Leslie O'Neill

2010 Dancer Fellow

Photo credit: William Camero

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.  

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Emilie Plauché Flink

2010 Dancer Fellow

Photo credit: William Cameron

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.  

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Nic Lincoln

2011 Dancer Fellow

Photo credit: Jim Smith

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.

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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.

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Ashwini Ramaswamy

2012 Dancer Fellow

Photo by Tim Rummelhoff

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.

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Stephen Schroeder

2012 Dancer Fellow

Photo by Tim Rummelhoff

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.”

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Taryn Griggs

2012 Dancer Fellow

Photo by Tim Rummelhoff

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.

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Kari Mosel

2013 Dancer Fellow

Photo by Tim Rummelhof

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.

Tamara Ober

Photo by Tim Rummelhoff

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.

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Gregory Waletski

2013 Dancer Fellow

Photo by Tim Rummelhoff

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.

Sally Rousse

2014 Dancer Fellow

Photo by Tim Rummelhoff

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

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

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

Alanna Morris-Van Tassel

2015 Dancer Fellow

Photo by Tim Rummelhoff

Professional contemporary dancer, teaching artist, and choreographer, Alanna Morris-Van Tassel, was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. She has studied many dance styles at various dance schools in the US and Canada. These include: Creative Outlet Dance Theater (Brooklyn), Ballet Hispanico, The Ailey School, The Joffrey Ballet, Jacobs Pillow and Springboard Danse Montreal. Upon graduating with honors from the famed LaGuardia High School for Music & Art and The Performing Arts (NYC), she received a partial scholarship to The Juilliard School, where she earned a B.F.A. in Dance. She has worked professionally with Nathan Trice/RITUALS, Gallim Dance, and Janis Brenner & Dancers. In 2007 she was invited to Minnesota to join St-Paul based dance company, TU Dance, (directors Toni Pierce-Sands and Uri Sands), where she is currently a performing and teaching artist. In 2011 Alanna received a MN SAGE Award for Outstanding Performer. In 2013, she and her husband, collaborator/composer Brian Van Tassel, received a Live Music for Dance MN grant. They are currently producing Arabah: a prayer for peace, a full evening of collaborative original dance, music, spoken word, visual art, and community dialogue dedicated to fostering peace among religions. Additionally, Alanna teaches youth in public schools, camps, and theater companies throughout the Twin Cities, creating classes that develop movement skills and imagination in young actors, dancers and performers.

SOLO choreographer Idan Sharabi

Brian J. Evans

2015 Dancer Fellow

Photo by Tim Rummelhoff

Photo by Tim Rummelhoff

Brian J. Evans is a Professional Performing Human. For the past eight years, Evans has had the privilege and pleasure of engaging in a vast array of fields. Teaching in public and private institutions, working with healthcare providers in the US and abroad, performing as singer, actor, dancer in churches, theaters, basements, outdoor stages, any space provided that encourages the arts to thrive. An artist striving for social justice, Evans places high value in process and product, having had most of his training out in the 'Arts field' of the Twin Cities, working with over 50 artistic directors on more then 200 projects from solo endeavors to collaborating as a self-employed professional performer & teaching artist. Primarily as a principle dancer and musical director for Stuart Pimsler Dance & Theater, Evans has continued to investigate the idea that connections exist between us all and it's the responsibility of the Arts to rediscover those connections, highlight them to allow us to feel holistically human. 

 

SOLO Choreographer Tamara Ober

Amy Behm-Thomson

2011 Dancer Fellow

Amy Behm-Thomson studied dance at the University of Minnesota. Amy joined ARENA Dances in 1999 and Zenon Dance Company in 2000, and continues to perform and teach yoga and dance. She has also performed with Dancing People Company, Ragamala Music and Dance, Catalyst - Dances by Emily Johnson, and Cathy Young Dance. 

Amy is the proud mother of two young children.

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Johan Amselem

2012 International Artist

McKnight International Fellow 2012 Residency June 11-30, 2012
JOHAN AMSELEM
Cie la Halte-Garderie (The Nursery)

The McKnight Fellowship program selected Paris-based choreographer/dancer Johan Amselem as the first McKnight International Choreographer. Amselem was in residence June 11-30, 2012 in Minneapolis to develop a new work entitled Bon appetit! 

