Meet the artists and choreographers for CounterPointe 2018
This Spring, Norte Maar brings forth CounterPointe 6, a collaboration between seven female dance makers and seven female visual artists. The performances will take place at downtown Brooklyn’s Actors Fund Arts Center from April 13-15. Tickets here.
Introducing all the collaborating artists:
Audra Wolowiec and Zhong-Jing Fang
Audra Wolowiec is an interdisciplinary artist whose work oscillates between sculpture, installation, text and performance with an emphasis on sound and the material qualities of language. Her poetic sound installations and experimental language scores often use the gap, space, or breath in between speech—not as forms of negation, but as complex generators of meaning.Wolowiec's work has been shown internationally and in the United States at MASS MoCA, Art in General, Studio 10, The Poetry Project, Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, Stony Brook University, and the Center for Performance Research. Featured in BOMB, Modern Painters, The New York Times, The Brooklyn Rail, CAA Journal, Sound American, and reductive journal. Residencies include Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Complex Systems Art and Physics Residency at the University of Oregon, supported by a National Science Foundation Grant, and Dieu Donné. She currently teaches at Parsons School of Design, SUNY Purchase, and Dia:Beacon.
Born in Shanghai, China, Zhong-Jing Fang began her ballet studies at the Shanghai Ballet School where she trained for seven years. She then attended the Performing Arts College of Shanghai Drama University, and graduated with a major in ballet. In 2000, Ms Fang was a winner of the prestigious Prix de Lausanne. She received the Rudolph Nureyev Foundation Prize at the Ninth International Ballet Competition in Paris the following year. She has won First Prize in the Junior Division of the Helsinki International Ballet Competition, as well as First Prize in the Junior Division of the Shanghai International Ballet School Competition. Ms Fang was invited to join American Ballet Theatre’s Studio Company in 2002, and entered the main company in 2003 as a member of the corps de ballet. She has performed in every full-length ballet in the company’s repertoire, and has danced in ballets by Mikhail Fokine, George Balanchine, Anthony Tudor, Sir Kenneth MacMillan, Sir Frederick Ashton, John Cranko, Paul Taylor, and John Neumeier. Ms Fang has worked with and/or created roles for Natalia Makarova, Twyla Tharp, Mark Morris, Jiri Kylian, Lar Lubovitch, James Kudelka, Benjamin Millepied, Christopher Wheeldon, Marcelo Gomes, and Alexei Ratmansky. Outside of ABT, Ms Fang has appeared as a guest artist with Joshua Beamish and Gemma Bond. She has also participated in workshops with performance artist Marina Abramovic.As a choreographer, Ms Fang has created ballets for American Ballet Theatre’s “Innovation Initiative”, and also for ABT’s JKO School, for which she commissioned an original score by composer Ian Ng. In 2015, she choreographed and appeared in a music video produced by artist/photographer Jade Young. Her most recent work, Song Before Spring, co-choreographed with Steven Melendez, was commissioned by New York Theatre Ballet. Her work has also been seen at the Guggenheim Museum’s Works & Process series.
Lindsay Packer and Dasha Schwartz
Lindsay Packer’s light-based work connects color and form with architecture and movement. In May 2018, she will create a new site-responsive installation at Brooklyn Studio for Dance and will also bring her improvisational process with material and light to the Chocolate Factory Theater during a collaborative residency with Melanie Maar in the third phase of Maar’s project ‘Line Death Dance.’ Packer’s installations, videos and photos have been featured at Transmitter, Present Company, NURTUREart, The Lower East Side Printshop, and Soho20 among other spaces. She has twice been Artist in Residence at the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation and has been awarded numerous residencies and fellowships nationally and internationally. Packer received a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to India to study site-specific ephemeral imagery. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. lindsaypacker.com
Dasha Schwartz is a ballet dancer and choreographer from Toronto, Canada. She has danced professionally at Dutch National Ballet in Amsterdam and Alberta Ballet in Calgary. She holds a Master of Arts degree from New York University in Dance Education with a concentration in American Ballet Theatre pedagogy. Dasha is extremely passionate about choreography and has choreographed works on ballet schools and companies internationally. She is dedicated to working with innovative and inspiring artists to bring arts to the community. Dasha is the founder and director of Cardboard Stage, a collaborative site for the arts community. She created this platform for artists to connect and create with each other, making arts more accessible through hosting performances and projects in unconventional spaces. cardboardstage.com/our-team/
