18th Annual FSCJ Dance Repertory Company: Spring Dance Concert

Details: The FSCJ dance faculty, Morgan Brown, Rebecca Levy, Paige Ricci, Kristen Sullivan and Talani Torres, along with guest artists Tiffany S. Fish, Pat Graney, Natalya Hall, Brian Palmer and visiting artists, Jubilation Dance Ensemble from Miami Dade Kendall Campus, will present the 18th annual Spring Dance Concert.

World-famous choreographer Pat Graney set an excerpt of her 1991 piece, Faith, on danceWORKS for this Spring Dance Concert. Chosen for funding from 'American Dance Masterpieces,' Faith was re-set with the complete Triptych of Faith, Sleep & Tattoo and premiered at On the Boards in Seattle, Washington in 2010, as one complete evening of the three works.

Choreographer Bios:

Morgan Brown
Originally from Los Angeles, California, Morgan received her formal education from the California Institute of the Arts, where she earned both a bachelor’s and a master’s in dance. Prior to relocating to Jacksonville, Morgan served as dance faculty for College of the Canyons, Douglas Anderson School of the Arts, Harvard -Westlake School and principal dancer for the Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble. Morgan has also worked abroad, freelancing as a guest artist performing and choreographing in Ghana West Africa, Edinburgh Scotland, and Lennestadt Germany.  These travels have offered her valuable opportunities to conduct extensive research in cultures that she never even imagined.  From 2002-04 in Accra Ghana, she studied the infusion of African dance and culture with Western dance forms. Morgan also earned a grant from the U.S. Embassy of Ghana to produce a ballet based on an African war dance that incorporated the National Theater of Ghana Dance and Music Ensemble.  Currently Morgan serves as adjunct dance faculty at Florida State College at Jacksonville, director of dance for Harvest Community School and is the director of Morgan Brown Dance Company.

Morgan Brown Dance Company mission is to educate, entertain, and empower audiences throughout the world, with poignant performances, wonderful workshops and creative classes. The vision for the company is to travel, perform and lecture while collaborating with other arts organizations, networking and creating a lifelong global impact.

Tiffany Fish
Tiffany Sullivan Fish began her professional career with Genesis Dance Company and worked for the Genesis Foundation for the Arts teaching elementary and middle school outreach programs throughout Brooklyn, The Bronx, Manhattan and Connecticut. Fish went on to perform with the Metropolitan Opera with such artists as Sean Curran, Doug Varone and Julie Taymor. Since receiving her MFA in Choreography from Jacksonville University in 2012, Tiffany has been collaborating and performing with international artists, performing for Israeli choreographer Ella Ben Aharon and with the Danish company Cross Connection Ballet. As part of the ImpusTanz festival in Vienna, Austria Fish co-created with Mike O’Connor, an improvisational workshop and performance titled “Technologies of Love-the embodiment of connection within performance.” She is currently working on a multi-media dance and performance art piece with South African photographer Arie Strano. Tiffany often uses the medium of film to communicate her artistic vision and her films have been screened nationally and internationally. Fish recently won best experimental film at the 2012 Portland Film festival for a film she created in Skagastrond, Iceland during a residency she was awarded with fellow choreographer Rebecca R. Levy at N.E.S. (Be)longing, a film commissioned by Jacksonville Dance Theatre in 2012, has been screened at the prestigious San Souci Festival of Dance Cinema in 2013 and won Honorable Mention at the 2013 Movies by Movers Festival. Her most recent dance – film collaboration, with Yaacov Bergman and Peter de Grasse, premiered with the Portland Chamber Orchestra in early May. Tiffany’s choreographic work has been produced at Jazz at the Nu Dance Now Festival and with Jazz at Lincoln Centre, in NYC, the New Seeds Festival and New Grounds Festival in Tampa, Florida, Mix Match festival in Los Angeles, California and by the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra. Fish is currently an adjunct faculty member at Jacksonville University and is the creative director as well as a founding member, performer and choreographer for Jacksonville Dance Theatre.