Bon appetit! Work in Progress Showing
Friday, June 29, 2012 8:00 pm
JSB Tek Box, The Cowles Center

Johan worked with dancers Rachel Freeburg, Erika Hanson, Melanie Verne, Ryan Dean, Dustin Hawg, and Zachary Teska; video artist Kevin Obsatz; DJ Shannon Blowtorch; and dramaturgs Morgan Thorson and Karen Sherman. 

"We're still going on exploring the dark side of pleasure. It will be particularly about the pleasure to consume and be consumed. I think of the piece like a recipe that principal ingredients will be your wonderful bodies. As I was thinking on a twisted pleasure that nobody should understand, I came to cannibalism. So we'll work on generating into the audience the desire to eat you. Kevin will increase the hunger with the video. It will also be about promiscuity, bodies against bodies, desire and fear, excesses-we'll be on a burning dance floor stove. And for that I count on Shannon's powerful music and personality live on stage." ~Johan Amselem

Johan Amselem, a 36 year old French choreographer, was born in Toulon, French Riviera, and lives in Paris. He began to learn ballet at 6 years old at Toulon Opera House Dance School, and then modern dance at the National Conservatory of Dance in Avignon and National Center of Contemporary Dance in Angers, directed by L'Esquisse Company - Joëlle Bouvier and Régis Obadia.

He worked for five years as a dancer with Laura Scozzi (known in France and abroad for her directions and choreographies of operas) and was also her choreographic assistant on tour on Platée, an opera-ballet produced by Opéra de Paris - Palais Garnier. Amselem also works as a dancer for Da Da Dans Company with choreographer Helle Bach in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Ameslem is a choreographer of many modern dance solos and duos, often performed in very atypical ways such as choreographic walks around gardens and others public spaces. He also choreographs for popular performances in theaters such as the musical Froufrou les Bains, which won the Moliere Award in 2002 for best musical. Ameslem has also choreographed and directed a musical produced by Vidy Theater in Lausanne, and participated in the first big national celebration of dance last September at the Grand Palais in Paris, organized by the famous Spanish choreographer Blanca Li.

He creates dance theater performances, participative events such as an electro couple dance ballroom with a DJ, gives workshops for professionals and amateurs, adults, teenagers, and children, and creates customized events for enterprises and municipalities.

Amselem has been working with Opera de Paris on a pedagogic program for schools. He works on raising public awareness of dance virtues. Notorious French institutions such as Atelier de Paris, directed by Carolyn Carlson, support him. His company, La Halte-Garderie (The Nursery), is sponsored by Paris City Hall.

Amselem is Mediterranean, and born of a North African Jewish family. His work is sharp and full of joy, rituals, flesh, and spirituality, along with emotions, pleasure, and greed.

George Stamos

2014 International Artist

George Stamos, choreographer, dancer, and artistic director, received a BA in choreography from Amsterdam’s School For New Dance Development. In 1997 he relocated to Montréal where he has been active in the dance community since his arrival.

Stamos’ choreographies have been presented across North America, in Europe, and seasonally in Montréal since 1998. Stamos has also taught many workshops in technique, improvisation, and creative process. Currently he dances in his new duo Liklik Pik and works as a dancer with Zab Maboungou Compagnie Danse Nyata Nyata a contemporary African dance company in Montréal.

Organizations who have presented work by Stamos include L’Agora De La Dance, The Baryshnikov Center For The Arts, Neighbourhood Dance Works, Studio 303, Theatre D’Aujourd’hui, Live Art Productions, The Canada Dance Festival, The Fluid Festival, Tangente, Dancemakers Center For Creation, Dancing on the Edge Festival, Vancouver International Dance Festival, Harbourfront Centre, Amsterdam's International Ness Festival, and many others.

Satmos' experience outside of the contemporary dance world includes volunteer work with community based organizations from 1987-1999 and at the occupational therapy department of Giant Steps School for Children with Autism in 2010.

