Yebel Gallegos Joins Bard College Dance Faculty, Cameron McKinney and Alanna Morris-Van Tassel Named Gibney/Bard Teaching Artists for Spring 2021
The Bard College Dance Program is pleased to announce that Yebel Gallegos, a dance artist from El Paso, Texas, will be joining the Bard Dance Program faculty in fall 2021. Cameron McKinney and Alanna Morris-Van Tassel will be the spring 2021 Bard Dance Program/Gibney Partnership Teaching Fellows.
Yebel Gallegos Joins Bard College Dance Faculty, Cameron McKinney and Alanna Morris-Van Tassel Named Gibney/Bard Teaching Artists for Spring 2021
The Bard College Dance Program is pleased to announce that Yebel Gallegos, a dance artist from El Paso, Texas, will be joining the Bard Dance Program faculty in fall 2021.
“I am looking forward to Yebel joining the dance faculty at Bard,” said Maria Simpson, director of the Dance Program at Bard. “His accomplishments as an artist in the U.S. and Mexico and his research into the history of dance in Mexico through the lens of border politics, are a robust combination that I am certain will draw students to his courses and colleagues to collaborative projects.”
Cameron McKinney. Photo by Rachel Neville Photography
Cameron McKinney and Alanna Morris-Van Tassel will be the spring 2021 Bard Dance Program/Gibney Partnership Teaching Fellows. McKinney and Morris-Van Tassel will be teaching the Intermediate/Advanced Modern and Dance Repertory courses. The Bard/Gibney Partnership was launched in fall 2020 by the Bard Dance Program and GIBNEY, a New York City–based dance and social justice organization led by Founder, Artistic Director, and CEO Gina Gibney. The Partnership provides unique opportunities for Bard students to work closely with Gibney’s resident dance troupe, Gibney Company, a commission-based, repertory company that works with renowned and rising international choreographers representing a broad range of aesthetics and techniques. For more information, visit dance.bard.edu/gibney.
“We are very excited to have Cameron and Alanna on board for the spring semester,” said Simpson. “Each represents a unique and dynamic boundary-pushing point of view in their work in Dance and I am thrilled that the students will have the opportunity to work with them this spring.”
Alanna Morris-Van Tassel. Photo by Kari Mosel
Yebel Gallegos, a dance artist from El Paso, Texas, played an important role in the founding of Cressida Danza Contemporánea in Yucatán, Mexico. During his time in 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. Yebel recently 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, 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. He currently resides in Seattle, WA, where he is expected to receive his Master in Fine Arts degree from the University of Washington in the Spring of 2021.
Cameron McKinney, the artistic director of Kizuna Dance, is a New York City-based choreographer and educator. With over 15 years of Japanese language study, he created Kizuna Dance with the mission of using contemporary floorwork to create works that celebrate the Japanese culture. He was recently selected as a 2019-20 U.S.-Japan Friendship Commission Creative Artist Fellow to collaborate with renowned Japanese choreographer Toru Shimazaki and present work in showcases in Japan alongside the 2020/2021 Tokyo Olympic Games’ events. He is a 2020 Ann & Weston Hicks Choreography Fellow at The School at Jacob’s Pillow (under the direction of Dianne McIntyre and Risa Steinbeirg), a 2017-18 Alvin Ailey Foundation New Directions Choreography Lab Fellow, and a 2018 Asian Cultural Council Individual Grantee. Through Kizuna Dance, Cameron has presented work and taught in fifteen states and in Japan, Mexico, France, and the UK. His commissions include Princeton University, twice from the Joffrey Ballet School, twice from the Let’s Dance International Frontiers Festival, The Dance Gallery Festival, LIU Brooklyn, CREATE:ART, The Thacher School, and SUNY Brockport, among numerous others. His teaching credits include Adjunct Lecturer positions at Princeton University and Queensborough Community College, and he has taught on faculty at Gibney Dance since 2016. He has also taught on faculty at the Joffrey Dance School, the Charlotte Dance Festival, the Tennessee Dance Festival, the Southern Vermont Dance Festival, and Williamsburg Movement and Arts Center. He is currently building Nagare Technique, a training module that blends street dance styles and contemporary floorwork. Through Kizuna Dance’s new Culture Commissions program, he also directly supports emerging artists through commissions for new works created through research-oriented explorations into the Japanese culture.
Brooklyn native and Saint Paul-based artist Alanna Morris-Van Tassel, is a dancer, choreographer, educator, and artist organizer whose work excavates cultural retention and fragmentation within Caribbean diasporic identity. Morris Van Tassel was named one of Dance Magazine's “25 to Watch!” for 2018 and City Pages’ Artist of the Year for 2018. She was a featured dancer with Minnesota-based dance company TU Dance (2007-2017), aTU Dance Artistic Associate (2020), and is a current advisor to Springboard Danse Montreal. Her self-produced solo project,“Yam, Potatoe an Fish!” was named Star Tribune’s Best of Dance (2018) and earned her City Pages’ Best Choreographer (2019).
