The Dance Program faculty represent a breadth of professional experience, expertise, and engagement with the dance world.
Faculty
-
Tara Lorenzen, DirectorVisiting Associate Professor of Dance, Dance Program Director
[email protected]Tara Lorenzen, Director
Visiting Associate Professor of Dance, Dance Program Director
[email protected]
Tara Lorenzen (Director) is originally from the hills of West Virginia. Upon graduation from SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Dance, she became a member of the Repertory Understudy Group under Merce Cunningham where she created an original role in “EyeSpace” as well as reconstructing earlier works such as “Rune” and “Summerspace". She went on to work with Stephen Petronio Dance Company from 2008-2011. She has worked with Kimberly Bartosik, Christine Elmo, Shen Wei Dance Arts, Ashleigh Leite, Todd Williams, Christopher Williams, Rene Archibald, Anna Sperber, Beth Gill (“Electric Midwife” Bessie award for Outstanding Production 2011), Maria Hassabi (“Plastic” Bessie award for Outstanding Production 2016), and Jodi Melnick. Since 2011, Tara has performed and taught master classes for the Trisha Brown Dance Company all over the world. She has recently assisted in the reconstruction of Trisha’s “O zlozony/O composite” (originally created for the Paris Opera Ballet), on the Pennsylvania Ballet and taught a "Set and Reset/Reset" workshop at the Centre National de la Danse in Pantin, France. Tara is a certified Cunningham Technique teacher and continues to work closely with both the Cunningham Trust and John Cage Trust. At Bard since 2016. -
Maria SimpsonProfessor of Dance
845-758-7996 | [email protected]Maria Simpson
Professor of Dance
845-758-7996 | [email protected]
Maria has been teaching ballet at Bard College since 2004 and was the director of Bard’s Dance Program from 2008 – 2022. Maria teaches all levels of ballet, anatomy, and writing in relationship to dance. She has taught anatomy for the Bard Prison Initiative since 2018. Maria has also taught at Mount Holyoke College, Middlebury College, University of Washington, Bates Summer Dance Festival, the 1997 Seattle Summer Dance Festival, the 2007 Vassar College Summer Workshop, and Gibney Dance Center in New York City. In August 2023 Maria and two collaborators launched Three Ballet Teachers, a website created and developed for teaching artists as an educational resource and archive of contemporary ballet class choreography. Maria has performed with dance companies and independent artists in Seattle and New York including Peter Schmitz and Dancers, the Pat Graney Company, Gina Gibney Dance, and the Chamber Dance Company, Aileen Passloff, Jean Churchill, Peggy Florin, and Peter Kyle. Maria has been a rehearsal director for dances by Zvi Gotheiner, Trisha Brown, Hannah Kahn, Doug Varone, Mark Dendy, José Limón, and Marjani Forté-Saunders. Maria received a B.F.A. from the University of Massachusetts and an M.F.A. from the University of Washington. -
Souleymane BadoloAssistant Professor of Dance
[email protected]Souleymane Badolo
Assistant Professor of Dance
[email protected]
Souleymane “Solo” Badolo started his professional career as a dancer for the DAMA, a traditional African dance company. In 1993, he founded his own Burkina Faso-based troupe, Kongo Ba Téria, which fuses traditional African dances with western contemporary dance and continues to tour internationally. Mr. Badolo has danced with world-renowned contemporary African dance company Salia ni Seydou, worked with French choreographers Elsa Wolliaston and Mathilde Monnier, and performed with the National Ballet of Burkina. He and Kongo Ba Téria are featured in the widely-screened documentary Movement (R)evolution Africa which documents the continent’s emergent experimental dance scene.
Since moving to New York City in 2009, Badolo has created a number of solo projects commissioned and presented by Danspace, New York Live Arts, Dance New Amsterdam, Harlem Stage, the 92nd Street Y, the Museum of Art & Design, and the sprawling River to River Festival (R2R). He has collaborated with Nora Chipaumire, Ralph Lemon, Reggie Wilson, and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar of Urban Bush Women. His ongoing research in Africa has been supported by The Suitcase Fund of New York Live Arts.
