Dance Faculty

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Tara Lorenzen, Director

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.

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Maria Simpson

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Souleymane Badolo

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

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Georgey Souchette

Native from the Caribbean, the island of Martinique and the island of Saint-Martin, Georgey trained at the IFPRO (Institute of Professional Training Rick Odums). He began his career as an dancer with the companies Ballet Jazz Rick Odums , James Carles dance company and Geraldine Armstrong Jazz Ballet - where he had the opportunity to perform works by Katherin Dunham, Asadata Dafora, Ronald K. Brown, Donald McKayle, Eleo Pomare and Talley Beatty.

Awarded best jazz dancer at the International Jazz Dance Forum in 2010, these encounters took him to New York where he danced with Forces Of Nature Dance Theater, as well as the Nathan Trice/Rituals dance company. At the same time, in Paris, he discovered Laban kinetography with the Labkine Company directed
by Noëlle Simonet and participates in the remounting of repertory works by Charles Weidman, Anna Sokolow, Helen Tamaris and Isadora Duncan. 

Eager to broaden his experience of jazz dance in 2012, he explores new axes of creation with choreographers Patricia Karagozian, Cathy Grouet and Wayne Barbaste. Following a tour with the Lion King musical in the UK and Ireland he joined, in 2014 Bruce Taylor's ChoréOnyx dance company for the creation " I have a dream ".
Holder of the State Diploma in contemporary dance (2021) and in jazz dance (2022), he teaches at Georges Bizet Conservatory in the 20th arrondissement of Paris.

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Wanjiru Kamuyu

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Dedrick "D.Banks" Gray

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
 

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Yebel Gallegos

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.

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Jean Churchill

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.

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Peggy Florin

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.