Pat Graney
Seattle-based choreographer Pat Graney received Choreography Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts for 11 consecutive years, as well as from Artist Trust, the Washington State Arts Commission, the NEA International Program, National Corporate Fund for Dance and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.  In 2008, Ms. Graney was awarded both the Alpert Award and a U.S. Artists Award in Dance. In 2011 Ms. Graney was the recipient of the ‘Arts Innovator’ Award from Artist Trust and the Dale Chihuly Foundation, and in 2013 was honored as one of 20 Americans to receive the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award.

Ms. Graney hails from St. Augustine, Florida, where she spent her seminal years after the Graney family relocated there from Chicago.  In 1969, with her family, Pat moved to Mechanicsville, VA and Philadelphia, PA, before returning to St. Augustine to finish high school.  Starting her college career at Tallahassee Community College, Ms. Graney eventually went on to The Evergreen State College, then transferred to University of Arizona where she graduated with a BFA in 1979.  While at U of A, Pat studied extensively with Dr. John M. Wilson.  In the fall of 1979, Graney moved to Seattle, which has been her home for the past 30 years.

In 1981, Graney presented her first full evening of work entitled ‘go red go red, laugh white,’ set to the writing of Gertrude Stein.  She went on to choreograph more work to Stein’s writing as well as the writing of Julio Cortazar and Raymond Carver.  Departing from the written word, Graney started exploring the use of music combined with American Sign Language to create Colleen Ann, a work commissioned for the French/American Dance Exchange in 1986.

In 1987, with Beliz Brother, she created a work for seven gymnasts on seven sets of uneven parallel bars, set against the backdrop of Marymoor Park, and in 1988 Graney created an original work for Pacific NW Ballet.  Seven/Uneven toured to the Serious Fun Festival at Lincoln Center and went on to appear at MayFest in Glasgow in 1991.  Following the gymnastic works, Ms. Graney began to create a body of work related to women with Faith (1991), Sleep (1995), and Tattoo (2001).  In between creating this Triptych of works, Ms. Graney created the full evening work Vivaldi, choreographed 150 gymnasts for the Goodwill Games, and worked with 130 female martial artists for the Movement Meditation Project in 1996.  Following the 12 city national tour of Tattoo, Graney created the Vivian girls (set to the artwork of Henry Darger) with music by Martin Hayes and Amy Denio. 

In 2008, Graney created House of Mind, an installation performance work set in a 5000 square foot raw space featuring an 18 foot high wall containing 4,000 miniatures, a wall of 100,000 buttons with water flowing over it, a closet of giant little girls’ dresses, hundreds of gold shoes, a 50 x 4 foot-long room covered with 1940’s police reports and a large scale video installation by Ellen Bromberg.

Ms. Graney’s interest in working with incarcerated women began in 1992 after a conversation with Rebecca Terrell, then head of Florida Dance Festival.  This conversation later morphed into what has become Keeping the Faith/The Prison Project.  KTF is an arts-based residency program that features dance, expository writing and visual arts, and culminates in performances.  This project has been conducted at FCI Lowell & FCI Broward in Florida, MCI Framingham in Massachusetts, Excelsior Girls School in Denver, Houston City Jail, Echo Glen Children’s Center & King County Juvenile Detention in Washington, Red Rock Juvenile Center in Maricopa County, Arizona, Shakopee Women’s Prison in Minnesota, Estrella Jail in Phoenix, River City Correctional Center in Cincinnati, Tokyo Girls Detention in Japan, Bahia Women’s Prison in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, Munich City Jail in Munich, Germany, the Dochas Centre/MountJoy Prison in Dublin, Ireland and Washington State Corrections Center for Women and Mission Creek Corrections Center for Women in Washington State. 

Keeping the Faith/The Prison Project is one of the longest-running prison arts programs in the US.

