Sarah Gladwin Camp has a Bachelor of Arts in dance and linguistics from Swarthmore College and holds a Professional Diploma in Dance Studies from Laban in London. She spent time in Australia training in capoeira, practicing yoga, and learning Taiko, and in Poland training extensively with Silesian Dance Theatre. In Europe she has participated in festivals in Lithuania, Slovakia, Finland, and Poland, and has performed with groups in Italy and England. Her most current training has included parkour and aerials at Philadelphia School for Circus Arts.
Since 2004, Sarah has been co-Artistic Director of Green Chair Dance Group, a uniquely collaborative dance-theatre company based in Philadelphia. In addition to choreographing and performing with Green Chair, Sarah dances for Workshop for Potential Movement, Nichole Canuso and The Mural & the Mint, and is also a resident artist and head of programs at Mascher Space Cooperative.
Sarah teaches dance, music, and tumbling to young kids, and runs ZoomDance, her own Action Adventure Story-Telling Dance Classes.
Artist Statement: Currently I'm seeking to develop a creative process of discovering the possibilities that erupt from sincere human interactions. I want to know what happens if you don't simply ignore the guy who bumps you in the elevator. I adore the precarious adventures between strangers, best friends, and new lovers. The woven intricacies of my dances allow the viewer to peer in to the secret cracks of the characters and join their journeys through a tender and vibrant world. I'd like to build landscapes that exist very clearly for both the characters and the audience, but in a fashion that allows them to dissolve and reform as scenarios shift. My curiosities towards choreography and devising are specifically concerned with investigating interaction and reaction between performers.My most recent piece being devised during nEW Festival residencies details the journey of one creature through an ever-shifting landscape created by 10 performers. An army of combat bunnies is out to get the protagonist after she unintentionally steps on one of their friends. Chases, tumbles, and small boats on huge oceans ensue.
Nora Gibson is a dancer and choreographer. Her early training included attending Baltimore School for the Arts, acceptance to ballet residencies with Jean-Pierre Bonnefous, of NYCB, and acceptance to Chautauqua. She later graduated with a BFA from Tisch at NYU. Nora studied improvisational forms with Daniel Lepkoff, Andrew Marcus, Andrew Harwood, Nancy Stark-Smith, and KJ Holmes. Nora has been privileged to dance for PATH Dance Company in Baltimore, MD, and for Andrew Marcus in NY, NY. She currently works with ClancyWorks Dance Co. in D.C., and with Jeffrey Gunshol, formerly of Mark Dendy Dance. She has performed her own work throughout NYC at venues such as P.S. 122, St. Marks Church, and DIA Center for the Arts. Nora established Nora Gibson Performance Project in 2008 with Philadelphia as its home base, and performs prolifically throughout Philly. NGPP has had the pleasure of being an artist in residence with Mascher Space Co-op from October ‘08-March ‘09, and was awarded a 2009-10 Artist in Residency through the nEW Festival. She was awarded the New Edge Residency for 2009-10. Most recently, her work was accepted to be included in Dance Alliance’s New Mix Series, and will be presented at Joyce SOHO in April 2010..
Artist Statement: I have been increasingly appreciating the medium of dance as a visual art. Beyond motion are the crystalline images I see throughout a piece, whether an abstract pattern or an image with a distinct literary association. These pictures open up doorways in my thoughts. Watching dance in this way is the same experience I have when reading a line of poetry that is highly imagistic. There are the words, and then there is the explosion of recognition when I see the picture. I want to make dance like the poet who detonates that vibrant picture in the mind. I want the viewer of my dances to experience the beauty of pattern, or to allow the images I embed in the piece to unlock their literary self, their thinking self, their feeling self.
http://noragibsonperformanceproject.weebly.com
Jen McGinn began dancing in the womb of an incredible ballerina, while listening to the Scottish limericks and songs whispered to her by her father, a painter. Today, she makes works with her friends and family as an independent dance artist. She received her B.A. from Hollins University in Dance and Arts Management in 2005 and went on to receive her M.F.A. in Dance from Hollins in partnership with the ADF in 2006. She has been an artist-in-residence at Hollins University, Booker High School Visual and Performing Arts Center, the American Dance Festival School for Young Dancers, the West Coast Civic Ballet, currently as a nEW Festival Artist, and as a Fresh Tracks Artist through Dance Theater Workshop. She has been fortunate enough to show her work along the east coast: Movement Research at the Judson Church, Hollins Fall Dance Gathering, Paraphrase at Nexus, Performance Mix at Joyce SoHo, the Live Arts Festival A.W.A.R.D. Show, Danspace Project Academy Dances, AUNTS, and In-Flux at Mascher Space Co-op, among others. Her interests include Cecchetti ballet, magical thinking, and logic problems.