Mr. Badolo was nominated for a 2011 New York Dance & Performance (Bessie) Award as Outstanding Emerging Choreographer and in 2012, received the Juried Bessie Award (from jurists Lar Lubovitch, Yvonne Rainer and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar). In the summer of 2013, he was named Artist-In-Residence at the Institute for Curatorial Practice and Performance at Wesleyan University and Mount Tremper Arts. Badolo was commissioned to create a dance for Philadanco as part of James Brown: Get on the Good Foot, produced by The Apollo Theater for presentation there in October 2013, followed by national and international touring dates. Mr. Badolo is a participant in the Extended Life cohort of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) and the recipient of Wesleyan University’s 2014 Mariam McGlone Emerging Choreographer Award. He graduated from Bennington College with an MFA in June 2013. Since that time, he has been a guest instructor at The New School and Bennington College. Mr. Badolo was selected to be the Harkness Foundation Artist-in-Residence at the BAM Fisher for summer 2015 and was commissioned by BAM to create Yimbégré, an evening-length work for presentation in the 2015 Next Wave Festival. He won the 2016 Bessie for Outstanding Production for his piece Yimbégré, which “gloriously communicated the clash and reconciliation of the different traditions held within one’s life, one’s body.” The Suitcase Fund of New York Live Arts has supported Badolo’s ongoing research in Africa. He previously taught at the New School, Denison University, and Bennington College, and currently teaches at Bard College.
2013-2014 DanceForce Award
2017 March Emelin Theater
2018 February 11-19, Guest artist in residency Princeton University
2020 Dec Home Title (version 1)
Commissioned by the Valerie Green Dance Company Entropy
2021 Fall Title Home (version 2)
New work commissioned by the University of Minnesota
2022 June 13-18 CND Centre National de la Danse (CND) Paris Pantin
2023 Creative Capital Award -
DD DorvillierVisiting Artists in Residence, Villa Albertine
DD Dorvillier
Visiting Artists in Residence, Villa Albertine
Born in Puerto Rico in 1967, DD Dorvillier (Villa Albertine Teaching Artist) graduated in dance from Bennington College in Vermont in 1989 and moved to New York City. From 1991 to 2003 she created over a dozen works at The Matzoh Factory (a grassroots space co-created with choreographer Jennifer Monson, where artists gathered for low-cost shows, rehearsal space, parties, and readings). These early works make up the content of A catalogue of steps (2013 and ongoing). In 2004, while living in New York she began developing her work abroad, settling in Paris in 2010. In 2020, with the composer Sébastien Roux, she created La Corvette, a space for multidisciplinary research and experimentation in rural Burgundy, France.
The contrast between her current rural village life and years of artistic development in the bustling cultural centers of New York and later Paris has been an impetus for slowing down enough to consider the importance of dancing and making in a context where “culture” means “growing things”. Her artistic work finds its balance between the exploration of the sensitive body, choreographic construction, the specificity of place, philosophy and language. How and where to dance, and how and and for whom, to preserve dance - how these conditions influence each other - are key questions in her current research.
She has taught in contexts from Movement Research, Seattle Improvisation Festival Seattle, International Summer School of Dance Tokyo, ImpulsTanz Vienna, La Caldera Barcelona, Beta Local Puerto Rico, La Manufacture Lausanne, CND Lyon, Beaux Arts Dijon and Valence, and many others. A certified teacher of Skinner Releasing Technique (since 1995) she often combines this with other practices of improvisation, observation, and composition, notably her own Touch Move Talk Write approach, as well as Authentic Movement.
