By unearthing and luxuriating in anti-performance moments, traditionally undisclosed aspects of performance in turn become the focus. She excels at revealing and showcasing performers' distinctive personalities and characteristics in her dances. She credits/blames her parents for her irreverent humor and affection for diverse musical styles. 

Mayer was awarded a 2010 Jerome Foundation Travel Study Grant, and had a choreographic mentorship and workshop with New York dance artist Douglas Dunn in Fall 2010. Her production We tried to throw the light (2010) was commissioned by The Southern Theater. I Could Not Stand Close Enough To You (2009), co-commissioned by The Walker Art Center and Southern Theater for Momentum: New Dance Works, was named 2009's top dance event by the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune. Her suite of Pulp Dances (2007) was commissioned by the Minnesota History Center.

She has premiered original dances at Bryant-Lake Bowl Theater, The Southern Theater, The Walker Art Center, The Soap Factory, Bedlam Theater, in the CATCH series (NYC) and in public bathrooms. She has a growing body of work of short dance films, several of which are in collaboration with film artist Kevin Obsatz. Her dance film Over Time (2009) was created for Skewed Visions' online Cubicle series. An engaging performer, she has worked with many artists including Charles Campbell, Laurie Van Wieren, Karen Sherman and The Ethnic Dance Theatre. She holds a B.A. in Dance from the University of Minnesota.

RELATED

• Megan Mayer's Website

Vanessa Voskuil

Photo by Tim Rummelhoff

2015 Choreographer Fellow

Choreographer and director Vanessa Voskuil has created more than twenty contemporary performance works ranging from large community-inclusive performance projects to ensemble and solo works for site-specific locations and theater settings. Her work has been described as “visually arresting,” “boldly and uncompromisingly moving within its own time and its own logic,” and “interlaced with surrealist sensibility and bracing intelligence.” Voskuil has received two Minnesota Sage Dance Awards for Outstanding Design and nominated twice for Outstanding Performance. She has been named one of the “7 Artists to Watch” by Minnesota Monthly Magazine and recognized by the Star Tribune as one of “9 Minnesota Artists to Expect Great Things.” 

Related

• Vanessa's Website

Penelope Freeh

2014 Choreographer Fellow

Photo by Tim Rummelhoff

Penelope Freeh won a Minnesota SAGE Award for Outstanding Performer in 2010. With composer Jocelyn Hagen she received a Metropolitan Regional Arts Council Arts Activities Grant (2013) and two American Composers Forum New Music for Dance Grants (2010, 2014). Additional awards include: McKnight Artist Fellowship for Dancers (1998), MN State Arts Board Fellowship (1998), two Career Opportunity Grants (1999, 2001) and Artist Initiative Grant (2012), and a Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Grant (2001). In May 2008 she was featured in and wrote "Why I Dance" for Dance Magazine.

Commissions include: James Sewell Ballet, MN Ballet, Gem City Ballet, the Walker Art Center/Southern Theater’s Momentum, MN Orchestra, 3-Legged Race, Skylark Opera, Nautilus Music Theater, Theater Mu, the University of MN, MN State University, and Russia’s Link Vostok Dance Festival among others. She has twice been presented by New York City’s Ballet Builders. Residencies include: the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography, MN Dance Lab (Regional Dance Development Initiative) at the College of St. Benedict, St. Catherine University, Carleton College, the Reif Center, St. Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists, and Perpich Center for Arts Education.

Freeh danced for James Sewell Ballet for seventeen years, serving as Artistic Associate from 2007-11. She is affiliate faculty at the University of MN and Zenon and summer faculty at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp.

For more information, visit her site.

Eddie Oroyan

2010 Dancer Fellow

Photo credit Cameron Wittig

Eddie Oroyan dances with companies such as Black Label Movement, Shapiro & Smith, and Zenon while also creating his own work. He has danced with Creach/Company in New York and has worked with ARENA, Maggie Bergeron, Joe Chvala and the Flying Foot Forum, Metropolitan Ballet, Nautilus Music Theater, and the Minnesota Opera.

