Lobby TALKS: Relevance of the University, Part II

Discussion moderated by Maura Nguyen Donohue
Coordinated by Chase Granoff

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Lobby TALKS creates a forum for open and in-depth discourse on contemporary issues in dance and performance. Organized around specific themes, each meeting uses as a starting point one or more of the artistic investigations, methodologies, and motivations that can be seen in performance today. Subjects will be investigated, challenged, and considered by an invited group of artists, critics, and theorists, and is open to all who would like to join the conversation.

Participant Biographies:

Philippine-born GERALD CASEL received a BFA in Dance from The Juilliard School in 1991 and an MFA in Dance from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2007 assisted by a fellowship from the Advanced Opportunity Program. He has danced in the companies of Michael

Clark, Stanley Love, Zvi Gotheiner, Lar Lubovitch, The Metropolitan Opera Ballet, Sungsoo Ahn and Stephen Petronio where he was a member from 1991-1998 and 2001-2005 serving as the Stephen Petronio Company’s Assistant Director and Director of Education. In 1997 he was honored to receive a New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award for sustained achievement. As a teacher, Casel has taught at Movement Research, Dance New Amsterdam, ImpulsTanz, Sarah Lawrence College, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Barnard College and currently as an Associate Professor of Choreography at Long Island University. He is a full time Associate Teacher at NYU Tisch School of the Arts where he recently received the David Payne-Carter Award for Teaching Excellence. In 1999 and 2006-2007, he was a Movement Research Artist-in-Residence. Casel began making choreography for his company GERALDCASELDANCE in 1998 performing at Dance Theater Workshop, Joyce SoHo, Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out, Danceworks (Milwaukee), Conduit (Portland) and ODC Theater (San Francisco). He has been commissioned by The Yard (Make Way For Dragons, 2001), NYU Second Avenue Dance Company (Kinship Descent, 2007), The Barnard Project at DTW (Frost, 2007), DaDa Dance Projects (Exit Skeleton, 2008) and Query (2009), a collaboration with Edinburgh’s X Factor Dance Company which toured throughout Scotland. His upcoming work Fluster and Plot will premiere at Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church April 22-24, 2010. www.geraldcaseldance.com

MAURA NGUYEN DONOHUE (Moderator) was born in Saigon, Vietnam and raised in the US. In 1995, she founded Maura Nguyen Donohue/inmixedcompany following her first appearance at DTW as part of Fresh Tracks. Her work has toured extensively across the US and to Canada, Switzerland, Italy, Denmark, Japan, Vietnam, and Thailand. In NYC, she has been commissioned and produced several times by Dance Theater Workshop, Performance Space 122, and Mulberry St. Theater (now Chen Dance Center). As Artistic Advisor for DTW’s Mekong Project, Donohue curated and facilitated international exchange and residency programs for Asian diaspora artists in the US and Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam. She writes for Culturebot, served as guest editor for Critical Correspondence’s University Project, served as advisor and Asian Bureau Chief for The Dance Insider from 2000-2009 and has also written for Dance Magazine, American Theater Journal and HK Dance Journal. She serves on the Boards of DTW and Congress on Research in Dance. She was an Assistant Professor of Dance at Queens College, a teaching fellow at Smith, Hampshire and Mt. Holyoke Colleges, and began as an Assistant Professor of Dance at Hunter College this past September. She holds both a BA in Anthropology and Dance (‘92) and an MFA in Dance (‘08) from Smith College. She has two children.

JANA FEINMAN is the Director of the Hunter College Dance Program where she has taught for over twenty years. While Director, she has inaugurated several innovative programs including an out-reach program for public schools, New York State certification in dance education and the “Sharing the Legacy” conference and concert series. During Feinman’s thirty-year career as a dancer, choreographer and educator, she has choreographed over 50 contemporary and theater works, served on the boards of many dance organizations, established and participated in national conferences and adjudicated major national projects. Feinman holds an EdD from Temple University where her interest in the creative process led her to investigate Alwin Nikolais’ philosophy, methodology, and artistry in her doctoral dissertation, Alwin Nikolais, a New Philosophy of Dance: The Process and the Product 1948-1968.

JULIANA F. MAY, a New York City native, graduated from Oberlin College in 2002 with a dual degree in Dance and Art History. Since then, May has created eight works, including four evening length pieces with commissions from DNA, Dance Theater Workshop, Barnard College at Columbia University, The Chocolate Factory, Joyce SoHo, Movement Research, The International Contemporary Ensemble (I.C.E.) in Chicago, Illinois and The Repertory Project, a Cleveland-based company. This summer May will start an MFA program at The University of Wisconsin.

DAVID NEUMANN has been a featured dancer in the works of Susan Marshall, Jane Comfort, Sally Silvers, Irene Hultman, Cathy Weis, Big Dance Theater, and the late club legend Willi Ninja. He was a member of Doug Varone and Dancers, and an eight-year original member and collaborator with the Doug Elkins Dance Company, with whom he toured nationally and internationally. He continues to perform and choreograph for theater, opera and film working with such directors as: Hal Hartley, Laurie Anderson, Robert Woodruff, Lee Breuer, Peter Sellars, JoAnn Akalaitis, Chris Bayes, Mark Wing-Davey, Daniel Sullivan, Les Waters and Molly Smith. Recent and upcoming projects include: creative movement on “I Am Legend” with Will Smith, performing “Beckett Shorts” with Mikhail Baryshnikov at New York Theater Workshop and choreographing “The Bacchae” at the Public Theater. As artistic director of advanced beginner group, Neumann’s work has been presented in New York at PS 122, Dance Theater Workshop, Central Park SummerStage (where he collaborated with John Giorno), Celebrate Brooklyn and Symphony Space (where he collaborated with Laurie Anderson) and The Whitney. His work has also been presented at the Walker Art Center and MASS MoCA. He’s currently a professor of Theater at Sarah Lawrence College and a guest lecturer at both Barnard College and The Graduate Acting Program at Yale University. He is premiering “BIG EATER” at The Kitchen in March 2010.

CHASE GRANOFF (Coordinator) is a Brooklyn based dance artist. He has worked as a dancer with many choreographers including RoseAnne Spradlin, Jeremy Wade, Beth Gill and Daria Faïn. His choreography has been presented throughout NYC and has toured to Limerick, Berlin and Prague. He has collaborated extensively with Jon Moniaci. Chase co-curated Live Sh– at The Chocolate Factory with Chris Peck from 2005 to 2008. He is a member of heart the band with Eleanor Bauer, Gill, Moniaci and Peck. He initiated and curates Lobby TALKS at Dance Theater Workshop. Chase recently published and co-edited a publication with Jenn Joy in conjunction with his performance, The Art of Making Dances. Other recent projects include teaching at Daghdha in Limerick, Ireland and curating the performance event ROLLING also at Daghdha. He is excited to be teaching as part of CLASSCLASSCLASS this coming March and April.

Lobby TALKS is supported, in part, by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.