Since premiering No Change or “freedom is a psycho-kintetic skill” in 2005 she has created over a dozen works for stages and other contexts which have been produced and/or presented at Danspace Project, The Kitchen, New York Live Arts, Performance Space 122, EMPAC (Troy, New York), KaaiTheater (Brussels, Belgium), STUK (Leuven, Belgium), BUDA (Kortick, Belgium), DieSingel (Antwerp, Belgium), Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris, France), Les Rencontres Chorégraphiques de Seine St. Denis (St. Denis, France), L'Atelier de Paris CDCN (Vincennes, France), Le Pacifique CDCN (Grenoble, France), Le Dancing CDCN (Dijon, France), Festival Entre cour et jardins (Dijon, France), Salmon/Mercat de les Flors (Barcelona, Spain), La Poderosa (Barcelona, Spain), ImpPulsTanz (Vienna, Austria), Tseh Festival (Moscow, Russia), Hau/Hebel am Ufer (Berlin, Germany), Melkweg (Amsterdam, The Netherlands), and Spider Festival (Ljubljana, Slovenia), among countless other venues.
From 2017-2019 she was an associate artist-researcher at the Master EXERCE program in Montpellier and from 2019-2022 she was an associate artist at Le Dancing CDCN Dijon. She is a recipient of two New York Dance and Performance Awards (Bessies), a NYFA Choreography Fellowship (2000), the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Award (2007), the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (2011), and the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award (2013). -
Walter DundervillVisiting Artists in Residence, Villa Albertine
Walter Dundervill
Visiting Artists in Residence, Villa Albertine
Walter Dundervill (Villa Albertine Teaching Artist) is a New York City based dance artist. He creates performance environments fusing choreography, costume, visual art, and sound design. His work has been presented at Dance Theater Workshop, New York Live Arts, MoMA PS1, The New Museum, Danspace Project, Participant Inc., Pioneer Works, JACK Arts, the Spoleto Festival, and in theaters in Europe and Australia. Dundervill has received Bessie Awards as a dancer and designer and is a recipient of the Foundation for the Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists award. He has been an artist in residence at Movement Research, the New Museum, Dance Theater Workshop, and New York Live Arts. As a performer and designer, he has worked with artists across various media including RoseAnne Spradlin, DD Dorvillier, Bruce Nauman, Simone Forti, Tere O’Connor, Ong Keng Sen, Liza Lim, Luciana Achugar, Keely Garfield, Lovett/Codagnone, Diana Puntar, Luther Price, Beth Gill, and Sarah Michelson. Dundervill has taught as an adjunct professor at New York University’s Experimental Theater Wing and at the Pratt Institute. He has conducted workshops at Movement Research, Rhode Island School of Design, and Le Dancing CDCN Dijon Bourgogne-Franche-Comté. -
Daniel HydeVisiting Artist in Residence
Daniel Hyde
Visiting Artist in Residence
Daniel Hyde (Visiting Artist in Residence) specializes in the interdisciplinary art of dance accompaniment, and all manners of collaboration between dance and music. He has served elite arts education institutions and professional dance companies including the Juilliard School, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (company class and school), the Martha Graham Dance Company (company class and school), Ballet Hispanico (company class and school), Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of The Performing Arts, Manhattan Youth Ballet, and the Kaatsbaan Ballet Intensive. Other engagements include The Movement Invention Project NYC, Ballet Hispanico’s ChoreoLab, Hubbard Street Dance Company (Chicago), Damian Woetzel’s Vail Dance Festival: ReMix NYC, Complexions Contemporary Ballet, Mark Morris Dance Group, River North Dance Company, and CUNY Hunter College.
His work as a dance-musician has taken him around the world, serving as accompanist and audition pianist to international dance festivals including Spain’s IBStage 2019 (Gran Teatre del Liceu with members of The Ballet Nacional de Espana, The Mariinsky Theater, and The Royal Ballet, La Scala) and La Companyia Juvenil de Ballet Clàssic de Catalunya (Barcelona, Spain). He has taught as a visiting faculty member at the National University Of Costa Rica, Heredia and has served as an accompanist to various private schools including Dance Cultural Centre (Athens, Greece) and to SOZO Visions In Motion (Kassel, Germany).
