Donna Uchizono is a dance artist based in New York City and the artistic director of Donna Uchizono Company, which has performed throughout the United States, Europe, South America, Australia, and Asia. Uchizono has received public and critical recognition for her innovative movement language and distinct wit, recognized by notable collaborations with Mikhail Baryshnikov, Paula Vogel, David Hammons, and Oliver Sacks. In 2011, after decades of critically-acclaimed dance works that toured nationally and internationally, Donna Uchizono was identified by the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts (NYPL) and Dance Heritage Coalition as a master choreographer whose works require preservation. Donna Uchizono Company received 2021-2024 National Endowment for the Arts award for Phase One, Two and Three for the archival and preservation of her work. In addition to being a USArtist Fellow, Guggenheim Fellow, and Bessie Award winner, Uchizono has been recognized by many awards including an Alpert Award in Dance and grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, NEFA/National Dance Project, National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, Creative Capital Foundation, Altria Group, Inc., the Jerome Foundation, the Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation, Arts International, Foundation for Contemporary Performance, National Performance Network, Harkness Foundation for Dance, the Greenwall Foundation, Meet the Composer, among others.
Uchizono is an active member of the dance community and supports new artistic voices through outreach and education programs. She has served as a mentor for Sugar Salon, DoublePlus at Gibney Dance Center, and currently through her own company’s choreographic mentorship program, Shared Choreographic Practice and is currently working with Kristel Baldoz through NCCAkron’s Dancing Lab’s Intergenerational Partnership. She founded the Artist Advisory Board at Danspace Project, initiated a panel series on issues in the Dance Field at Gibney, and has served as a grants panelist for various funding institutions.
Donna Uchizono was distinguished by the NYPL as the first and only American-born choreographer of Asian ancestry in the history of Modern Dance, to have received the recognition of both cumulative esteemed national awards and significant national and international touring of an eponymous dance company. With this odd distinction, she has been tirelessly reaching out to leaders in the field to address the problem of invisibility and omission faced by American born artists of Asian ancestry.
Tim Bendernagel grew up in Brooklyn, New York where he continues to live and dance. Most recently, he has collaborated with choreographers Donna Uchizono, Anna Sperber, Stacy Spence, Chloe London, Ryan McNamara, Maya Lee Parritz, Sharleen Chidiac, and John Jasperse, among others. Tim began his dance training at Dancewave in Park Slope, Brooklyn under the direction of Diane Jacobowitz. He then went on to graduate with a BFA from The Ohio State University in 2017. When he’s not dancing, Tim works as a landscape gardener for Gay Gardens in The Pines on Fire Island.
Rebecca Serrell Cyr is a New York based dance artist and educator, honored with a Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award for her work with Donna Uchizono Company, nominated for her work with RoseAnne Spradlin, and past performer in works by artists including Jeremy Nelson, Amanda Loulaki, Levi Gonzalez, Anna Sperber, and Vanessa Anspaugh. Early influences include studies with Dan Wagoner, Yvonne Meier, and the TN Children’s Dance Ensemble. Her own work has been presented at The Kitchen (Dance and Process), JACK, Movement Research at the Judson Church, and Dance Theater Workshop (Fresh Tracks), AUNTS, and CATCH! She has taught at Gibney Dance, Movement Research, colleges in North America, and at The Beijing Dance Academy as well as for the New York City Department of Education as a Lincoln Center Scholar.
Levi Gonzalez is a dance artist and advocate, originally from Los Angeles, who lived and worked in New York City for 20 years before beginning his current full-time faculty position at Bennington College in 2020. Through his work, he has consistently engaged in research and inquiries around the sensorium, artistic process, concepts of normativity, and investigations of the body and its impact across cultures. Working with Uchizono on State of Heads was one of his first experiences as a young NYC dancer and remains very special to him. Gonzalez collaborates regularly with luciana achugar, and has performed extensively with Donna Uchizono Company, John Jasperse Company, Juliette Mapp, ChameckiLerner, Daria Faïn, and Michael Laub’s Remote Control Productions. He was a founding editor of Critical Correspondence, an online publication of Movement Research, and served as Artistic Advisor for New York Live Art’s Fresh Tracks Residency Program from 2006 to 2014 and for the Brooklyn Arts Exchange Artist-in-Residence program from 2012 to 2014. From 2012 to 2016 was the Director of Artist Programs for Movement Research. His choreographic work has been presented extensively in New York City as well as nationally and internationally. He received his BFA in Dance from California Institute of the Arts in 1997, his MFA in Choreographic Inquiry at UCLA’s Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance in June of 2019.
Chelsea Enjer Hecht is a Brooklyn based dance artist with roots in Minnesota and Mongolia. Their dance lineage includes ballet, competitive jazz, lyrical, and tap. Cunningham, Graham and contact improvisation were later influences while studying at SUNY Purchase College, with a semester abroad in Taiwan at Taipei National University of the Arts. She has enjoyed performing in fashion shows, dance films, music videos, museum installations and outdoors in addition to the stage with numerous creatives for the past ten years. Their solo works were presented at Arts on Site’s Made by Women Festival, and by POGO Dance (dir. Emily Kessler) at Fort Greene Park. She has guest taught for Midday Movement in Boston and Peridance. In the past year, they performed with Rachel Gill, MeenMoves (dir. Sameena Mitta), Amber Sloan, Alexa West, and Megan Williams Dance Projects. She also assisted MeenMoves in setting work at Marymount Manhattan College and a multigenerational cast at 92NY. When she is not dancing, Chelsea is honing her practice as a licensed massage therapist. When they are not working, they are committed to cooking dinner without following a recipe.
