STUDIO STORIES: REMINISCING ON TWIN CITIES DANCE HISTORY

Dana Luebke is the Founder; Vice-President of the Board of Directors: SUN.ERGOS, A COMPANY OF THEATRE AND DANCE, 1977 – 1985;
Director of the Board, 1985 to 2008; Ex-Officio 2008 to present; Artistic and Choreographic Director, 1978 to present; Dancer, Actor, Choreographer, Designer, Teacher, 1977 to present; Licensed Brain Gym® Instructor/Consultant, 1989 to present

Well-versed in modern, ballet and contemporary da...

Orlando Hunter-Valentine is a choreographer who researches, illustrates and creates from a same gender loving African-U.S born perspective. A descendent of the great migration, great grandchild of farmers, their work tackles issues resulting from a capitalistic imperialist patriarchal white supremacist system. Orlando works as a Hood Agroartupreneur encouraging dance and agriculture for embodied and ecological sustainability. Recen...

Gemma Isaacson is a Minneapolis-based dance artist originally from Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. She began her professional performance career at the age of 15 with Minnesota Ballet before attending the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities (BFA Dance, summa cum laude).

Throughout the course of her freelance career, Gemma has originated roles in works by notable stage directors/choreographers across genres, including Patrick Acogny (Cont...

DAVENTE GILREATH  was born and raised in Minneapolis. His dance training began at Perpich Center for Arts Education where he was exposed to styles of dance including modern, ballet, jazz, african, and contact improvisation. Gilreath  furthered his dance training at the University of Minnesota where he worked with professors such as Ananya Chatterjea, Erin Thompson, and Toni Pierce‐Sands. During this time he was also able ...

David Voss (1938–1991) was one of the foundational figures in the development of contemporary dance in Minnesota. A composer, musician, dancer, choreographer, and beloved teacher, he helped shape generations of artists through his work with the University of Minnesota Dance Program and Minnesota Dance Theatre. His influence extended far beyond choreography; he was known for his extraordinary musicality, intellectu...

Marciano Silva dos Santos is a Brazilian native recognized by the American Folkloric Society as a folk artist of unique and exceptional ability. He is the Founder and Artistic Director of Contempo Physical Dance, where his extensive research has culminated in a dynamic fusion of Afro-Brazilian and contemporary dance. His professional dancing and choreography have earned widespread acclaim; he was named “Best Dancer” by ...

Growing up, Rachel trained, performed, and taught primarily with Giordano Jazz Dance Chicago. She moved to the Twin Cities to attend Macalester College, graduating in 2018 with a BA in Geography, and has since performed in works by Contempo Physical, Melissa Clark, Leila Awadallah, Off-Leash Area, A Cripple’s Dance, Mathew Janczewski, Javan Mngrezzo, Annika Johansson, Analog Dance Works, Zoë Koenig, Xina, Judith H Shuǐ Xiān, ...

A native of the North Chicago suburbs, Ronna Rochell started dancing at age 5. At that young age, she started with creative movement classes, and by the time she was in junior high, she had evolved into a serious modern dance student. She was fortunate to have a fabulous teacher from junior high and high school who taught her the technique of Martha Graham and Alwin Nikolai.  Her dance teacher’s name was Carol Walker, wh...

Kaitlyn trained with Loyce and Lise Houlton at Minnesota Dance Theatre and at the School of American Ballet (SAB) in New York City, where she earned the Mae L. Wien Award for Outstanding Promise in 2004. She danced with the New York City Ballet (NYCB) from 2006 to 2011 and was named the company’s 2010 Janice Levin Dancer. After leaving NYCB, Kaitlyn became a sought-after freelance artist and began working with Twyla Tharp in ...

A multifaceted dance artist and a practitioner of experiential mechanics, Joe Tennis is an improviser and moment maker based in New York City. Engined by discovery and play, he is viscerally drawn to movement through experiencing it. He is in perpetual research of improvisation in service to attunement, the mechanics of intuition through floorwork and the prolonged effects of subtle integration. Tennis dances to find, and to show.&...

Betsy Schaefer Roob was born and raised in Elm Grove, WI. Now based in Minneapolis for over fifteen years, she has worked with Rhythmically Speaking, ARENA DANCES, Threads Dance Project, 43X94 Movement Research, Dance & Other Behaviors, faux pas, as well as nationally and internationally based choreographers Sasha Kleinplatz, Salia Sanou, and Pat Taylor among others. Her own choreography for Rhythmically Speaking premiered at t...

Susan Chilcote-Wade Originally from Michigan, I received a BFA in Dance Performance from the University of Michigan, School of Music, Theater and Dance. In 1982 fresh from college, I was one of 7 original members of the New Dance Ensemble, a post-modern repertory dance company in Minneapolis, and in ’89 joined the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company in San Francisco. Those were amazing formative years and deep in my matrix.

Do...

Madeline’s life pursuit is the discovery of how the human body moves. Over 30 years in the field of movement, her curiosity explored all aspects of movement in dance, Pilates, yoga, Gyrotonic®, fitness training and from studies of human biomechanics, human cadaver dissection labs, osteopathic and manual therapies. Madeline is the author of “Centered: Organizing the body through movement theory, kinesiology and Pilates t...

Catherine Jhung is a dancer, actor, teacher and school administrator. Raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and Denver, CO., she graduated with a B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College and holds a Master’s degree in early childhood education from Brooklyn College. 

Catherine appeared as a featured dancer and royal wife in The King and I on the First National Tour of the Tony Award-winning 1997 Broadway revival. Modern dance cred...

Ololade Gbadamosi, also known as O, is a Twin Cities native who is a dancing artist, an educator and administrator. Ololade specializes in the dance styles Krump, Hip Hop and Afro Social dances.

Krump is a street dance that stands for Kingdom Radically Uplifting Mighty Praise. Ololade is mostly self taught in this style and has traveled outside of Minnesota to participate in battles and also take classes from other proven krumpers i...

Vanessa Voskuil is a choreographer, director, performer, writer, designer, and teaching artist. Ranging from large community-inclusive performance works to ensemble and solo works for site-specific locations and theater settings, her work has been described as “visually arresting,” “boldly and uncompromisingly moving within its own time and its own logic,” and “interlaced with surrealist sensibility an...

Cecil Neal, also known as Virgo and The Final Warning, is an artist born in Winnipeg, Manitoba and based in Minneapolis. His training began in his high school dance program and at SPCPA (St. Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists), and was refined under the mentorship of Herb Johnson from the age of 16.

Cecil’s artistry has carried him to stages such as the Ordway, the Super Bowl, Walker Art Center, and Orchestra Hall with t...

Kayla Schiltgen is an interdisciplinary artist based in rural Two Harbors, Minnesota, blending dance and film to cope with and communicate her existence. Guided by her belief that subjectivity and vulnerability serve as an echo palette for others, Kayla creates screen dance, installation, and performance to facilitate exchange that affirms, affects, and inspires both artist and audience. She takes a multidimensional approach rooted...