Daniel gained extensive training in accompaniment of Classical Ballet, Pointe, Partnering, Bournonville, Graham-technique, Improvisation, and various contemporary styles working with fellow accompanists Vladimir Shinov (Juilliard), Lawrence ‘Reed’ Hansen (Martha Graham’s personal accompanist), and under dance instructors such as Alphonse Poulin, Taryn Kaschock Russel, Jeffrey Edwards, Deborah Wingert, Denise Vale, Lone Larsen, Marnie Wood and Tadej Brdnik, Matthew Rushing and Daniel Ulbricht, Glenn Edgerton and Terence Marling, Andre Tyson, Stella Abrera and Lorin Mathis, Henning Albrechtsen, Aleksandar Neskov and Emmy Corfia, Rodolfo Castellanos, Piotr Nardelli, Marianella Nunez, Elias Garcia, and currently with Maria Simpson and Tara Lorenzen.
Daniel received a BA in Classical Piano Performance from The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (where he was first engaged to accompany dance). In Spring 2021, Daniel joined the Bard College Dance Program where he continues collaborating with classical and modern dance-forms to support training and performance in the field. He remains active as a touring musician, recording artist, producer, composer, and writer in both the U.S. and Europe. -
Marcela Santander CorvalánVisiting Artist in Residence - Villa Albertine
Marcela Santander Corvalán
Visiting Artist in Residence - Villa Albertine
Marcela Santander Corvalán (Visiting Artist in Residence) is a Chilean choreographer, dancer and researcher. She studied dance-theater at the Paolo Grassi School of Dramatic Arts in Milan (2008) and attended Bieni culturali at Trento University. In 2009 joined the “Fac” training at the Centre National de Danse Contemporaine d'Angers under the direction of Emmanuelle Huynh, where she obtained a Bachelor in Dance Research (Paris 8 University, 2011).
Since 2011, she has worked as a dancer with choreographers Dominique Brun (Sacre #197 and Sacre #2, 2013), Faustin Linyekula (Stronghold, 2012), Julie Nioche (Nos amours, 2017), Ana Rita Teodoro (Plateau, 2017 and Fofo, 2018) Volmir Cordeiro (L’œil, la bouche et le reste, 2017, Trottoir, 2019) and Mylène Benoit (Archée, 2021). Alongside choreographer Mickaël Phelippeau, she collaborated on the dramaturgy for the pieces Chorus (2012), Pour Ethan (2014), Set-Up (2014), Kritt (2016) and Footballeuses (2017).
In 2017, as an offshoot of the piece L’œil, la bouche et le reste, she co-curated with Cordeiro and Margot Videcoq a video exhibition on the poetics of the face in the history of dance (Passerelle Art Center in collaboration with Centre Pompidou). That same year she was appointed artistic curator at RAISING THE BODY, a program for Chilean artists in collaboration with NAVE Creation and Residencies Center (Santiago, Chile). She also served as Artistic Director at the festival À DOMICILE (Guissény, Brittany 2016- 2019).
As a choreographer, Santander Corvalán works with archives and memories to think about how we can imagine fictions from historical documents. She created with Cordeiro the duo Epoch (2015) and the solo Disparue (2016). In 2018 she developed a cycle on the question of listening to archives, for which she created two pieces, Quiets (2019) and the conference-performance Shell, histories of listening (2020) alongside the art historian and performer Hôrtense Belhôte. In 2021 she started a trilogy on mythological archives and how to create contemporary mythologies, for which she just finished the first piece, Bocas de Oro, opened last October.
She teaches regularly in different venues, festivals, Arts Schools, Dance Houses and community projects, including CND (Paris) La Briqueterie (Vitry), Université de La Rochelle (La Rochelle), Beaux Arts Dijon (Dijon), Festival Santiagooff (Santiago-Chile), Ecole Experimental (Brussels), Kask (Ghent), Diverfestival, (TelAviv), among others.
The creation of her company Mano Azul in 2021 is driven by a desire to further develop this pedagogical thrust, proposing and deploying participatory projects in close collaboration with different artists and institutions. In 2020 she was appointed French Associate Artist at Empowering Dance: The Soft Skills Teaching and Learning Approach (La Briqueterie), a two-year research project for Europe that investigates how soft skills can be developed and transferred, as well as positively impact the confidence of those engaging with dance practice.