Ms. Graney is currently creating the new work girl gods, which will premiere at both On the Boards and the Frye Art Museum in the fall of 2015.  It will tour nationally/internationally in 2015-16.

Natalya Hall
Natalya was born and raised in Miami, Florida. She began her dance training at the age of three with the Joe Michael’s Dance Studio and continued on at The Dance Space. There, she was a member of the Miami Children’s Dance Ensemble since its inception under the direction of Talani Torres. The ensemble performed at various nonprofit events to raise funds in support of organizations such as Miami Children’s Hospital Cancer Unit, Temple Beth Am, St.Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital, Holocaust Survivor Foundations, the Center for Domestic Violence Survivors and many other establishments. The community service endeavors even led to travels as far as Nicaragua in support of financing a Nicaraguan Children’s Burn Unit.  In 1998, she became involved with another nonprofit modern dance company called Pure Reaction. Natalya began teaching Jazz, Hip-Hop, Contemporary and Tap dancing at both The Dance Space and Miami Dade Community College. Her repertoire of choreography includes several music videos for reggae artist, Shifta; A Chorus Line, a University of Miami Production and countless pieces for dance schools and studios. Over the years she has garnered numerous awards for her work at both regional and national competitions. Natalya graduated from University of Miami with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and minors in Dance and Business Administration. She is also the director of Trendz Dance Studio in Miami, Florida. Trendz is dedicated to training upcoming dancers and encouraging them to share their craft with the community. Natalya is also the Director of the Dance Magnet program at South Miami K-8 Center. She is currently embarking on a new and exciting project for students with disabilities where they will be able to explore and take control of the positive possibilities in their lives. 

Rebecca R. Levy
Professor of Dance & Director of the Dance Repertory Company at Florida State College at Jacksonville
Rebecca R. Levy is a choreographer, performer and educator who has lived and worked in Boston, Seattle, Los Angeles and Jacksonville. She is founder and artistic director of Jacksonville Dance Theatre, a modern dance company providing choreographic, performance, and educational opportunities for dancers living in Jacksonville, Florida. She was founder, and served as co-artistic director of the Los Angeles based B.E. Productions Dance Company for eight seasons. She holds her MFA in Choreography from California Institute of the Arts, a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance from Cornish College of the Arts, is registered Certified Yoga Instructor, and a certified Pilates instructor. Rebecca's choreographic work has been featured in festivals and concerts internationally and throughout the country.  Most recently her choreography has been produced at Performatica in Puebla, Mexico; Dance Gallery Festival at Ailey Center, NYC (audience favorite selection), and Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, Texas; Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville; the New Seeds Festival for Women Artists; Pasadena Dance Festival; The Cambridge School of Weston, Massachusetts; Episcopal School of Jacksonville; NewGrounds in Tampa, Florida; the Harvest Chicago Contemporary Dance Festival; and Case Western Reserve University. Rebecca participated in the 2012 NES Artist Residency program in Skagastrond, Iceland where she created an award winning Dance-Film, and was a contributing film-maker to Globe Trot, a film project directed by Mitchell Rose and choreographed by Bebe Miller. As a performer in Jacksonville Dance Theatre, she works with many notable choreographers including Bliss Kohlmyer, Mikey Rioux, Lana Heylock and many others, and toured nationally for six seasons as a soloist with Lineage Dance Company of Los Angeles.

Brian Palmer
Brian Palmer, a native of Parkersburg, West Virginia, graduated with a Master of Fine Arts in Dance from Florida State University where he was the recipient of a Suzanne Farrell Fellowship.  He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance from Radford University.  For nine years Mr. Palmer was a member of Richmond Ballet where he performed as a soloist and was responsible for the lecture demonstration series, which was presented throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia. Mr. Palmer has also been a member with Suzanne Farrell Ballet sponsored by the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C.  He is currently Chair of the Division of Theatre and Dance at Jacksonville University, and adjunct faculty at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts. His current professional organization accomplishments include serving as an evaluator for National Association of Schools in Dance, a dance review panelist for Florida¹s Division of Cultural Affairs and Board of Directors member with the Florida Dance Association. He has most recently been awarded the distinguished Jacksonville University Professor of the Year for the year 2014-15.

