Artists

(Photo: Nathea Lee)

Adrienne Abdus-Salaam received her BFA in Modern Dance from the University of the Arts. In addition, she holds an EdM concentrated in dance and PA teaching certification from Temple University. She received her certification in Contemporary African Dance from the University of Ghana in Accra. In 2011 Adrienne was nominated for the Pew Fellowship Award. She was employed as an Adjunct Professor in the dance department at Temple University for 3 years, as well as the New Jersey State Council for the Arts in Education, Delaware Institute for the Arts and Education, and Rutgers-Camden Artist Community Outreach Program as a dance teaching artist. She is a fulltime dance instructor for the School District of Philadelphia. Adrienne is a former apprentice for Urban Bush Women. She has also danced with Charles O. Anderson’s Dance Theater X, Danse 4 Nia Repertory Ensemble and KuluMele African Dance and Drum Ensemble.  She currently performs with Kariamu and Company and the Germaine Ingram Project.

(Photo: Linday Browning)

Ellen Gerdes is a performer, dance educator, and scholar.  In Philadelphia, she has taught as a teaching artist in 20 schools and as an adjunct instructor in the dance programs of Temple University and Drexel University.  In addition to performing for independent choreographers, she has been a member of the Leah Stein Dance Company, Mendelssohn Club Choir, and Chestnut Street Singers chamber ensemble. Inspired by travel abroad in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, her research focuses on intersections of pedagogy, politics, and cultural heritage in the Chinese diaspora.  In 2007, the Association for Asian Performance awarded her the Emerging Scholars Award based on her ethnographic research of Chinese yangge dance. Her writing has been published by Dance Chronicle, Journal of Dance Education, Cultural Studies: Critical Methodologies, Asian Theatre Journal, Journal of Emerging Dance Scholarship, and thinkingdance.net .  Ellen holds a B.A. in dance from Wesleyan University and an Ed.M. in dance from Temple University; she will start a doctoral degree in culture and performance at UCLA in Fall 2013.

(Photo: J.J. Tiziou)

Germaine Ingram is a jazz tap dancer and vocal improviser.  Her work is a constantly evolving interpretation of styles and traditions learned from legendary Philadelphia hoofer LaVaughn Robinson (1927-2008), her teacher, mentor, and performance partner for more than 25 years.  Through choreography, performance, writing, production, oral history documentation, and designing and leading artist learning environments, she explores themes related to history, collective memory, and social justice.  She was named a 2010 Pew Fellow in the Arts, among other awards and recognitions.

(Photo: Rochelle Haynes)

Corinne Karon (dancer/choreographer), a professional tap dancer and dance teacher, graduated from the University of the Arts in 1996. Since then she has danced on every continent in the world, including Antarctica. Corinne is executive director of Tap Team Two, and Founder and Artistic Director of Uniting Colleges Through Tap. Corinne won a “Rocky” award in 2010 for her work with Men On Tap, received the “University of the Arts Faculty Enrichment Grant” in 2011, spent a three year term (2010 – 2013) on the Advisory Committee for the Dance USA – Philadelphia branch, and is part of an assembly program, with Tap Team Two, that was selected and honored as the #1 “Artist of the Year” from the National Trusties of Young Audience during the 2000-2001 school year. Corinne teaches on a regular basis for the University of the Arts, Rowan University, Bryn Mawr College, the Chester Valley Dance Academy and the Wissahickon Dance Academy.   Corinne is honored to be part of the Philadelphia Learning Community of dancers inspired by history and social justice. Corinne has valued every moment the community has spent together and hopes to continue the relationships she’s developed outside of PLC  through collaborations in the upcoming season.

(Photo: Nathea Lee)

Jung Woong Kim is a South Korean performer, choreographer and dance teacher. Since 2003, he has been dedicated to developing his approach to Contact Improvisation and his methods for teaching and performing. His approach is rooted in his extensive training in martial arts and korean traditional dances. He is inspired by the energy exchange of the bodies and the movement discipline of protection and play. He has taught Contact Improvisation for dancers, actors, and non-dancers of different ages at universities and dance centers in South Korea, Tokyo, New York, Philadelphia and Virginia. For the last 13 years Kim’s choreographic work has continued to investigate ways of integrating live music, sculptural objects and movement to create improvisational scores in which performers negotiate the spontaneous with the predetermined. Currently he is based in Philadelphia were he lives with his family.

(Photo: Mark Scott)

Award-winning actor, dancer and instructor Khalil A.M.R. Munir has proven himself to be more than just a promising talent—he is a visionary young creative artist whose awe-inspiring dance and remarkable stage acting continue to rouse an array of audiences. Those talents have culminated in a career-making role in 1 Pound 4 Ounces, the riveting one-man show combining impassioned storytelling with music and improvisational tap dance. Having overcome adversities including a broken home marred by drugs and incarceration, as well as devastating childhood learning hurdles, Munir has conquered that and much more, emerging as an artistic risk-taker and respected role model. His brand of exciting aural-visual experience and electrifying expression is “art imitating life” at its very best, taking show-goers on a tumultuous real-life journey.

(Photo: Lindsay Browning)

Shavon Norris is an artist, educator and performer.  Originally from New York City, she received a BA from Manhattanville College where she majored in Biology. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in dance from Temple University.  As a dance maker, Shavon’s work has been presented at Manhattanville College, The Philadelphia Live Arts and Fringe Festival, Temple University, The National Constitution Center, Art Sanctuary, Chester Eastside Ministries, the Community Education Center, and at Joyce Soho. As a performer she has worked with Max Luna, Treva Offut, Gabri Crista, Silvana Cardell, Marianela Boan, Kemal Nance, Meghan Durham, Manfred Fischbeck, Leah Stein, Merian Soto, Makoto Hirano, Jumatatu Poe and Charles Anderson. As an educator, Shavon teaches school age children to college students, locally and nationally.  Shavon’s artistic and educational philosophies are rooted in the desire to give herself, students, performers and audiences opportunities to deepen the understanding of self and the collective.  Shavon loves what she does.