Morris-Van Tassel is artistic director of Alanna Morris-Van Tassel Productions (AMVTP), founded in 2017 to produce dance, education, and community-building initiatives. She was a 2015 McKnight Dance Fellow. Morris-Van Tassel is a graduate of Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts in New York City and holds a BFA in Dance from The Juilliard School. She is currently building a performance art project, Black Light, which explores the nobility of black-ness, divine feminine expression, and primordial creativity. alannamvt.com.
For more information about the Bard Dance Program, please visit dance.bard.edu.
About Bard College Founded in 1860, Bard College is a four-year residential college of the liberal arts and sciences located 90 miles north of New York City. With the addition of the Montgomery Place estate, Bard’s campus consists of nearly 1,000 parklike acres in the Hudson River Valley. It offers bachelor of arts, bachelor of science, and bachelor of music degrees, with majors in nearly 40 academic programs; graduate degrees in 11 programs; eight early colleges; and numerous dual-degree programs nationally and internationally. Building on its 160-year history as a competitive and innovative undergraduate institution, Bard College has expanded its mission as a private institution acting in the public interest across the country and around the world to meet broader student needs and increase access to liberal arts education. The undergraduate program at our main campus in upstate New York has a reputation for scholarly excellence, a focus on the arts, and civic engagement. Bard is committed to enriching culture, public life, and democratic discourse by training tomorrow’s thought leaders. For more information about Bard College, visit bard.edu.
Bard College alum, dancer, and choreographer Arthur Avilés ’87 and Charles Rice-González— cofounders of the Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance—were honored with 2020 Bessie Awards for Lifetime Achievement in Dance: “For being masterful artists. For transforming the South Bronx and New York City dance and performance by creating the Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance. For providing an artistic home for women, Latinx, People of Color, Indigenous folx, and the LGBTQ community and for placing these artists, their communities and their arts-making front and center.”
Dancer and Choreographer Arthur Avilés ’87 Honored with Bessie Lifetime Achievement Award in Dance
Bard College alum, dancer, and choreographer Arthur Avilés ’87 and Charles Rice-González— cofounders of the Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance—were honored with 2020 Bessie Awards for Lifetime Achievement in Dance: “For being masterful artists. For transforming the South Bronx and New York City dance and performance by creating the Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance. For providing an artistic home for women, Latinx, People of Color, Indigenous folx, and the LGBTQ community and for placing these artists, their communities and their arts-making front and center.”
“Aileen exhibited tenderness toward this queer Puerto Rican boy/man from the mean streets of Jamaica, Queens, and the Bronx. Once, after I performed a dance I’d choreographed, she gently said, ‘Come here, Beauty.’ (She called all her students Beauty.),” writes Aviles. “Aileen possessed a beautiful mix of tenderness and wackiness that reminded me of dance pieces she created which evolved into series of movements that depicted the fantastical worlds that she loved to conjure.”
Arthur Aviles ’87 Remembers His Teacher Aileen Passloff
“Aileen exhibited tenderness toward this queer Puerto Rican boy/man from the mean streets of Jamaica, Queens, and the Bronx. Once, after I performed a dance I’d choreographed, she gently said, ‘Come here, Beauty.’ (She called all her students Beauty.),” writes Aviles. “Aileen possessed a beautiful mix of tenderness and wackiness that reminded me of dance pieces she created which evolved into series of movements that depicted the fantastical worlds that she loved to conjure, worlds of powerful beauty and strong grace.”
Dancer, Choreographer, and Teacher Aileen Passloff Remembered by Her Students Arthur Aviles ’87 and Charlotte Hendrickson ’07
“Aileen used the body to understand life in a way that just kind of says hello to the world and celebrates all of what we can be,” Aviles said. “In Aileen’s classes, there was room for everyone to be just who they were,” said Hendrickson. “She would always say that we’re wonderfully well-made—like a sweet tiger or like a tree. She would create this environment where you were expected to do your best, of course, but you were also, more importantly, expected to, like, speak from your own point of view—to have the courage to know yourself and to share that.”
Interview: Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance (BAAD!) Cofounder Arthur Aviles ’87 Talks to PBS NewsHour about Finding New Ways to Continue Showcasing and Supporting Local Artists During the Pandemic
“What's important to us is to make sure that we keep in touch with who it is that we are in these unfortunate times,” Aviles, tells PBS NewsHour’s Jeffrey Brown. “We want to create a platform for the community to be a star on. That's really what we say. This is about boxes, and where we are confined to that. And art is all about pushing against the boundaries of those boxes, and helping all of us see the world.”
Mee Ae Caughey ’00 on Queer Butoh: Finding Belonging in the Dance of Darkness
“When I’m dancing, I can be a man, I can be a woman. I can be gay or straight.” says Mee Ae Caughey ’00. Drag is a cornerstone of Caughey’s shape-shifting practice of Butoh—an avant-garde movement, born in Japan after World War II—that she discovered while studying at Bard College.