Paige Ricci
Paige began ballet at the age of 13 studying under Kim Pauley at The American Academy Ballet in her hometown of Charleston, West Virginia and continued training at Point Park Summer Dance Intensive and Boston Ballet. In 2003, Paige graduated from Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana with a B.S. in Arts Administration with a Dance Concentration where she attended under a talent scholarship. While at Butler, Paige performed with the Butler Ballet and danced lead roles such as the Snow Queen in the Nutcracker and the Pas de Six in Napoli. Paige’s professional career includes dancing with The Charleston Ballet, Ballet Internationale, and freelance dancing with the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra and several ballet and modern companies.  She has performed corps and soloist roles in ballets such as Paquita, Les Sylphides, Nutcracker, Raymonda, and Giselle.

Paige has been teaching since 2005 and has taught at American Ballet Theatre’s Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School, ABT’s Outreach Program in New York City Public Schools, New Tampa Dance Theatre, Florida State College at Jacksonville, Jacksonville University and The Florida Ballet. In January 2010 Paige received her Master of Arts in Ballet Pedagogy from New York University in collaboration with American Ballet Theatre. Paige was one of 20 students chosen to be in the inaugural class and be fully certified in ABT’s National Training Curriculum. At NYU/ABT, Paige studied with Raymond Lukens and Franco DeVita (Principles of ABT’s Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School and creators of ABT’s National Training Curriculum) and choreographer Jessica Lang. Paige is an ABT® Certified Teacher who has successfully completed the ABT® Teacher Training in Primary through Level 7 of the ABT® National Training Curriculum. In addition to teaching and choreographing around northeast Florida, Paige acts as an Ambassador for the NYU/ABT Master’s Program.  Most recently, Paige is currently an Adjunct Professor at Florida State College at Jacksonville.  She is dancing her third season with Jacksonville Dance Theatre.

Kristen Sullivan
Kristen, originally from Gainesville, Georgia, is currently an adjunct professor of dance at FSCJ, a Pilates Instructor at Body Balance Institute and PGA TourHealth, and dances professionally with Jacksonville Dance Theatre. She is also a member of Surfscape Contemporary Dance Theatre located in Daytona Beach and has been dancing professionally with them for the past nine years. In May of this year, Ms. Sullivan toured with SCDT to London to perform at Sadler's Wells. Kristen holds her MFA in Dance from Florida State University and BFA in Dance from University of Nevada Las Vegas, Magna Cum Laude. Internationally, she has performed in Spain with the American Choreographers Showcase, Germany in the International Dance and Gymnastics Festival, and Scotland in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Nationally, she has performed with Red Desert Dance Ensemble and Oxygen Dance Theatre of Las Vegas, Collage Dance Theatre of LA, and performed The Human Show by Kari Margolis of Margolis Brown Theatre at the Kennedy Center for the American Theatre Finalists. Ms. Sullivan's work has been performed by Jacksonville Dance Theatre and accepted to the Pasadena Dance Festival in California, Need Seeds Festival of Tampa, and Harvest Chicago Contemporary Dance Festival. In 2006, Kristen held an Arts Administrative Internship with Movement Research of New York City through FSU in NYC program. Along with her intensive dance performance and education background, Kristen continues to deepen her physical study of movement through Pilates and recently had the honor of becoming faculty for Balanced Body Education as a Master Trainer in Pilates. She also holds her comprehensive certification in Classical Pilates through Power Pilates, Balanced Body Barre, and Pilates Method
Alliance. Currently, Kristen is working towards her certification in GYROTONIC®.