(Photo: Praveen D. Rao)

Viji Rao has over a decade of experience as a Bharatanatyam dance artist, choreographer, and teacher. Her Bharatanatyam choreographies have been called a “technical tour de force” (Philadelphia Inquirer, 2011) and she has been hailed as a “theatrical visionary” (Philadelphia Inquirer, 2010). Rao began her training at the age of five, encouraged by her father and first dance teacher, Shiva Rao. She subsequently studied with The Sridhars in India. As a  noted classical artist, Rao has worked closely with maestro’s like Kalanidhi Narayanan, Prof. C.V. Chandrasekhar, Anita Ratnam, Bragha Bessell, and Navtej Singh Johar of India to mention a few, where she found the movement vocabulary that enabled her to explore contemporary themes. During her eleven years as a professional dancer and choreographer based in the U.K., Rao worked with Chitraleka Dance Company, Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Company, Moby Duck, Sampad, Sampradaya Dance Company (Toronto), and Arangham Dance Company (Chennai). In London she also trained in traditional Indian martial arts forms, aerial and ballroom dancing, and contemporary dance at the London School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance. Since 2002, Rao has been based in Philadelphia, where she founded and serves as the artistic director of Three Aksha, a dance company and educational institution. She has served as artist-in-residence at Girard College since 2008 and has taught Indian culture and aesthetics at Moore College of Art and Design, Temple University, York College, and Penn State University, where she helped organize the incorporation of Bharatanatyam into the undergraduate theater studies program. Rao’s choreographies include “Aarambha,” “Pushkara,” “Jhulna,” “Uurja,” “ABHIKA,” “PRAYOG,” “Nrityantara,” and “Flute to Conch,” to mention a few.  Viji’s work has been supported by The Leeway Foundation, Dance Advance, the Philadelphia Folklore Project, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and Philadelphia Cultural Fund.

(Photo: Nathea Lee)

Kristen Shahverdian is the co-founder of Melissa Diane (with Jacelyn Biondo), a movement-driven, site-inspired performance company based in Philadelphia. She is fascinated by the intersection between performer and audience, and in exploring the empty spaces between people and places. She wants to use dance as a way to connect with people and communities and uses improvisation in performance as a way to create dynamic, unpredictable movement patterns.  Melissa Diane’s current interests surround the overlap of visual arts and movement-based performance art. Melissa Diane has shown work in many venues in Philadelphia, NYC and Wilmington, DE as well as parking lots, stoops, subways, homes and sidewalks. Kristen holds her BA in history and dance from Hamilton College and her MFA from Temple University. She teaches Pilates in Center City Philadelphia.

(Photo: Leonard Perry)

Leah Stein grew up in the Hudson Valley in New York State.  She is a dancer, choreographer and teacher who has been making site-inspired dances for 20 years. In 2001, she formed the Leah Stein Dance Company, whose site-specific dances have been performed internationally and throughout the United States, in train garages, open fields, corner parking lots, vacant city lots, historic sites, gardens and burial grounds. Her choreography refers to particular landscapes and addresses the relationship between people and their physical surroundings. Building on a background of western dance, she has trained in Aikido, Javanese dance, improvisation and contemporary dance techniques. She has collaborated with numerous artists including long-standing artistic partnerships with Toshi Makihara, Josey Foo, Roko Kawai, Alan Harler of the Mendelssohn Club Chorus and most recently Germaine Ingram in a year-long research project “Rhythming and Improvising History”. She received a 2010 Independence Foundation Fellowship and three Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowships for Choreography. In 2001, she won a Herald Angel Award for her dance In Situ in Edinburgh, Scotland. A Lily Lilies, poems by Josey Foo, notes on dance by Leah Stein was published in 2011 by Nightboat Books Press.

Robyn Watson is a native of Philadelphia and began dancing at the age of 5. She began her training at La-Cher-Tari Dance Studio and later at Wissahickon Dance Academy. By the age of 10 she was asked to join Tap Team Two and Co and served as a member and choreographer until 2002. She has had the opportunity to perform with noted artists in the discipline including, Dianne Walker, Germaine Ingram, Savion Glover and  the legendary Mabel Lee. Robyn was featured in the May/June 2005 issue of Dance Spirit Magazine as one of the “20 Hot Tappers, 20 and Under.” Watson received her B.A in Theater from Temple University. She has also served as a costume designer for several high schools and production companies in the Philadelphia region. For the past four years she has had the opportunity to work and study under the direction of Savion Glover.

Sheila Zagar is a teacher, choreographer, and performance artist.  Awards include: MetLife Grant to demonstrate practices in Arts and Aging programs, Five-County Arts Fund in support of creation of an older adult dance/theater performance, Philadelphia Corporation for the Aging 3 year-long grants, 2 PCA Fellowships for Emerging Choreographers, and the Community Education Center Independent Performing Artist Project.  Ms Zagar created dances with her father, Asher, which dealt with their changing relationship as he slipped into ever deepening stages of dementia.  She is one of the founding members of the Creative Arts and Aging Network and original member of the Jewish German Dance Theatre, a collaboration of Jewish American and German Gentile Artists who examined how the inheritance of the Holocaust affected their relationships and identities. Her work has been seen on television in the United States and Germany.