Eddie began his dance training at UW-Stevens Point, a 2001 graduate of their dance program. He was featured as dance artist of the year 2006 in City Pagesand given the honorable mention in the Star Tribune's 2006 Artist of the Year. Also, a 2008 Minnesota SAGE Award recipient for Outstanding Performer, his Momentum commissioned work, Brown Rocket, was nominated for a SAGE Award in Outstanding Performance, and he received Metro Magazine's 2009 Keeper Award.   

Related

• Solo Choreographer Roberto Olivan

Leslie O'Neill

2010 Dancer Fellow

Photo credit: William Camero

Leslie O'Neill began her dance training at the University of Wisconsin at Green Bay as a member of the Fighting Phoenix Dance Team. After two years, she transferred to the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities to continue her training in the hopes of becoming a professional where she had the opportunity to work with artists Doug Elkins, Shouze Ma, Judith Howard, and to perform in master works by Paul Taylor. She completed her BFA and went on to dance for local choreographers Ray Terrill, Rosy Simas, Maggie Bergeron, as well as Oregon-based Robin Stiehm. In 2005 Leslie joined Carl Flink as a founding member of Black Label Movement, where she honed her technique and began to find her voice as a performer. 

Leslie began making her own work in 2005, which first presented in the Minneapolis Fringe Festival. She also presented a solo, Trigger, which she premiered at the Red Eye Works-In-Progress series. It was later performed by Emilie Plauche-Flink, artistic director of Black Label Movement in 2009. Leslie joined Zenon Dance Company in 2006 as an apprentice and is now a company member. 

Leslie's choreographic endeavors include Tri, a trio for the scholarship students at Zenon's Dance Zone, and a recent presentation of her solo These Years, for the Minneapolis Fringe Festival.  Leslie was nominated for a Minnesota SAGE Award 2009 for her performance in BLM's Fieldsongs and Zenon Dance Company's spring season, and her solo Trigger was mentioned in "Top 5 Dance Events of 2009" in the Star Tribune.  

Related

• Solo Choreographer Jeanine Durning

Emilie Plauché Flink

2010 Dancer Fellow

Photo credit: William Cameron

Emilie Plauché Flink is the Artistic Associate of the Twin Cities based performance group, Black Label Movement (BLM) alongside her life partner and BLM Artistic Director Carl Flink. 

A member and soloist with the Limón Dance Company from 1989 - 1999, Emilie performed the masterworks of Doris Humphrey and Jose Limón, as well as, dances by Ralph Lemon, Doug Varone, Annabelle Gamson, Phyllis Lamhut, Garth Fagan, Jiri Kylian, and Anthony Tudor.  During her time with Limón, she was a regular Limón Institute faculty member in New York City. She continues to reconstruct Limón's choreography for dance companies and university dance programs across the country. 

Other performing credits include work with Lila York, David Grenke, Colin Connor, Shapiro & Smith Dance, and Off-Broadway in Martha Clarke's Garden of Earthly Delights and Miracolo D'Amore. In the spring of 1998, Emilie was a Sage Cowles Guest Artist at the University of Minnesota's Dance Program, where she taught Limón technique influenced by her own movement explorations from 2001-2008. In 1999, she was the first Guest Artist-in-Residence at Stanford University's Dance Department.

As a choreographer, she has created commissioned work for San Jose State University, Roger Williams University, Chattanooga Ballet, Of Moving Colors Dance Company, Purchase College Senior Concert Series, Baton Rouge Ballet Theatre, Ballet Arts Minnesota, and Zenon Dance Company. 

Emilie holds a B.F.A. in Dance from the Juilliard School.  She and Carl are the proud parents of three wonderful daughters, Willa, Iris and Freyja.  