Bard College Dance Program Announces New Partnership with Gibney, a New York City–Based Dance and Social Justice Organization
The Bard College Dance Program and GIBNEY, a New York City–based dance and social justice organization led by Founder, Artistic Director, and CEO Gina Gibney, are creating a new partnership to begin in fall 2020. This will be the fourth professional partnership launched by the Dance Program, which began in 2009 with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company.
The Bard Dance Program/Gibney Partnership will provide unique opportunities for Bard students to work closely with Gibney’s resident dance troupe, Gibney Company, a commission-based, repertory company that works with renowned and rising international choreographers representing a broad range of aesthetics and techniques.
Gibney Company artists and directors Amy Miller and Nigel Campbell, and Bard faculty member and Partnership Coordinator Tara Lorenzen* and Director of Dance Maria Simpson will spearhead the partnership.
Each semester, artists selected by Gibney’s leadership will teach courses embedded in Bard’s dance curriculum, including studio courses for all levels of dancers, as well as seminar courses that address discipline-specific topics, such as Dance Writing as Activism. A special feature of this partnership will be the opportunity to perform Bard Dance Senior Projects at Gibney Center in Manhattan in the spring. Gibney will also offer yearlong artistic advising of student choreographers. Extracurricular workshops and master classes will further enhance the educational field of study. Gibney Company’s residency at the College will include open rehearsals and a public showing. This partnership represents a wide-ranging vision of what dance can be in a liberal arts curriculum at a time when artist engagement in both local and global communities is essential.
*Tara Lorenzen has danced with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, the Trisha Brown Dance Company, Stephen Petronio, Beth Gill, and Maria Hassabi, has worked for the American Dance Festival and Kaatsbaan|cultural park for dance on their education initiatives, and has been teaching in the Dance Program at Bard College since 2016.
Bard Alumnae Abby Bender ’95 and Anna Luckey ’95 Build an Annual Dance Festival into a Community Hub
Bardians Abby Bender and Anna Luckey cofounded the Built on Stilts dance festival on Martha’s Vineyard not long after graduation. It has evolved into an all-inclusive, grassroots performance venue for local and visiting artists, featuring more than 50 original works and dance workshops for both children and adults.
Globally recognized modern dancer and Bard alumnus Ainesh Madan ’15 observes that art comes to the rescue of the mundane. In this interview, he talks about the importance of a daily artistic practice, his most recent work focusing on his return to India after eight years in New York, and pieces he choreographed at Bard now coming to fruition. “Once I went to Bard College,” he tells the Hindu. “I started discovering my artistic side. I dedicated the majority of my day in the studio, even when I was not in class. I made (choreographed/composed) a lot of work. Once the studios were closed, I would come back to my room and work on music.”
Online Event3:00 pm – 4:00 pm EST/GMT-5 The Caribbean Students Association invites the Bard community to join a virtual live screening and panel discussion of the newest Jamaican Dancehall documentary, Out There Without Fear, by Bard student Joelle Powe. This is a multidisciplinary cross-cultural experience expanding into gender and sexuality studies, philosophy, theater, film, anthropology, sociology, music, Africana studies, history, preservation, and religion through the study of dance.
Day 1: Panel Discussion – February 19 from 1 pm to 3 pm EST Meet with the filmmaker and panelists calling in from Kingston, Jamaica. Musicologist Herbie Miller, iconic dancer Kool Kid, and internationally renowned choreographer Latonya Style want to answer your questions! The panel will be moderated by the documentarian, Joelle Powe.
Day 2: Dance Workshop – February 20 from 3 pm to 4 pm EST Dance with two award-winning Dancehall celebrities, Kool Kid and Latonya Style.
Art . . . Dance . . . Classism . . . Violence . . . Sexuality . . . Homophobia . . . The Church . . . The Empowerment of Women . . . Blackness
Friday, February 19, 2021
Online Event1:00 pm – 3:00 pm EST/GMT-5 The Caribbean Students Association invites the Bard community to join a virtual live screening and panel discussion of the newest Jamaican Dancehall documentary, Out There Without Fear, by Bard student Joelle Powe. This is a multidisciplinary cross-cultural experience expanding into gender and sexuality studies, philosophy, theater, film, anthropology, sociology, music, Africana studies, history, preservation, and religion through the study of dance.
Day 1: Panel Discussion – February 19 from 1 pm to 3 pm EST Meet with the filmmaker and panelists calling in from Kingston, Jamaica. Musicologist Herbie Miller, iconic dancer Kool Kid, and internationally renowned choreographer Latonya Style want to answer your questions! The panel will be moderated by the documentarian, Joelle Powe.
Day 2: Dance Workshop – February 20 from 3 pm to 4 pm EST Dance with two award-winning Dancehall celebrities, Kool Kid and Latonya Style.