Melissa Dadourian and Courtney Cochran
Melissa Dadourian is a Brooklyn-based artist working in textile media, painting and sculpture. She received a BFA from Pratt Institute and an MFA in Combined Media and Painting from Hunter College. Dadourian has exhibited internationally and in New York. Recently Dadourian presented work at Sardine Gallery in Brooklyn as well as a solo show Domestic Specimens at Mushroom Project Space in Brooklyn NY. melissadadourian.com
Courtney Cochran was born in Sacramento, California and began her dance career at the age of five. She received her ballet training from Sacramento Ballet and Crockett Deane Ballet. With CDB, she was chosen as an emerging choreographer at the 2008 Regional Dance America Festival. Courtney attended Dominican University of California as part of the Alonzo King LINES Ballet Bachelor of Fine Arts Program. She then went on to spend two years in Dance Theatre of Harlem's Professional Training Program under the direction of Robert Garland. Courtney is an emerging choreographer and has created work on DTH's Training Program as well as presenting new work in Brooklyn Ballet's "First Look" program. Courtney is currently in her third season with Brooklyn Ballet. @_ccdance_
Karen Schifano and Julia Gleich
Born in 1955, Karen Schifano received a BA in Art History from Swarthmore College, an MFA from Hunter College, and fellowships from the MacDowell Colony and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. She has exhibited widely in this country as well as in Europe, Australia and Japan. Recent notable shows include “NY Art Live!” at Umeda Gallery in Osaka, Japan, “The Warmth of Winter” at the National Arts Club, NY, NY, "Doppler Shift" at the New Jersey Center for the Visual Arts in Summit, NJ, “Color, Shape and Form” at Galerie Gris in Hudson, NY, “Capture the Rapture” at CB1 Gallery in LA, and “Abstract Wall Paintings III” and “Oppler”, both at Transmitter Gallery in New York City. This year, Karen’s work was included in “Beyond Black and White’ at Westbeth Gallery, and “The Proscenium” at George Gallery. She was recently featured in Lula Japan, Issue #7, and will be included in the latest edition of New American Painting. karenschifano.com
Julia K. Gleich is a choreographer and 2014 recipient of the University of Utah Fine Arts Distinguished Alumni Award. In September 2017, after 15 years choreographing and teaching in London, Gleich returned to her NYC home to premiere Martha (The Searchers) in collaboration with Guggenheim Fellow Elana Herzog. The ballet explored captivity narratives and iconic women from John Ford's Westerns, receiving critical notice by Leigh Witchel. In 2014, her ballet The Brodmann Areas examined the gaps and synapses that define the 52 areas designating the cerebral cortex in a collaboration with Psycho-physicist Denis Pelli. In 2013 she received a major Arts Council England grant to produce Speak Easy Secrets in London. Gleich has choreographed six full-length ballets and a Nutcracker, with a cast of 250 performed annually since 1996. Her work has been presented in alternative venues across NY and London, including a durational event at the National Academy Museum featuring dance luminaries such as Sarah Rudner, Sally Silvers, Douglas Dunn and Molissa Fenley. She has received critical notice in the New York Times, Village Voice, Brooklyn Rail, New Criterion. She is Co-Founder of Norte Maar in NYC. gleichdances.org @gleichdances
Priscilla Fusco and konverjdans
Priscilla Fusco lives and works in New York City. She illustrates non-human agendas through sculpture and writing. She has shown at Underdonk, Ludlow 67 and the Brooklyn Waterfront. She earned her MFA from Hunter College in 2016, and currently serves as the Assistant Gallerist at Thomas Hunter Project Space in New York, New York. mPriscillafusco.com
konverjdans is a New York City-based contemporary ballet company founded in 2016 by Amy Saunder, Jordan Miller and Tiffany Mangulabnan - three dancer-creators who hail from Zimbabwe, the U.S. and the Philippines respectively. The company is dedicated to celebrating the convergence of different art forms, backgrounds and experiences by creating dance in collaboration with musicians, visual artists, filmmakers and other artists, performing in a wide variety of spaces, and always performing with live music, highlighting the importance of musical collaboration in dance. konverjdans, as a trio, was a Selected Choreographer at the 2018 Women in Dance Leadership Conference, which was held at Danspace Project in New York City. The company has also performed at venues such as Mark Morris Dance Center, Gibney Dance Center, The Actors Fund Arts Center, Socrates Sculpture Park, JOHN DOE Gallery, The UNRULY Collective ArtHouse, The Muse Brooklyn, Lovecraft NYC, Bizarre Bushwick, and The Paperbox NYC. konverjdans is fiscally sponsored by Norte Maar. Learn more at konverjdans.com