Related

• Solo Choreographer Sara Hook

Nic Lincoln

2011 Dancer Fellow

Photo credit: Jim Smith

Nic Lincoln, originally from Grand Rapids Michigan, studied dance at Interlochen Arts Academy, Grand Rapids Ballet and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago.  James Sewell Ballet (JSB) has acted as a creative incubator for Nic's artistry and he has danced in over a dozen works created on him by James Sewell as well as world premieres by Jennifer Hart, Morgan Thorson, Patrick Corbin, Hijack and Kenna Cottman. He relocated to Minneapolis to join JSB after dancing professionally with the Graz Ballet, Malaika Kazumi's Ballet Theatre Frankfurt and La Compañia de Juan Carlos Santa Maria. Before living in Europe he danced professionally with Dayton Ballet, Cleveland San Jose Ballet and Grand Rapids Ballet where he was featured in roles by Roland Petite, Dennis Nahat, George Balanchine and Robert Joffrey among others.

He was named Best Dancer of 2011 by City Pages for his work in Judith Howard's Dressage. Nic performed Dressage again in 2012 as well as solos created for him by Megan Mayer, Rosy Simas, Penelope Freeh, and Wynn Fricke. He invited these five female choreographers to create new works to help ignite society's recognition of women in the arts.

Lincoln is an advocate for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community. For several years running he has contributed his choreography to the Human Rights Campaign which has helped to heighten the community's awareness of diversity. Apart from choreographing independently, his works have been performed by JSB, Grand Rapids Ballet, Flint Youth Ballet and the 2008 Walker Art Center's Choreographer's Evening. He produced his own show at the Red Eye Theater in June 2009. His newest work Tempered Glasspremiered at O'Shaughnessy's Snapshots; Reflections of Women in 2010. In addition to his work in choreography and dance Nic is a professional visual artist.

RELATED

• Solo Choreographer Larry Keigwin
• Nic Lincoln

Amanda Dlouhy

2011 Dancer Fellow

Amanda Dlouhy dances with Ragamala Dance, a Minneapolis-based company celebrated internationally for presenting the classical Indian dance form of bharatanatyam with passion, innovation, and integrity. Amanda was introduced to bharatanatyam by Ragamala Artistic Directors Ranee Ramaswamy and Aparna Ramaswamy in 2004 and began intense study in January of 2005. 

Since 2005, Amanda has toured with the company extensively, performing in over 25 states and various countries. US venues include the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC, the New Victory Theatre in New York, and the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall in Sarasota, Florida. International venues include the Bali Arts Festival (2006), the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (2008 and 2009), and the Soorya Festival in Kerala, India (2010). 

In her work with Ragamala, Amanda has had the privilege of performing with world-class musicians, notably Rajna Swaminathan, Anjna Swaminathan, Lalit Subramaniam, Prema Ramamurthy, Shubhendra Rao, Saskia Rao-de Hass, Waidaiko Ensemble Tokara, and the Cudamani Ensemble of Bali, Indonesia. With four other Ragamala dancers, she workshopped and performed a 40-show run of The Iron Ring with the Children's Theatre Company in Minneapolis in 2008 and 2010.

Amanda teaches bharatanatyam technique in the Ragamala School and participates in the company's outreach program, giving performances year-round to school and community groups in and around the Twin Cities.

RELATED

• Solo Choreographers Ranee and Aparana Ramaswamy

Ashwini Ramaswamy

2012 Dancer Fellow

Photo by Tim Rummelhoff

Ashwini Ramaswamy has studied Bharatanatyam with Ragamala’s Artistic Directors Ranee Ramaswamy and Aparna Ramaswamy—her mother and sister—since the age of five and has toured extensively with Ragamala, performing throughout the U.S. and in Russia, Taiwan, Indonesia, Japan, the U.K, and India. Ashwini is a 2011 recipient of a Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant for Dance and was recently accepted for one-on-one study with Bharatanatyam master Alarmèl Valli. Ashwini is Ragamala’s Director of Publicity and Marketing and also works as a freelance publicist for the publishing company The Penguin Group in New York City. She holds a degree in English Literature from Carleton College and is currently on the board of Arts Midwest.

