STUDIO STORIES: REMINISCING ON TWIN CITIES DANCE HISTORY

Yuki Tokuda is a ballet dancer, choreographer and teacher, based in the Twin Cities. She is originally from Japan and was trained under Mikiko Dei, Hideo Fukagawa and Jun Ishii, internationally recognized dancers, teachers and competition judges. She moved to the US in 2000 to continue her training in New York at the Joffrey Ballet School. Ms. Tokuda has danced professionally with USA Ballet, Peor...

Michael Casper was born and raised in Rockland County, New York. He began dancing at age 19 at Swarthmore College while getting his degree in English Literature. In addition to taking classes with the Swarthmore faculty, Michael studied dance in New York at the Cunningham studio and worked as an administrative intern for Twyla Tharp Dance. He moved to Minneapolis in 1989 to be an understudy with N...

Maggie Bergeron is a teacher, choreographer, dancer, and writer whose life has moved from a Northwestern MN farm to boarding school in Michigan to Minneapolis, MN, where she currently resides. She is currently a Senior Lecturer in the U of MN Dance Program, dances on occasion, makes collaborative work for all sorts of performance occasions, and produced and curated a music/movement festival called...

Abdo Sayegh-Rodriguez (Executive Director and Teaching Artist) . Originally from Venezuela, Abdo’s early performing career included both of Venezuela's leading companies: the Ballet Nacional de Caracas and Ballet Nuevo Mundo de Caracas. Coming to the US as a guest artist in 1994, he performed with Minnesota Dance Theatre and later joined the dance company, becoming its Associate Artistic Dire...

Becky Stanchfield, born and raised in Minneapolis, has been teaching ballet in the Twin Cities for over 50 years.  Her training started at 4 years of age with Dorothy Lundstrum, and continued with Loyce Houlton at The Contemporary Dance Playhouse (later MDT) starting at age 14.  While there, her teachers included Francoise Martinet, Brian Shaw, Rochelle Zide, Madame Peryaslavic, John Kriza, Scott...

Eva Mohn works as a dancer and composer, straddling the USA and Europe. Eva originally comes from Minneapolis, MN. She was a member of a Minneapolis based dance company TU Dance from 2002- 2009. She moved to New York in 2008 to work with German choreographer Johannes Wieland. In 2009 she moved to Kassel, Germany to continue that working relationship with Wieland. In 2012 she moved to Stockholm, Sw...

Caroline Palmer has been writing about dance for over 30 years for publications including Paper Magazine, City Pages, Star Tribune, and her own blog "Big Dance Town." She is currently writing a book about the history of Twin Cities dance called "Making A Scene." Caroline is also a lawyer and works at the Minnesota Department of Health where she focuses on the prevention of huma...

Since his retirement from The McKnight Foundation after 25 years, Neal Cuthbert has been consulting with various nonprofits and businesses and recently served as the Interim Co- Executive Director of the Cedar Cultural Center. During his last decade at McKnight Neal was the Vice-President of Program where all programs and program staff reported to him and he oversaw an annual grantmaking budget of...

Shane Larson was raised in Minnesota, where he received his early training at the St. Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists. He graduated from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, with a BFA in Dance and a minor in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Studies. He also studied at SEAD in Austria. Since living in New York City, he’s branched out to collaborate with punk musicians, film makers, improvisa...

Marylee Hardenbergh has created over 50 outdoor site-specific dances at such sites as Sarajevo, the city of Acre on the Mediterranean, the Aerial High Lift Bridge in Duluth, the Housatonic and Anacostia Rivers, and a 7-site simultaneous performance the length of the Mississippi River. Her first outdoor site dance, Solstice Falls on Friday , was on the yellow mooring cells in the Mississippi River...

Sarah Hauss is a choreographer, dancer, presenter, and teacher who has been living and working in the Twin Cities for over 30 years. She is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance at Gustavus Adolphus College. She has a BA in dance from the University of Oregon and an MFA in dance from the University of Colorado, with additional studies at Hunter College in New York City and University of Milwauke...

Sandra Agustin; she/her/tita Cre8tive Navigator Facilitator/Artist Sandy has an extensive history of arts, social and racial justice and leadership. She is a native Minnesotan, the youngest child of a Filipino immigrant and 5th generation Euro-Minnesotan. Since the age of 9, she has professionally performed and taught dance, later moving into arts administration as executive and artistic director...