Artist Statement: My work is symbolic logic. I use movement as a reference, as a signifier. I re—search the past to re-define, re-shape, re-present. I am interested in déjà vu and an unnamed specificity. Through repetition, simplicity, and humor-I investigate humanity (equality, deficiency, absurdity).
Dina-Verley Sabb-Mills holds a BFA in dance from the University of the Arts and will be finishing her Masters in Dance at Temple University. Dina has studied and worked with Patricia Scott-Hobbs, Shawn Lamere Williams, Dr. Yhema Mills, Dr. Kariamu Welsh, Wayne St. David, Faye Snow, Christopher Huggins, Eva Gholson, and Kota Yamazaki. Dina is currently an adjunct faculty member at Temple University. Dina's teaching credits also include DaCi International, The Jamaica Cultural Development Commission, American College Dance Festival, Black College Dance Exchange, and Freedom Theatre. Dina is a working dance artist in the Philadelphia area and is a member of Kariamu & Company: Traditions and Charles O. Anderson's Dance Theatre x.
artistic statement: i am a woman of African descent. i am a dancer. i am a thinker. i am an activist. i don’t play. i undulate. i stomp. i wind. i clap. i dance for love. i dance for freedom. i dance to inspire. i dance to educate. i take the things i see in my head, neon beams of color, blurry images of swirling bodies, and chest thudding shudders of rhythmic accents and set them out for display, seamlessly. it is this process that i am consumed with, the delicate task of placing movement after movement into one intricate cutout of my mind. this cutout pictures shapes of bodies decorated with rich tones, textured arms and legs, dynamic rhythmic quality, sinuous transitions, and piercing intentionality.
Guillermo Ortega Tanus is the co-director of Da·Da·Dance Project (US-Mexico-Korea), a duet repertory company which has been presented at many International venues and Festivals, performing works by Elise Knudson, Helena Franzén, Gerald Casel, Eun Jung Choi and himself since 2008.
As a choreographer, he strives to invent original movement vocabularies for each dance he makes. He often combines theatricality with visual metaphors. Apart from Da·Da·Dance Project, he has presented solos at Dixon Place, Newsteps Series, Merce Cunningham Studio, and Tlacochimaco in New York, and Foro Experimental, Fuego Nuevo, Los Talleres de Coyoacán, La Casa de Las Bombas in Mexico.
He has danced for numerous companies and artists in both Mexico and the US including UX Onodanza (Mexico), A Poc A Poc (Mexico), Eterno Caracol (Mexico), Kelly Nipper (LA), Miro Dance Theatre (Philly), David Gordon's Pick Up Performance Co. (NY), Risa Jaroslow and Dancers (NY), Anonymous Bodies (Philly) and many others.
Currently he is a resident artist at nEW festival and a recipient of the "National Fund for the Culture and the Arts, Student Scholarship". Both as performer and creator, Guillermo has received grants from: National Fund for the Culture and the Arts (2007-08); Mexico en Escena (2005-06); the State Foundation of Culture and Arts (FOESCA 09-10); Mexican Institute of the Youth (2003-04); and the Secretary of Social Development (1997-98). He also has been supported by the National Council of the Culture and Arts and the Mexican Cultural Institute of New York.
Artist Statement: As a dancer-choreographer, I continuously challenge to discover different ways to create movement and investigate deeply into the subject matters. My interests in music, poetry, theatre, performance and literature, has influenced me to explore the intersections between dance and the other arts such as video, photo, installation, collage Etc.. I like to play and ask myself questions to find momentary answers during the process even if they are not definitive answers. My inspiration often comes from the 20th century’s visual art, and human behaviors. Photo Credits: © Eric Bandiero
http://www.dadadanceproject.org
http://www.guillermoortega.net
Abigail Zbikowski Abigail Zbikowski received her BFA in dance with a minor in psychology from Temple University. After graduation she continued choreographing and dancing while running a dance program at a high school in New Jersey. She has had the opportunity to show her choreographic work at the National ACDFA Conference at the Kennedy Center, the Dumbo Dance Festival, and the Philadelphia Ethical Society, among others. In the past Abby has performed with George Alley/Alley Ink Dance, Megan Mazarick and Charles O. Anderson/dance theatre X. She is currently in her first year of the MFA program at OSU with a focus on choreography on a University Fellowship.
During the nEW Festival I plan to continue researching movement’s relation to and representation of sound. In an attempt to bridge the gap of dance audiences and the rest of the world, I want to explore ways of making dance as accessible to the masses as music, without losing its integrity. I am also fascinated in thresholds of perception and its variation from person to person. How little and much can audiences really take? What makes anything watchable? I want to continue to look at how much and how little motion is necessary for movement scenarios to convey their purpose. My goal is for the energy to be the focal point, and the body to only be seen as a medium.