Related

• Solo Choreographer Alarmel Valli

Stephen Schroeder

2012 Dancer Fellow

Photo by Tim Rummelhoff

Stephen Schroeder currently dances and has danced with Zenon Dance Company since 2001. He’s also been seen in the Twin Cities with the likes of Minnesota Dance Theater, ARENA Dances, TU Dance, the Minnesota Opera, and Nautilus Music Theater. Originally, he hails from Colorado where he earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Since becoming a professional dancer in 1996, Stephen has taught and performed across the country and internationally. He seeks the essence of movement and strives to share it with all who’ll listen.

An avid lover of horses, good music and live performance, Stephen will attempt to combine all three in his largest endeavor yet, the raising of his daughter Paityn Joy.  

“Many thanks to all I’ve worked with throughout my years here in the Twin Cities and to those I continue to and will work with as we strive to better ourselves, our lives, and the lives of others with our artistry.  And of course the most thanks and love to Stephanie, my wife, my love, my life.”

Related

• Solo Choreographer James Morrow

Taryn Griggs

2012 Dancer Fellow

Photo by Tim Rummelhoff

Taryn Griggs is a cataloger of rare forms for a handful of independent choreographers. In the Twin Cities these choreographers include Angharad Davies, Jaime Carrera, Justin Jones, Dustin Haug, Tamin Totzke, and Chris Yon.  

Taryn has been dancing with and for her husband, Chris Yon, since 2002 after meeting during the Bessie Schonberg residency at The Yard in Chilmark, Massachusetts. With Yon she has performed at The Fulton Ferry Warehouse, Broadway-Lafayette Subway Station, La Mama ETC and Annex, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Dixon Place, Danspace Project, Ur, WAX, Galapagos, Dance Theater Workshop, Walker Art Center, The Southern Theater, Bryant Lake Bowl, Tangente (Montreal), Freehold Arts Center (Seattle), ODC (San Francisco), Velocity (Seattle), Philadelphia Dance Project (Philadelphia), Citedanse (Grenoble), Project Art Center (Dublin), as well as at various regional theaters in Ireland. 

Before relocating to Minneapolis, Taryn was a member of David Neumann's advanced beginner group from 2004-2009. Other performance credits include work with Liz Roche (Ireland), Sara Rudner, Susan Rethorst, Yoshiko Chuma, Karrinne Keithley, Sara Smith, Ivy Baldwin, Johannes Weiland, Anna Sperber, Mary Cochran and Sara Hook. Taryn received a Minnesota SAGE Award for Outstanding Performer for her work with Chris Yon and Justin Jones in 2009. 

Taryn holds a B.F.A in dance from the North Carolina School of the Arts. She is the proud mom of Beatrix who was born in February 2012.  Taryn worked “The Very Unlikeliness (I'm Going to KILL You!)”, a duet with Chris that was performed at the Bryant Lake Bowl and LA Mama in 2012-2013.

Related

• Solo Choreographer Jodi Melnick
• Taryn Griggs and Chris Yon

Kari Mosel

2013 Dancer Fellow

Photo by Tim Rummelhof

Kari Mosel hails from Eau Claire, Wisconsin where she grew up riding horses, climbing trees, and tripping over her own feet. She received her BFA in Dance from the University of Minnesota in 2004. In 2002 Mosel began her professional career with an apprenticeship for Shapiro & Smith Dance. She became a full company member in 2006, while tour managing and understudying for ANYTOWN. Mosel also serves as the administrative assistant and board secretary for Shapiro & Smith Dance. In 2005 she became a company member and teaching artist with Stuart Pimsler Dance & Theater (SPDT). Performing with them nationally and internationally for the past 8 years, Mosel has assisted in SPDT workshops and residencies in educational and healthcare. She was SPDT’s company manager from 2009-2011 and now serves as their video editor and archivist. Mosel has also danced with Time Track Productions, Kats D and the Paneer Project, Marciano Silva dos Santos, Jim Lieberthal, Black Label Movement, Jenny Pennaz, Julie Warder, Cade Holmseth, and as apprentice for Zenon Dance. In October 2012 Mosel was nominated for a Minnesota SAGE Dance Award for Outstanding Performer. In addition to performing, she creates her own work, which has been presented at The Women’s Club, Patrick’s Cabaret, and The Ritz Theater in Minneapolis and has also been commissioned by The University of River Falls Dance Program for the past several years. Mosel is also the performance coach for the Hudson High School Gymnastics Team.