James Lo (sound design) is a product of suburban Detroit, the New England Conservatory, and Columbia University. He has created scores for choreographers Molly Lieber/Eleanor Smith, Jodi Melnick, Neil Greenberg, David Thomson, Vicky Shick, Elena Demyanenko, Katie Workum, Heather Olson, Sarah Michelson, Maria Hassabi, Jennifer Monson, Levi Gonzalez, Ralph Lemon, RoseAnne Spradlin, and Lucy Guerin among others. He received the inaugural Alvin Lucier Award for Music from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts and received New York Dance and Performance (BESSIE) Awards for this piece, State of Heads, as well as John Jasperse’s furnished/unfurnished. As a drummer, he is best known for his recordings with the bands Chavez and Live Skull.
Jodi Melnick, choreographer, performer, and teacher, has been dancing in New York City since the late 1980s. In 1990, Melnick began working with Donna Uchizono, her first experience working with a freelance, downtown choreographer- work with Donna included dancing in a trio with Hristoula Harakas and Mikhail Baryshnikov. Melnick was a member of the Twyla Tharp dance company and created solo work with Trisha Brown. Over the years, she has performed at Danspace with artists such as: Sara Rudner, Vicky Shick, Susan Rethorst, Dennis O’Conner, Beth Gill, Sara Mearns, Rashaun Mitchell, and Sondra Loring. Other choreographers and artists Melnick works with include John Jasperse, Jon kinzel, Maya Lee-Parritz, Liz Roche, Yoshiko Chuma, David Neumann, Charlie Atlas, and Sibyl Kempson. Currently, Melnick is creating a new solo piece for herself, alongside a large group work for her students at Barnard College, and performing with John Jasperse next month at La MaMa.
Paulina Meneses (she/they) is a Filipino-American dancer, choreographer’s assistant, and arts administrator hailing from Las Vegas, NV. She graduated magna cum laude from SUNY Purchase with a BFA in Dance and minor in Arts Management. During their time in college, they performed works by Kimberly Bartosik, Shannon Gillen, Xan Burley, Sue Bernhard, Alexandra Beller, and Trisha Brown. Now based in New York City, she has worked with esteemed artists including Doug Varone and Dancers, Dylan Crossman, Hannah Garner’s 2nd Best Dance Company, and Kyle Abraham on his New York City Ballet premiere, “The Runaway.” They currently collaborate and dance for Johnnie Cruise Mercer, MeenMoves, Peter Stathas, Marie Lloyd Paspe, and Julia Antinozzi. Paulina is excited to be a part of Donna Uchizono’s reimagining of State of Heads!
David Thomson is a wanderer in the fields of dance, music, theater, and performance. He creates, collaborates, and deeply cares about how we sustain ourselves as a field. Recently, he co-developed the Artist Resource Collective, a financial wellness and creative development program in collaboration with YoungArts. His last performance with Donna was in the spring of 1994. He’s thrilled to be invited to perform Dedications.
James Lo (sound design) is a product of suburban Detroit, the New England Conservatory, and Columbia University. He has created scores for choreographers Molly Lieber/Eleanor Smith, Jodi Melnick, Neil Greenberg, David Thomson, Vicky Shick, Elena Demyanenko, Katie Workum, Heather Olson, Sarah Michelson, Maria Hassabi, Jennifer Monson, Levi Gonzalez, Ralph Lemon, RoseAnne Spradlin, and Lucy Guerin among others. He received the inaugural Alvin Lucier Award for Music from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts and received New York Dance and Performance (BESSIE) Awards for this piece, State of Heads, as well as John Jasperse’s furnished/unfurnished. As a drummer, he is best known for his recordings with the bands Chavez and Live Skull.
Michael Grimaldi (photo installation) is a photographer/videographer living and working in New York City. Currently, he is a Professor in the department of photography at Parsons School of Design in New York. His work has appeared in numerous galleries including The Sotheby Gallery, Multimedia Gallery, Astra Gallery and most recently Mazeo Gallery in New York. Grimaldi has received a Ford Foundation grant for his work in Conceptual Performance photography and has continued in this genre. He working on a project titled TRUTH AND COLOR , which speaks about the capture of color and light without the use of digital manipulation. This work will appear in book form in 2014. His saturated, beautifully lit images capture the spirit and awe of an otherwise drab urban scene. Mr. Grimaldi has worked in the corporate sector of photography with numerous clients, which include GE, Ernst & Young, Clairol, Corning, Hilton Hotels, Carnival Cruise Lines, Conde Nast Publications,Providence Gas, Under Armour, Forrester Research and others. He has crisscrossed the globe several times producing beautiful and engaging food and travel photographs for books, travel magazines and corporate clients. His book SCANDINAVIAN FEASTS, Stewert, Tabori & Chang has won critical acclaim for its food photography. The book ESCAPE 50 DREAM HOMES was a wonderful, colorful, group of images for the upscale client who could afford to stay in these incredible rental homes. He has crisscrossed the globe several times producing beautiful and engaging food and travel photographs for books, travel magazines and corporate clients. His book SCANDINAVIAN FEASTS, Stewert, Tabori & Chang has won critical acclaim for its food photography. The book ESCAPE 50 DREAM HOMES was a wonderful, colorful, group of images for the upscale client who could afford to stay in these incredible rental homes.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