Sharon Picasso (she/her) is a Minneapolis, MN based movement, performance and transdisciplinary creative Artist and Founder/Artistic Director of Picasso Projects and Lupa Studio. Her work as a freelance performance and dance artist lives parallel to her work as a choreographer since 1995. Sharon’s creative and collaborative practice has expanded into design including sound, light and installation....

Kevin has worked behind the scenes of the professional dance and theater community for over 40 years. He was resident Lighting Designer and Production Manager for James Sewell Ballet for 20 years. His designs have illuminated internationally acclaimed ballets such as Moving Works, Barrage, Outerborough, Appalachia Waltz, Your Move, and Guy Noir: The Ballet. Kevin designed lighting for the last fou...

The driving force behind Ethnic Dance Theatre, Donald La Course serves as artistic director, lead dancer, choreographer, cultural researcher, and costume designer. Mr. La Course began folk dancing at the age of four. At age seven, he decided to make it his career when he first saw Duquesne University´s Tamburitzans Dancers. Mr. La Course became a member of Edelweiss St. Paul, a German folk dance t...

Georgia Stephens was active as a Dance Theater choreographer, director, writer and sound designer from 1975 through 2009. She moved to the Twin Cities in 1980 to participate in the newly formed Independent Choreographer’s Alliance (MICA). Through this organization, she received numerous performance opportunities and financial support for her work from the McKnight, Jerome and Northwest Area Founda...

Serving as the Walker’s Senior Curator of Performing Arts since 1997, Philip Bither spearheads one of the country's leading contemporary performing arts programs. He oversaw the 2005 building of the McGuire Theater, an acclaimed theatrical space and production laboratory; raised the Walker’s first dedicated performing arts endowment; commissioned of more than 180 new works; and hosts the annu...

Originally from Illinois, dancer, choreographer, director, and creative Mathew Janczewski (he/him) has been residing in Minneapolis, MN since 1989. He was a company member, most notably with Shapiro & Smith Dance from 2007-2014 and JAZZDANCE! By Danny Buraczeski from 1992-97. As a dancer, Mathew has performed as a guest with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, Bebe Miller, and Jacek Luminski...

Micheal Engel (5.12.1953 - 5.19.2022) Growing up in Western North Dakota with 4 brothers and 2  wiry parents, I enjoyed many movement moments such as dodging, running, rolling, spinning, chasing, and jumping while using many props such as dirt clods, snow balls, footballs, and frisbees. After taking my first modern technique class in college in 1974, I realized that dance epitomizes the ‘recreatio...

Margaret Ogas (she/her) is a dancer and choreographer based in Minneapolis. Using an interdisciplinary approach rooted in dance, her works tell surreal everyday stories through a collage of movement, text and sound. Her choreography has been presented at the Walker Art Center, the Cedar Cultural Center, The Minnesota Museum of American Art, Bryant Lake Bowl, Center for Performing Arts, and on side...

Joanie Smith founded Shapiro & Smith Dance in New York City with husband Danial Shapiro. Smith’s works and their collaborative works have been commissioned by companies as diverse as the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Repertory Dance Theater of Salt Lake City, Utah and the PACT Dance Company of Pretoria, South Africa. S&S Dance has toured all over the world from Toledo to Tashkent and...

Emily Michaels King is a performing artist based in St. Paul, Minnesota exploring sensory and embodied engagement in live experiences through movement, multimedia, and visual art. Her work has been presented at the Walker Art Center, the Guthrie Theater, and the Southern Theater, among others. Emily is known for her collaged solo performances, including her award winning show MAGIC GIRL, and her m...

LeilAwa [Leila Awadallah] (she/her) is a Palestinian American dancer, choreographer, and filmmaker based between Minneapolis and Beirut. She is the founder of Body Watani dance project and practice. Her works emerge from physicalized reflections and questions around the notion of body-as-homeland by integrating lands, ancestors, and embodied memories' with traditional Arabic dance forms and h...

Alys Ayumi Ogura (she/her/hers) is a storyteller through her movement, voice and quirky humor. Her dance training began in Japan, where she learned from the now late Mika Kurosawa, the famed godmother of Japanese contemporary dance. She earned a BA in Theater Studies from Westmar University, and her theater training concluded with her earning the “most outstanding student” award from the school’s...

Taryn Griggs and Chris Yon create original dance works that are deadpan slapstick, understated melodrama, autobiographical science fiction, cubist vaudeville, asymmetrically consonant explorations of magic and virtuosity in everyday movement. They met at the Bessie Schönberg Artist Residency at The Yard in 2002 and have been working together ever since.  They were participants in the dance communi...