Related

• Solo Choreographer Lane Gifford
• Shapiro and Smith Dance
• Stuart Pimsler Dance & Theater

Tamara Ober

Photo by Tim Rummelhoff

2013 Dancer Fellow

Tamara Ober is a dancer, choreographer, and multidisciplinary creator based in Minneapolis. She has received Minnesota SAGE Award nominations for Performance, Performer, and Design (2012) and has been presented in Red Eye’s Isolated Acts (2013) with solo show, Sin Eater. Ober’s critically acclaimed multidisciplinary solo show, Pipa toured across the U.S., Canada, and to Budapest, and received Montreal Fringe’s first-runner-up Centaur Award (2009), City Pages Best Artist (2009), MN SAGE Award for Dance for Outstanding Performer (2010), and Metro Magazine’s Keeper Award (2011). 

Supported by the MacPhail Center for Music Artist grant (2012), the Spotlight Series (2012), and the American Composer’s Forum Live Music for Dance MN grant (2013), Ober, composer/musician Julie Johnson, and New York filmmaker D.J. Mendel created a MN Fringe sellout, Standing on the Hollow. In 2015, Ober created an evening-length dance film for Johnson’s live music composition, Seasons of Time. She received a 2015 MRAC Next Step grant to create a new trio, premiering in June 2016.

Ober has served on panels, performed lecture/demonstrations, and workshops for various dance and theater educational institutions. She is Wonderlust Production's choreographer, and has collaborated on the NEA supported Veteran’s Play Project (2013), and the Adoption Play Project (2016).

A graduate of the University of Minnesota with a BFA in Dance and BA in Sociology, Ober joined Zenon Dance Company in 2002 and has worked with over 40 emerging and world-renowned choreographers, touring to New York, Russia, Hungary, France, and Cuba.

Related

• Tamara Ober
• Solo Choreographer D.J. Mendel
• Solo Commission by Brian J. Evans

Gregory Waletski

2013 Dancer Fellow

Photo by Tim Rummelhoff

Gregory Waletski grew up in Chanhassen, Minnesota and is a 1987 graduate of St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN. Inspiration for a dancing life began there with his first teacher, Toni Sostek. He has been a member of the modern and jazz repertory company, Zenon, for the past 22 years. As such he has worked with a wide range of choreographers including Susana Tambutti, luciana achugar, Netta Yerushalmy, Danny Buraczeski, Colleen Thomas, Bill Young, Sean Curran, Doug Varone, Morgan Thorson, Mariusz Olszewski, and Faye Driscoll. He has also performed in the companies of several Twin Cities' based choreographers including Megan Meyer, Wynn Fricke, Cathy Young, and Matthew Janczewski. In 2000 he was awarded a McKnight Fellowship for Dance and was the recipient of a 2011 Minnesota SAGE Award for Outstanding Performer. Waletski also has a rich and varied life outside of dance. For many years he has worked as a commercial salmon fisherman in Alaska's Bristol Bay. He is also an avid record collector and DJ at the monthly funk and soul dance night, Hipshaker. He left Zenon Dance Company but does plan on returning as a guest artist and also for the company's outreach residencies with the deaf, hard of hearing community.  He completed a two-year program for a Sign Language Interpreter/Transliterator AAS degree and now also works as an interpreter.

