Company Bios

Dancers

Julie Alexander is originally from Houston, TX, graduated from Washington University in St. Louis, and has been living in Brooklyn, NY for the past 5 years. She is currently dancing with Donna Uchizono Company, Antonietta Vicario, Beth Gill and Michou Szabo, and in recent years has also had the pleasure of working with Anna Sperber, Miguel Gutierrez and Trajal Harrel, among others. Thank you to Donna, Hristoula and Antonio!

Hristoula Harakas moved from Greece to New York in 1996 as a scholar of both the Alexander Onassis (‘96-‘99) and the M. Cunningham Dance Foundations (‘97-‘98). In 2002 she joined the faculty of the Cunningham Studio and in 2006 received a Bessie award for her performances in Maria Hassabi’s choreographic work. Hristoula joined the Donna Uchizono Dance Company early 2003. This is her fifth piece with Donna. She currently works with Maria Hassabi and in recent years she has performed and collaborated with Jeremy Nelson and Louis Lara, Amanda Loulaki and Levi Gonzalez among others. Hristoula is a Certified Pilates Instructor through BodyTonic, NY where she teaches.

Antonio Ramos was born and raised in Puerto Rico where he learned jazz, salsa and African dance. He received a B.FA. in Dance from SUNY Purchase. In NY he has performed with choreographers Mark Dendy, Neil Greenberg, Kari Hooas, Luis Lara, Jeremy Nelson, Stephen Petronio, Merian Soto, and Kevin Wynn, among others. His own choreography has been presented at DTW, SUNY Purchase, Danspace Project, Dixon Place, DanceNow Downtown, Princeton University, Judson Church, BAX, Galapagos, WAX, Theatre La Chappelle (Canada), The Painted Bride (PA), Cornell University, Lexington Center for the Arts, BAAD! and Pregones Theater. He received a grant from the Edward and Sally Van Lier Fund. He has taught at the University of Puerto Rico, DNA, BAAD!, Princeton, Cornell, Wesleyan, Marymount, and SUNY Purchase, and in Norway and the Dominican Republic. Antonio is a massage therapist and is looking for good looking clients, men and women, to contact him for a massage so he can make money :@) He is very glad to be working with donuts and her powdery company...love ya!


Collaborators


Michael Casselli (Video Artist) graduated from Rhode Island School of Design with a master's degree in sculpture. He has worked extensively in NY downtown performance scene, with artists and companies including Anne Bogart, En Garde Arts, Elizabeth Streb, Richard Foreman, Big Art Group, Reza Abdoh, Yehuda Duenyas, Juliana Francis, and Chashama. Recent design work includes; Edith and Jenny with Tamar Rogoff at PS 122 NYC, Abandon with Matthew Maguire at La Mama NYC, Pastoralia with Yehuda Duenyas's at P.S. 122, NYC, Sweet Nothings for My Neurosurgeon with Chelsea Bacon at the Flea, NYC, Gauntlet for Elizabeth Streb at Jazz at Lincoln Center, NYC, The Bacchae with Dawn Akami Saito's at Fordham University, NYC, Abyss, a collaboration with Grisha Coleman at CalArts, Valencia Ca., Death Might be Your Santa Claus with Lear DeBessonet/ Juliana Francis LMCC, NYC, A ParsifalL (based on Susan Sontag's 1991 script) with John Jahnke at P.S. 122, NYC, and Streb vs Gravity with Elizabeth Streb, which premiered at the Lincoln Center Festival in July 2006. Casselli received a 1998 Bessie Award for Theatrical Design with Elizabeth Streb.


Fred Frith (Composer) As songwriter, composer, performer, and multi-instrumentalist, Fred Frith’s work defines an area of music-making on the border between rock, contemporary music, and improvisation. Co-founder of the British cult underground band Henry Cow (1968-78), Fred moved to New York in the late seventies and came into contact with many of the musicians with whom he’s since been associated, including, for example, John Zorn, Ikue Mori, and Bob Ostertag. During his 13 years in New York he instigated a number of key projects, including Massacre (with Bill Laswell & Fred Maher), Skeleton Crew (with the late Tom Cora and Zeena Parkins), Keep the Dog (a sextet performing an extensive cross-section of his compositions) and the Fred Frith Guitar Quartet, which helped to establish the electric guitar as a legitimate concert instrument. Fred has written extensively for dance, working with Bebe Miller, Amanda Miller, François Verret, Peggy Piacenza and others, as well as performing with dance improvisers Julyen Hamilton and Sally Silvers. He also composes for film (The Tango Lesson, Rivers and Tides, Yes) and for ensembles such as ROVA Sax Quartet, Ensemble Modern, and Arditti Quartet. Fred is the subject of Nicolas Humbert and Werner Penzel’s acclaimed film Step Across the Border, and more recently had a key role in Touch the Sound, Thomas Riedelsheimer’s award-winning documentary about percussionist Evelyn Glennie. For the last seven years he has been Professor of Composition at Mills College in Oakland, California, where he helped establish a pioneering MFA performance program in improvisation.


Jane Shaw (Lighting Designer) Designs include Koosil-ja's Dance Without Bodies (the Kitchen and Das Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin), Trazana Beverly's The Darker Face of the Earth (Chernuchkin Theater) and Spell #7 (NYU), Will Knapp’s 8/124 (Quincy Cage), Dancing with Horses' Kalliope in Van Cortland Park, and Rebecca Stenn/Perks The Seventh Wave (St. Marks and the Joyce Theater). Ms. Shaw has been the lighting director for Maria Hassabi, and for Evening Stars in Battery Park since 2002. Previously at DTW: Sound Design for Big Dance Theater's The Other Here and Susan Marshall's Cloudless. Ms Shaw has toured with Merce Cunningham Dance Company and the Baryshnikov Dance Foundation, and held positions at NYU, Sarah Lawrence College, and Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival. She hails from Lawrence, Kansas.

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