Sophiline Cheam Shapiro

2013 International Artist

Sophiline Cheam Shapiro is a choreographer, dancer, vocalist, and educator whose dances have infused the venerable Cambodian classical form with new ideas and energy. Her work has toured to three continents hosted by such venues as New York’s Joyce Theater, Cal Performances, Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Venice Biennale, Hong Kong Arts Festival, Carolina Performing Arts, University Musical Society/Ann Arbor, Vienna’s New Crowned Hope Festival and Amsterdam’s Het Muziektheater. Works include Samritechak (2000), The Glass Box (2002), Seasons of Migration (2005), Pamina Devi: A Cambodian Magic Flute(2006), Spiral XI (2008), and Shir-Ha-Shirim (2008), a collaboration with John Zorn. The Lives of Giants premiered in the Fall 2010.  
 
Shapiro is a 2009 recipient of the National Heritage Fellowship, a lifetime honor awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, and a USA Knight Fellowship.  She was awarded the Nikkei Asia Prize for Culture in 2006 and has received Creative Capital, Durfee, Guggenheim, and Irvine Dance Fellowships, among many other honors. 
  
Born in Phnom Penh, Shapiro was a member of the first generation to graduate from the School of Fine Arts after the fall of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime and was a member of the dance faculty there from 1988 to 1991. She studied all three major roles for women (neang, nearong, and yeak), which is rare. With the school’s ensemble, she toured India, the Soviet Union, the USA, and Vietnam. She immigrated to Southern California in 1991, where she studied dance ethnology at UCLA on undergraduate and graduate levels. She is co-founder and Artistic Director of Khmer Arts, a transnational organization dedicated to fostering the vitality of Cambodian dance across borders. 
 
Shapiro lectures and teaches at conferences and universities around the world.  Her many essays have been published in Children of Cambodia's Killing Fields: Memoirs by Survivors (1997, Yale University Press), Dance, Human Rights and Social Justice: Dignity in Motion (2008, Scarecrow Press); Cultural Identities: Tokyo to Bombay (2008, Centre national de la danse), Beyond the Apsara: Celebrating Dance in Cambodia (2009, Routledge), and elsewhere.

Osnel Delgado

2014 International choreographer

Photo by Bill Cameron

Photo by Bill Cameron

Osnel Delgado has received major Cuban awards including the Premio a Mejor Coreografia del Concurso Solamente Solos (Award for Best Solo Choreography), and a Special Mention award at the VII Iberomerican “Alicia Alonso” Choreography competition in Madrid. He was a member of Danza Contemporanea de Cuba from 2003 to 2011 and founded MalPaso Dance Company in 2013, where he currently serves as choreographer and artistic director. Delgado's work expresses the passion and uncertainties that define Cuban life and are embodied in the country's rich dance tradition.

Delgado began his residency in Minneapolis in August 2014 , when he created a new work for Zenon Dance Company, our partner for the 2014 residency. Delgado taught classes in Cuban dance at both the Zenon Dance School and Northrop, and participated in a variety of dance community events.

Delgado’s classes focused on the Cuban technique of modern dance, which is a dense and unique blend of North American modern dance patterns and Afro Cuban dance elements and movement modes. The classes approached key Cuban popular dance styles related to the Rumba Complex; and some dance styles belonging to the Cuban religious dance traditions mostly related to the practice of Santería or Yoruba culture. 

Additionally, two community classes were offered from Minneapolis-based, Cuban-born dancers René Thompson and Chini Perez at Zenon Dance Studio. Thompson’s class taught the uniquely Cuban steps of salsa, chachacha, rumba, mambo, and other traditional Cuban rhythms. Perez taught an all-levels combination of Latin dance and Afro Cuban including Cuban style salsa, merengue, bachata, son, chachacha, rumba, and Columbia.

A public talk called “Baseball and Dance in Cuba” led by Fernando Saez, cofounder of MalPaso and director of the Performing Arts Program of Fundación Ludwig de Cuba, was held at Northrop.

Osnel Delgado returned to Minneapolis in November 2014 for the premiere of his new work, Coming Home, on Zenon Dance Company's season. He was also featured in An Evening With Voice Of Culture Drum and Dance. 

For more information.