Related

• Solo Choreographer Karen Sherman

Sally Rousse

2014 Dancer Fellow

Photo by Tim Rummelhoff

Sally Rousse has built a distinguished, multi-faceted life in dance that includes performing, teaching, curating, advocating, choreographing, and writing, with noteworthy honors and grants. She is a two-time recipient of the McKnight Artist Fellowship for Dancers (2001 and 2014) and received a 2013 Sage Award for Outstanding Performer. Named “Artist of the Year” (City Pages, 2010), she began dancing in Barre, Vermont, going on to train at the School of American Ballet and with David Howard before performing as a leading dancer with Ballet Chicago, the Royal Ballet of Flanders, and James Sewell Ballet (JSB), which she co-founded in NYC 26 years ago. In addition to many roles in the classical and Balanchine repertoires, Sally has danced works by Maurice Béjart, Jiri Kylián, and more than 100 new works created on her by contemporary choreographers. The Cowles Center and JSB honored Rousse with a tribute and retrospective in 2014.

In 1994, Sally began studying and performing Improvisation and Contact, primarily with Patrick Scully, Chris Aiken, and Hijack, aiming to draw upon a larger movement palette to extend the definitions, aesthetics, and relevance of ballet and ballerina. Grants awarded by the Jerome Foundation and the Minnesota State Arts Board helped her delve deeper into the state of ballet and her place in it.

Rousse's work as a choreographer has been supported by diverse venues and organizations: the Southern Theater, Walker Art Center, VocalEssence, Marshall Field's, Harvard's American Repertory Theatre, the Cartoon Channel, Nickelodeon, Omaha Ballet, JSB, 3-Legged Race, the Jerome Foundation, and the McKnight Foundation. While Artist-in-Residence at the American Swedish Institute from 2013-14 she co-created Kom Hit! – a roving, immersive dance/theater work with Noah Bremer. 

Sally continues to work with several diverse dance entities in the Twin Cities and around the world, among those most recently, Hijack, Penelope Freeh, and Hong Kong’s Kanta Kanta Kochhar-Lindgren, Ph.D. She serves on several Boards and panels, awarding grants, fellowships, honors and opportunities in the performing arts that help shape the local and global cultural environment. She lives and raises her two children in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

SOLO Choreographer Arthur Pita

Max Wirsing

2014 Dancer Fellow

Photo by Tim Rummelhoff

Max Wirsing has been dancing in the Twin Cities since 2005. He has had the opportunity to perform and collaborate on works by Chris Schlichting, Emily Johnson, Justin Jones, Nick LeMere, and Karen Sherman, as well as dancing with Morgan Thorson as part of her last three touring projects. Max has created his own dance work as part of Jaime Carrera's Outlet Series, and the Jerome Foundation's Naked Stages Fellowship, and has been a part of various video installation projects such as Peter Becker Nelson's On Dying, Techtonic Industries' the desire to stay versus the inevitability of change, and Andy Underwood-Bultman’s Silver Lake. His recent design collaborations with Morgan Thorson, Emily Johnson, and Chris Schlichting have garnered many accolades including a Minnesota SAGE Award for Outstanding Design for Schlichting's Matching Drapes.

SOLO choreographer Lauren Simpson

Kenna-Camara Cottman

2014 Dancer Fellow

Photo by Tim Rummelhoff

Kenna-Camara Cottman has worked in the field of dance and art for over 20 years, and has been a full-time artist since 2005. Kenna is a Black American Griot, following in the oral tradition of storytelling through art. She has studied traditional and contemporary drum and dance forms from experts such as Ananya Chatterjea, Koto N’Gum, Fode Seydou Bangoura, Backa Niang and William Atchouellou. She is a dance educator who teaches about the history of African peoples through art, culture, movement and song. Managing her own company: Voice of Culture Drum and Dance, has given Kenna the opportunity to train with world class artists and develop her traditional drum and dance skills. Combining these forms with her experiences, Kenna creates contemporary Black dance that deals with interesting topics, confusing cultural ideas, and movement-based puzzles. Kenna is a skilled dancer, and she supports choreographer colleagues such as Pramila Vasudevan and Leah Nelson by dancing in their work. Kenna is also a member of Oyin Dance Collective, a unique collaboration of Black women who study and perform African Based dance forms. Kenna-Camara Cottman is supported by her artistic family, William and Beverly Cottman, Yonci Jameson and Ebrima Sarge.

SOLO Choreographer Deja Stowers