From 2014 to 2017 she was Associate Artist at Le Quartz, Scène Nationale de Brest and is currently artist in residency at La Manufacture, CDCN Nouvelle-Aquitaine Bordeaux La Rochelle (until June 2023). -
Volmir CordeiroVisiting Artist in Residence - Villa Albertine
Volmir Cordeiro
Visiting Artist in Residence - Villa Albertine
Volmir Cordeiro (Visiting Artist in Residence) is a Brazilian choreographer, dancer and researcher. He first studied theater and then collaborated with Brazilian choreographers Alejandro Ahmed, Cristina Moura and Lia Rodrigues. He joined the "Essais" training in 2011 at the Centre National de Danse Contemporaine d'Angers - direction Emmanuelle Huynh, where he obtained a master in performance and creation. In Europe, he has participated in pieces by Xavier Le Roy, Emmanuelle Huynh, Vera Mantero, Nadia Lauro & Zenna Parkins, Lâtifa Laabissi and Rodrigo García.
As a choreographer, he created a first cycle of work composed of three solos: Ciel (Sky 2012, created at the CNDC in Angers), Inês (2014, created at the Festival Actoral, in Marseille) and Rue with the Washington Timbó percussion (Street, 2015, created at the Louvre Museum, in collaboration with the FIAC). With the dancer and choreographer Marcela Santander Corvalán, he created Époque, at the Quartz, in Brest. In February 2017, he also created in Brest a piece for four dancers, The eye, the mouth and the rest. In parallel to this creation, he proposes a video exhibition of the same title around the poetics of the face in the history of dance for the Passerelle Art Center in collaboration with the 40th anniversary of the Pompidou Center. In September 2019, a piece for six performers, Sidewalk, presented at the Festival Actoral in Marseille and the Festival D'Automne in Paris. And in this same festival, in 2022, he presents the duet Metropolis with the percussionist Philippe Foch.
He regularly teaches in choreographic training schools such as Master Exerce (ICI-CCN Montpellier, France), Master Drama (Kask, Ghent, Belgium), PARTS in Brussels, at the Ménagerie de Verre, at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse as well as in the framework of the Camping festival, at the Centre National de la Danse, in Pantin. He is the author of "Ex-Corpo" work devoted to the figures of marginality in contemporary dance and the notion of artist-researcher, reflections in continuity of the thesis he defended at the University of Paris 8 in 2018.
In 2022 with Erosion, a creation for the dancers of the CCN - Ballet de Lorraine in Nancy, Volmir revisited the Swedish Ballets, a particular Dadaist troupe installed at the Théâtres de Champs-Elysées between 1920 and 1925. Associated artist at the Scène Nationale de Cergy-Pontoise Points Communs, and at the Briqueterie - CDCN du Val-de-Marne in Vitry, his company Donna Volcan, supported by the Drac as a structuring aid, thinks of the volcanic as the foundation of creation: earth, fire, air and the vital impulse. In 2021, Volmir Cordeiro received the SACD Jeune Talent Chorégraphie prize.
-
Dedrick "D.Banks" GrayVisiting Artist in Residence
Dedrick "D.Banks" Gray
Visiting Artist in Residence
Dedrick “D. Banks” Gray is a Chicago native and Artistpreneuer. He began his studies at Columbia College Chicago where he majored in dance and marketing communications. He recently completed his MFA in Choreography and Performance at Florida State University (FSU). During his tenure at FSU, he developed his research on the theme of Black Linguistics and presented an embodied structured mixtape titled R3Mx.
D.Banks work delves into various artistic mediums as a choreographer, performer, educator, producer, and teaching artist. He recently joined Camille A. Brown & Dancers as an apprentice and served as a production assistant under Jawole Zollar and Urban Bush Women. He partnered with Gibney Dance as a visiting artist where he taught Hip Hop at Bard College and will be returning to Bard Fall 2023. He is also Co-founder and co-producer of The Loop Show, an entertainment and interview series-based platform for artists.
