Collaborators

Fall Series November 16-20, 2011

Choreographers:

Alex Ketley is an independent choreographer and the director of The Foundry, a contemporary dance company based in San Francisco. Formally a classical dancer with the San Francisco Ballet (1994-1998) he performed a wide range of classical and contemporary repertory including the work of William Forsythe, James Kudelka, and George Balanchine in San Francisco and on tour throughout the world. In 1998 he left the San Francisco Ballet to co-found The Foundry in order to explore his deepening interests in choreography, improvisation, mixed media work, and collaborative process.  With The Foundry he has been an artist-In-residence at many leading art institutions including Headlands Center for the Arts (2001 and 2007), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (2002), The Yard (2003), the Santa Fe Art Institute (2004 and 2006), the Taipei Artist Village (2005), ODC Theater (2006), and the Ucross Foundation (2007). The Foundry has produced fourteen full evening length works that have received extensive support from the public, funders, and the press, as well as a number of single-channel video pieces that have screened at international video festivals.  As a choreographer independent of his work with The Foundry, Alex Ketley has been commissioned to create original pieces for companies and universities throughout the United States. For this work he has received acknowledgement from the Hubbard Street 2 National Choreographic Competition (2001), the International Choreographic Competition of the Festival des Arts de Saint-Saveaur (2004), the National Choo-San Goh Award (2005), the inaugural Princess Grace Award for Choreography (2005), the BNC National Choreographic Competition (2008), two CHIME Fellowships (2007 and 2008), and two Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography Residencies (2007 and 2009). In 2009 his work "To Color Me Different" won an Isadora Duncan Award for Best Ensemble Performance and was considered one of the Top Ten Performances of the Year by both Voice of Dance and the San Francisco Chronicle. In 2009 he received one of six prestigious Gerbode Hewlett Choreographer Commissioning Awards and created the new work Please Love Me which premiered for The Foundry in May of 2010 and was performed extensively throughout the year in California. In addition to commissions from Ballet Leipzig in Germany and the Julliard School in New York, for 2011, he is the sole artist to receive the National Eben Demarest Award, which he plans to use to engage a new project that explores remote regions of the American west.  In addition to his direction of The Foundry and his independent projects, he helped create The San Francisco Conservatory of Dance in 2004, an organization where he still serves as an advisor, teacher, and the Resident Choreographer. Stemming from a classical foundation, the school is deeply invested in advanced students learning and growing though the engagement of contemporary choreography. In July of 2011, his work "To Color Me Different" was aired on National Television through an invitation from the show So You Think You Can Dance.

Loni Landon, born and raised in New York City, received her training from The NYC High School of Performing Arts, Dance Theater of Harlem, The School at Jacob's Pillow and The Scholarship Program at Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. In 2005, under the direction of the late Benjamin Harkarvy and Larry Rhodes, she received her BFA in dance from The Juilliard School. After graduation, she worked with Aszure Barton on the opening of the Baryshnikov Arts Center before joining Ballet Theater Munich, under the direction of Phillip Taylor, under whose guidance she explored her own choreography until 2007. From 2007-2009, she performed with Tanz Theater Munich under the direction of Henning Paar. During her time in Munich, she was exposed to a variety of European choreographers: Jiri Kylian, Stephan Thoss, Rui Horta, Robert North,Tony Rizzi, Cayetano Soto, Mirko Hektor, and Marco Goecke to name a few. In 2009, Loni was a finalist in the Hanover International Choreography Competition. Her work has been shown in The State Theater of Munich, H.T. Chen's NewSteps Choreography Series, The Dumbo Dance Festival, The Dance Gallery Festival at The Ailey Theater in NYC, DanceNOW Raw Festival, WestFest, Pushing Progress, APAP at City Center, American College Dance Festival (performed by Snow College Dance Ensemble) and SUNY-Purchase. In just the last few months, Loni was invited to perform at The 2011 Inside/Out Festival at Jacob's Pillow with her group, Loni Landon-projects. Loni, along with Gregory Dolbashian, founded THE PLAYGROUND. THE PLAYGROUND is a New York City based initiative designed to give emerging choreographers a place to experiment and professional dancers a place to explore on a donation basis. Most recently, Loni was the winner of Northwest Dance Project's "Pretty Creatives'" Choreography Competition.  She has been commissioned to create works for  Northwest Dance Project, and the "NEXT" commission from CityDance Ensemble in Washington, D.C. In October of 2010, Loni was featured with Northwest Dance Project in Dance Magazine.

Composer:

Robert Maggio composed the scores for two works by choreographer Matthew Neenan: "Le Travail," premiered by Pennsylvania Ballet at the Academy of Music in 2002, and "Vibrate," premiered by BalletX and Network for New Music at the Arts Bank in 2005. Robert's 1999 collaboration with Network for New Music and choreographer Leah Stein, "From Earth to the Moon," was also premiered at the ArtsBank. He has composed songs and incidental music for numerous theater productions, including those at Yale Repertory Theater, Philadelphia Theater Company, Peoples Light and Theater, and Shakespeare Santa Cruz. His orchestral music has been performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Boston Pops, the Oakland Symphony, The Dallas/Fort Worth Symphony, the Atlanta Symphony and the Cincinnati Symphony. Robert has received a Pew Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an American Academy of Arts and Letters Fellowship, grants from the New Jersey and Pennsylvania Arts Councils, and Meet the Composer. His music is recorded on the CRI/New World, Summit and Albany labels. A CD of his String Quartets was released in March 2011. A graduate of Yale and the University of Pennsylvania, Robert teaches composition and theory at West Chester University. (website: www.robertmaggio.net)

Lighting:

Drew Billiau Lighting design credits include Opera Company of Philadelphia's Rape of Lucretia, Fidelio, Falstaf, Porgy and Bess, La Cenerentola, The Marriage of Figaro, Cosi Fan Tutte, Don Carlo, Faust, Die Fledermaus, Macbeth, Don Pasquale ,Turandot and Hansel und Gretel;  Lucidity Suitcase's Red Eye de Havre de Grace, Flamingo Winnebago, The Melting Bridge and El Conquistador (Spain Tour); Cleveland Opera's Faust; Arden Theater's All My Sons, …And Then They Came For Me, Violet, Falsettos and A Year with Frog and Toad; Ballet X's 2 Different, M.O.M and Risk of Flight; Hamlet at the Lantern Theater. Previous work includes lighting designs for The Pennsylvania Ballet, The Iowa Playwrights Festival, Stagewest, Freedom Theater, Peoples Light & Theater Company and Venture Theater. Drew is the Lighting Coordinator/Resident Lighting Designer for The Opera Company of Philadelphia, Associate Professor of Lighting Design for the University of the Arts and Associate Designer in the corporate/industrial design firm Fine Design Associates.