Jeri Coppola and Eryn Renee Young
Jeri Coppola is an artist living and working in New York City. She uses the interplay of different media including photography, sculpture, and some video to explore memory, absence of memory and time. Coppola's work has been in numerous exhibitions including The Buggy Factory, bxbx, Gridspace, ICP, Avenue of the Americas Gallery, NY and Newhouse Center for Contemporary Arts in Snug Harbor. She has attended residencies at NES Residency, Skagastrond, Iceland and Virginia Center for Creative Arts. She attended Mason Gross School of the Arts in NJ and received an MFA from Bard College. jericoppola.net
Eryn Renee Young is co-founder and resident choreographer of XAOC Contemporary Ballet, a New York City-based neoclassical ballet company founded in 2010. Her choreographic work has been showcased at The Ailey Citigroup Theater, the Young Choreographer’s Festival at Symphony Space, Boston Contemporary Dance Festival at the Paramount Theater, the White Wave Dumbo Dance Festival, the Martha Graham Studio Theater, the Counter/Pointe Series presented by Norte Maar, the Valentina Kozlova International Ballet Competition, the Brooklyn Dance Festival, the Choreographer’s Canvas at Manhattan Movement and Arts Center, NYC10: an initiative for NYC Dance Week at Dixon Place, Dance New Amsterdam, Triskelion Arts Center, Steps on Broadway, the Moving Beauty Series, the Algonquin Arts Center, Peridance Capezio Center, the Boston Conservatory, the Bart Leukede Theater at Rider University, and New York University, including a solo choreography show entitled A New Era: Elements of Dance in 2009 and another in the Gallatin Arts Festival in 2012. Awards include 2015 Edward Villella Emerging Choreographers Competition at Rider University, 2015 Manhattan Community Arts Fund Grant for her ballet outreach program “Project Ignite,” 2014 Eryc Taylor Dance New Choreography Grant, selection as a mentee for the 2013 Dance/USA Institute for Leadership Training, and selection as a choreographer for the 2013 Women in Dance Series. Ms. Young holds a degree in Contemporary Ballet Choreography and Fine Art from New York University. xaocballet.com
Liz Atz and Donna Salgado
Liz Atzberger, aka Liz Atz, was born in Columbus, Ohio. She has a BFA from the Ohio State University and an MFA from Tyler School of Art. Liz taught Foundations and Painting at Florida Atlantic University from 2006-2012, and has been a Co-director and Co-curator at AIRPLANE gallery since October 2011. Liz has a long relationship with Norte Maar. Her work has been in group shows and she is a lead artist for our Free Kids Art program. She currently lives and works in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Lizatz.com
Donna Salgado is the founder of CONTINUUM Contemporary/Ballet, a project based dance company comprised of classically trained dancers with contemporary voices, aiming to expand the role of creativity in the art of ballet through experimentation, collaboration, and design. Donna’s choreography has been presented and/or commissioned by the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival (2011, 2012, and 2015 seasons), Bryant Park Presents, 92nd Street Y, DanceNOW, Latin Choreographers Festival, the CURRENT SESSIONS, the Ritz Theater, Island Moving Company, Sierra Nevada Ballet, Eastern Shore Ballet Theatre, Columbia Ballet Collaborative, Princeton University Ballet, and the Harvard Ballet Company. She has performed with the Connecticut Ballet, Eglevsky Ballet, Sierra Nevada Ballet, Deborah Lohse’s ad Hoc Ballet, David Fernandez’s Some Dance Company, and Thomas/Ortiz Dance, among others, and has danced in New York Fashion Week, the Armory Show, and the International Beauty Show Expo. Her repertory highlights include performing in works by George Balanchine, Geoffrey Holder, Paul Taylor, Edwaard Liang, Amy Seiwert, and Juanjo Arques. She is a member of the children’s ballet faculty at the School at Steps on Broadway and the Joffrey Ballet School. Donna holds an MFA in Dance Performance from Purchase College and a BFA in Dance Performance from Towson University, and spent summers training at ABT, CPYB, Lines Ballet, and NYSSSA Ballet. In 2016, her essay on her dancing life was included in The Hustle Economy: Transforming Your Creativity Into a Career, published by Running Press, an imprint of Perseus Books Group. DonnaSalgado.com @CreativeLifeNYC
