Collaborators

Collaborators

VITA BEREZINA-BLACKBURN (Animator) is a digital and animation artist born and raised in the Soviet
Siberia. The downfall of the empire opened Vita's eyes on impermanence of material reality, and thus her
journey into the virtual began. Vita holds an MA in Computer Art from West Texas A&M University, and
an MFA in Art and Technology from the Ohio State University where she began collaborating with dancers.
Presently Vita is an animation specialist at ACCAD (Advanced Center for Computing in the Arts and
Design) at the Ohio State University, teaching computer animation and participating in various
animation-related multidisciplinary and art projects.

MAYA CIARROCCHI (Video) is a New York City based video designer and installation artist.  She has created video and projection design for such choreographers as Wally Cardona, Morph: Live Remix, Grisha Coleman, echo :: system, Merce Cunningham, Event, Bebe Miller, Landing/Place, Donna Uchizono, Approaching Green, and for such theater productions as Relativity (Ensemble Studio Theater), written by Cassandra Medley and directed by Talvin Wilks, and Elvis People (New World Stages), written by Doug Grissom and directed by Henry Wishcamper. Additionally, she was a projection artist on Wendell K. Harrington's design team for the Illuminating Bolcom Festival (Orchestra Hall, Minneapolis). Her video installations have been exhibited at the Hammer Museum, Chashama, the Westbeth Gallery and Dance Theater Workshop. Upcoming projects include projection design for Antigone (Ripe Time) and On The Way to Timbuktu (Ensemble Studio Theater) written by Petronia Paley and directed by Talvin Wilks. Ciarrocchi holds a BFA in Dance from SUNY Purchase and an MFA in Computer Art from the School of Visual Arts and is an assistant professor in the MFA New Media and Performance Program at Long Island University.

AIN GORDON (Writer) is a two-time Obie Award winning writer and director, a two-time NYFA Playwriting fellow and a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow. Gordon is currently developing a one-woman play about the Galveston, TX flood of 1900, a multi-year project rooted in real and imagined histories of his home, New York City, and an alternative historical portrait of Lexington, KY funded by Rockefeller MAP and the NEA and slated for production (with the Actors Guild of Lexington and LexArts) in 2008. Recently, Gordon appeared in Spalding Gray: Stories Left To Tell.

ANGIE HAUSER (Dancer) is a dance-artist grounded in improvisation and performance.  She has been a member of the Bebe Miller Company, since 2000.  In 2006 Angie was awarded a BESSIE for her collaborative work with Company.  She has also danced with the companies of Elizabeth Streb, Liz Lerman and Poppo Shiriashi.  Her creative work also includes an ongoing dance making collaboration with Chris Aiken, with performances and workshops in the U.S. and in Europe, including current project, Dwell, co-commissioned by the National Performance Network. Hauser received her MFA from Ohio State University.

KATHLEEN HERMESDORF (Dancer) has been dancing in San Francisco since 1991.  She co-directed Hermesdorf & Wells Dance Company with Scott Wells, recognized with a SF Bay Guardian GOLDIE Award, and was a member of the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company, receiving an Isadora Duncan Award for Ensemble Performance.  She has worked with Contraband/Sara Shelton Mann since 1994, acted as Artistic Director of MOTION LAB since 1998 and joined the Bebe Miller Company in 2002.
 
KRISTINA ISABELLE (Dancer) originally from Columbus, earned her BFA in dance from The Juilliard School and an MFA in dance and choreography from The Ohio State University.  She has performed with The Stephen Petronio Company, Earth Circus Productions, Jordan Fuchs, and currently Bebe Miller.  She is the artistic director of Kristina Isabelle Dance Company and co-director of HighJinks Productions, an entertainment company.  Isabelle has been dancing on stilts and incorporating stilt work into her choreography for more than a decade and is also a fire performer, aerialist and circus performer. Her choreography has been produced in Columbus, New York, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, Fort Worth, England, Ireland and Poland.  She has served as a guest artist for The Ohio State University, Kenyon College, Ohio Wesleyan University, Wittenberg University, Alfred University, and The College of Lake County.

DARRELL JONES (Dancer) is a native Floridian. He received an MFA degree in Choreography and Performance from Florida State University in 1995. He has performed in the US and abroad with Bebe Miller, Company, Urban Bush Women, Ronald K. Brown, Min Tanaka and KOKUMA Dance Theater.  As a teacher his classes are informed by  his training and studies in improvisation, acting, butoh, and film/video production.

MICHAEL MAZZOLA (Lighting Designer) has won two Bessie Awards for his lighting designs. He has worked with Bebe Miller since 1986.

ALBERT MATHIAS (Composer) is a multi-instrumentalist who has been making music in San Francisco since 1992.  He has released five CDs as a solo artist and four albums with LiveHuman, trio with bassist Andrew Kushin and DJ Quest.  His work on MOTION LAB's Blue 2000 was nominated for an Isadora Duncan Award and used as the sound score for "Artists in Exile", a Bay Area dance documentary by RAPT Productions.  He is the Musical Director of MOTION LAB.

CYNTHIA OLIVER (Dancer) has danced with numerous companies, including most notably, the David Gordon Pick Up Co. and Ronald Kevin Brown/Evidence. As an actor she has performed in Greg Tate's My Darling Gremlin, Ione's Nginga the Queen King, Ntozake Shange's A Photograph Lovers in Motion, and Laurie Carlos's site specific production Vanquished by Voodoo as well as her BESSIE award winning White Chocolate for My Father.  Cynthia is a BESSIE award winning choreographer and performer who works with a mélange of dance theatre and the spoken word, incorporates textures of Caribbean performance with African and American sensibilities.  She was named "Outstanding Young Choreographer" by reviewer Frank Werner of German magazine Ballet Tanz and has had her dance film AfroSocialiteLifeDiva aired on European television's Canal Arte (France, Germany, Italy) and 3sat (Germany, Austria, Switzerland). She holds a PhD. in Performance Studies from New York University. She joined the dance faculty of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in 2000.

TALVIN WILKS (Dramaturg) is a playwright, director and dramaturg. His plays include Tod, the boy, Tod, The Trial of Uncle S&M, Bread of Heaven, and An American Triptych.  Directorial projects include UDU by Sekou Sundiata, No Black Male Show by Carl Hancock Rux and the Obie Award/AUDELCO Award winning, The Shaneequa Chronicles by Stephanie Berry. He has served a co-writer/dramaturg for five productions in Ping Chong’s ongoing series of Undesirable Elements, and as writer/dramaturg for the Bessie Award winning, Verge with the Bebe Miller Company. Wilks was recently Interim Artistic Director for New WORLD Theater, in residence at the Fine Arts Center on the University of Massachusetts/Amherst campus.

YEN-FANG YU (Dancer) is a performer and choreographer from Taiwan. She received a B.F.A. in performance and choreography from Taipei National University of the Arts and recently graduated with an M.F.A. in choreography from The Ohio State University. From 2001 to 2004, she studied and performed improvisation, contact improvisation, and choreography with Ku and Dancers Dance Company (Taiwan). Yu has presented her work in various events in New York City, Columbus, and major cities in Taiwan. She is currently working with the Bebe Miller Company.