Performance credits include: Gwen Welliver, Ron K. Brown, Allison Janae Hamilton, Onye Ozuzu, Darrell Jones, Diane McIntyre, J’Sun Howard, Nick Cave, BET, TVone, Muntu Dance Theater of Chicago, Red Clay Dance Company, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, and MANC
-
Yebel GallegosVisiting Assistant Professor of Dance
[email protected]Yebel Gallegos
Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance
[email protected]
Yebel Gallegos is a dance artist from El Paso, Texas. Yebel played an important role in the founding of Cressida Danza Contemporánea in Yucatán, Mexico. During his time with Cressida Danza he served as dancer, company teacher, rehearsal director, and academic coordinator for the Conservatorio de Danza de Yucatán. While in Mexico, he also helped in the creation and implementation of the Festival Yucatán Escénica, an international contemporary dance festival hosted by Cressida Danza. More recently, Yebel concluded a six-year tenure working full time with the Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, based in Salt Lake City, Utah. While in Utah, he also involved himself in projects with local artists, as well as teaching various population groups in Utah and across the United States. He has performed work from artists such as Twyla Tharp, Doug Varone, Alwin Nikolais, Ann Carlson, Daniel Charon, Stephen Koester, Netta Yerushalmy, Claudia LaVista, Joanna Kotze, Jonah Bokaer, among others. Yebel has had the fortune to travel internationally as a performer and educator to countries such as South Korea, Mongolia, France, Austria, and Chile. He earned his BFA in dance, both from the University of Texas at Austin and from the Escuela Profesional de Danza de Mazatlán, directed by Delfos Dance Company. In the Spring of 2021, Yebel received his Master's in Fine Arts degree from the University of Washington in Seattle. -
Jean ChurchillProfessor Emerita
845-758-7933 | [email protected]Jean Churchill
Professor Emerita
845-758-7933 | [email protected]
Studied modern dance at Connecticut College Dance Festival. Member, Boston Ballet Company (1966–72); artistic director, New England Dinosaur (1976). Performed works by James Waring, Trisha Brown, Carolyn Brown, George Balanchine, Norman Walker, and in classical and modern ballets. Choreography in Choreographer’s Showcase, Split Stream, Fresh Tracks, Men Dancing, Performance Mix, and To the Pointe festivals; venues in Scotland; and many venues in the United States. Choreography and direction for Cinderella’s Bad Magic, opera composed by Kyle Gann, premiered in Moscow (2002). (1980– ) Professor of Dance. -
Peggy FlorinFaculty Emerita
[email protected]Peggy Florin
Faculty Emerita
[email protected]
Choreographer, performer and teacher who has taught at Oberlin College, Ohio University, Williams College, Bennington College and at summer residencies at the Bennington College July Program, Pro Danza Italia and the White Mountain Dance Festival. She teaches modern and ballet technique, dance composition, repertory and experiential anatomy. Trained as a child in classical ballet at the Metropolitan Opera House by Anthony Tudor and Margaret Craske, she performed with the Atlanta Ballet and as a soloist with the Manhattan Festival Ballet. She has appeared in the work of many choreographers including Anna Wyman, Muna Tseng, Albert Reid, Phyllis Lamhut, Janet Panetta and Charles Moulton, touring nationally and in Europe. Her choreography has been presented at Dance Theater Workshop, the Cunningham Studio, DIA, Movement Research and the Marymount Manhattan Theater in New York City, and at Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out in Massachusetts, the Bennington College Martha Hill Performance Space, the Bard College Fisher Center of the Performing Arts, and the New England Artists Conference. Peggy’s creative work and teaching is influenced by her on-going study of movement through the Alexander Technique, clowning techniques learned from Yuri Belov, Eric Trules and Bill Irwin and experiential anatomy from Lulu Sweigart, Irene Dowd, Nancy Topf and Andrea Olsen. An AmSat certified teacher of the Alexander Technique, she is on the faculty of the teacher training program at the Riverside Initiative for the Alexander Technique in New York City. She studied in the BFA program at Juilliard, holds a BA from Empire State College and an MFA from Bennington College.
Staff
-
Jennifer Lown
-
Moe Schell
-
Sabrina Miller
-
Angel LauAccompanist for the Dance Program
[email protected] -
Daniel HydeAccompanist for the Dance Program
[email protected] -
Dean SharpComposer, Sound Designer for thr Dance Program
[email protected]