Artist Biographies

Heather Olson is a dancer, choreographer, and mom. She has received Bessie Awards for sustained achievement with Tere O’Connor and for her performance in Yanira Castro’s Dark Horse/Black Forest. She has also appeared in the work of Jennifer Allen, Ivy Baldwin, Faye Driscoll, Levi Gonzalez, Stacy Grossfield, Susan Rethorst, Vicky Shick, and Larissa Velez-Jackson. Olson’s choreography has been commissioned by The Chocolate Factory, Olgas Zitluhinas Dejas Kompanija in Riga, Latvia, Sugar Salon, and Dance Theater Workshop, and been presented by Danspace Project, Dance Roulette, Galapagos Art Space, La Mama, Movement Research at Judson Church, Catch!, Solonova Arts Festival, 100 Grand, and Creature Feature in Berlin, Germany. Olson received a BFA in Dance from The North Carolina School of the Arts. Upcoming projects include performances with Vicky Shick (Danspace Project) and Heather Karvas (The Chocolate Factory in April).  

Hristoula Harakas is a performer, movement teacher and Pilates instructor based in New York, since 1996. She was a member of the Donna Uchizono Co from 2003-2010.  Hristoula currently works with Maria Hassabi (since 2002) and teaches at BodyTonic and Movement Research. She is a 2006 "Bessie" performance award recipient as well as a scholarship recipient of the A. Onassis and the M. Cunningham Dance Foundations. She has had the pleasure of being a regular faculty member of the M. Cunningham Studio (2002-2012) and working with such inspiring artists as Jodi Melnick, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Judith Sanchez Ruiz, Chamecki/Lerner, Levi Gonzalez, Amanda Loulaki and Jeremy Nelson and Louis Lara among others.

Rebecca Serrell Cyr has performed and toured with Donna Uchizono Dance Company since 2002.  She has danced for many other choreographers and appeared in multiple productions with Jeremy Nelson/Full Fat Dance, Amanda Loulaki/Short Mean Lady, Osmani Tellez, Anna Sperber, and RoseAnne Spradlin Dance.  She was recently nominated for a NY Dance and Performance Bessie Award for her role in Spradlin's beginning of something.  Over the years she has created a collection of solos as well as collaborative works with her sister, Lise Serrell.  They have been shown at many small production venues in NY whose facilitators wonderfully promote play and rigorous experimentation.

Brittany Engel-Adams is a performing artist, teacher, and choreographer based in New York. In 2007 she attended the Alvin Ailey School and was the recipient of the Oprah Winfrey Fellowship. She performed with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater during their New York City Season, and later toured nationally and internationally with Ailey II. Brittany performed across disciplines for Naomi Goldberg Haas’s site specific work, Orit Ben-Shitrit’s dance film, Dance the Yard, Company Stefanie Batten Bland and Sleep No More immersive theater. She is featured in the film Chiraq directed by Spike Lee, and was a co-star in the HBO series Boardwalk Empire. Brittany currently dances for Netta Yerushalmy and Donna Uchizono Company. She has set works on the Joffrey Ballet school and Brooklyn Ballet. Brittany is on the faculty at Rutgers University.

Nola Sporn Smith is a dance and theater artist from Brooklyn, New York. She is a graduate of the University of Michigan where she received a BFA Dance degree and a minor in the School of Kinesiology. Since returning to NYC, Nola has performed with cakeface, Stacy Grossfield, Kensaku Shinohara, Emily Smith/NOT for reTAIL and others at venues including Danspace Project, Dixon Place, The Queens Museum, Brooklyn Studios for Dance, HERE Arts Center, Center for Performance Research, and Gibney Dance Center. She has worked in assistant director and stage manager roles for downtown theater artists including Jim Findlay, and has choreographed for students at Queens College. Nola also creates solo performance art for theatrical spaces and music venues, and has been making work with collaborator Molly Ross as MOLLY&NOLA since July 2017.

Angie Pittman is a Bessie award-winning dance artist, dance maker, and dance educator. She has performed her own work at The Kitchen, Gibney Dance, Movement Research at Judson Church, BAAD!, Danspace Project, among many other New York spaces, and has performed in work by Tere O'Connor, Jennifer Monson, Antonio Ramos, Jasmine Hearn, Tess Dworman and others.  As a freelance performer, Angie is currently working with Stephanie Acosta, Anna Sperber, devynn emory/beast productions and Donna Uchizono Company. Angie holds a MFA in Dance and Choreography from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a graduate minor in African American Studies. Angie’s work resides in a space that investigates how the body moves through ballad, groove, sparkle, spirit, spirituals, ancestry, vulnerability, and power.

Aja Ariel Carthon began her dance career in grade school at the age of seven. She has danced under scholarship with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, The Dance Theatre of Harlem, The Kirov Ballet and The Joffrey Ballet School. Aja attended the Juilliard Summer Intensive in 2012. She has taken Graham, Horton, Tap, Jazz, Paul Taylor, Limon, Flamenco, Ballroom and of course Ballet. Aja graduated from Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School in 2014. Aja now attends Long Island University which she will receive her B.F.A. in dance on May in 2018. In college, Aja has performed works by Donna Uchizono, Ron K. Brown, Stephen Petronio and many more. After graduation, Aja hopes to continue working with Donna Uchizono and wishes to take her dance career to the next level.