Performer-Creator-Collaborators
Our ever-changing roster of inspiring collaborators has included over 45 performers and movement creators in a range of shows as well as composers, video artists, poets, and playwrights. Meet some of our friends below.
Joan Gavaler (Artistic Director) has been a professional choreographer and teacher for 37 years. As a choreographer and movement director, Joan has created 85 original works and has been a driving force behind four performing companies. She relishes collaborative discovery and has worked with poets, visual artists, composers, musicians, actors, directors, acrobats, psychologists, geographers, physicists, and neuroscientists on dance and theatre projects. She has been invited by over 80 organizations to present and teach in the U.S., Europe, and Asia, including presentations on the Alexander Technique (Lugano, Switzerland), dance residency at Beijing Normal University, performances with American Dance Guild and International Dance Festival (NYC), Dance Place (Washington, D. C.), and CrisisArt Festival Italy, and movement consulting for the Virginia Shakespeare Festival. She is a Professor of Dance at the College of William & Mary.
Ada Xiaoyu Hao is an artist, researcher, educator, and curator of PAPRIKA Collective. Embracing collaboration and cross-pollination of various media and genres, including performance, moving image, text, sound, and embodied interaction with technology, her work relates to a practice-based and process-oriented methodology that frequently explores the body as an archive, the multiplicity of the self, and the fabulation of the Other. Her artistic exercises respond to the unknown and uncertainty through performative improvisations, fictioning as method, and relational encounter with people, sound, space, and place.
Matthew Thornton is a movement artist and has studied and continues to train across a diverse field of disciplines. Drawing from his experience with dance, physical theatre, martial arts, and mind-body work, he desires to establish a base for original and organic expression. Thornton toured internationally with Pilobolus Dance Theater and taught master classes in the Pilobolus Method. He co-founded Agua Dulce Dance Theater with Puerto Rican dance-artist Alicia Díaz, and has worked with Steven Iannacone, Alice Farley Dance Theater, Jody Oberfelder, Freespace Dance, Contemporary Motions, Kora Radella, Maida Wither’s Dance Construction Company, The Conciliation Project and Aura CuriAtlas Physical Theatre. He has an MFA in theatre from the Virginia Commonwealth University and has taught at the University of Richmond, Hope College, and the Richmond Waldorf School.
Aaron Birk's inquiry into movement art encompasses 22 years of research and practice in Contact Improvisation and The Axis Syllabus. Beyond the dance, Aaron maintains a career as a professional Illustrator, Muralist, and Art Instructor. His pedagogy embraces an adaptable, responsive curricula, that emphasizes apprenticeship, embodiment, and hands-on tools. His pathways have extended to Carpentry, Clothing Design, and Ecological Restoration. His current inquiry, "Drawing The Dancing Body," investigates the power of gesture-drawing as a pathway to expanded kinesthetic awareness. Aaron lives in Philadelphia and is currently a Teaching Candidate for The Axis Syllabus.
Mickey Lonsdale (Founding Member) is a freelance teacher and performer based in Stamford, Connecticut. He has studied and performed in the U.S. and Europe with Alabama Dance Theatre, FLIC Circus School, Familie Floz, Divaldo Continuo, Accademia dell'Arte, and Red Dot Theatre Company. Mickey earned his M.F.A. in Physical Theatre at the Accademia dell’Arte in Italy. After receiving his M.F.A., Mickey moved to the NYC area where has starred in several independent films, commercials, TV shows, and works as a free-lance dancer/choreographer. Mickey co-founded Circus Splendiferous LLC with his wife, Jesse, in March of 2020.
Leighann Kowalsky (MFA) is a dance and circus artist based in New York. In 2008 Kowalsky began studying with the Erick Hawkins Dance Company under the direction of Katherine Duke, and performs internationally with various companies and venues of note. She is awarded for her work in dance on film, and was selected as a member of the 2017 Cohort of International Choreographer’s in Tilburg, Netherlands with DansBrabant and Fonty’s School. Kowalsky serves as the Global Coordinator for the Institute for the Study of Somatic Communication, and as Adjunct Professor and Research Advisor to the inaugural cohort of Master in Fine Arts in Choreography candidates at Reinhardt University, a program which she co-designed. Most recently, Kowalsky choreographed full length works on T2 Dance Company in Boulder, CO, and on Break the Mould Dance Company in Tampa, FL.
Chris Gavaler has published two novels and six books of scholarship, including mostly recently The Comics Form: The Art of Sequence Images (Bloomsbury 2022). He is a four-time winner of the Pittsburgh New Works Festival, which has featured nine of his one-acts. His full-length play The Zombie Life: A Seminar for Humans Seeking Conversion premiered at the Firehouse Theatre in Richmond, Virginia in August 2021. He is an Associate Professor of English at W&L University, where he teaches creative writing and serves as comics editor of Shenandoah Magazine.
Grace Helmick is a cinematographer, video editor, and creative enthusiast hailing from Virginia Beach, Virginia. She has grown up surrounded by the performing arts and is passionate about bringing them to a digital stage. She has produced several short films, including “Dear Dad,” which placed as a finalist in the 2018 VHSL Annual Short Film Festival, as well as having more recently dived into video production for dance and movement pieces at the College of William & Mary.
Sophia Serghi is a Cypriot composer and pianist whose works have been presented internationally including New York City, London, Greece, and Amsterdam. Her music has been performed by Flux Quartet, Oxford Philomusica, Camerata Europaea, Ardelia Trio, Orchestra of Colors, American Composers Orchestra, Moravian Philharmonic, Manhattan Piano Trio, Relache, Aurelia Saxophone Quartet, Chilingirian String Quartet, and Cyprus Symphony Orchestra. She has been a Visiting Professor at Amsterdam University College and at Cambridge University and is currently a Professor of Music at the College of William and Mary and founder and CEO of the Multi-Arts Crossings: MAX LLC in Cyprus.
S. L. Feemster is a NYC based performer, singer, and published poet. Feemster has enjoyed a career as an actor, physical theatre artist, and teaching artist, appearing regionally, Off-Broadway, and on film. Feemster's debut collection of stories, soundtracks and scripts, titled Up.W(o/a)rds, was published in 2018 and is available for purchase. Selections from Up.W(o/a)rds provide the soundtrack to the new film LENS-MUSE, a collaboration with filmmaker Adam Holoubek. Feemster is also the singer/songwriter for the new alternative soul band JYL, who will be releasing their debut EP later this year. Up.W(o/a)rds by S. L. Feemster
Dan Plehal (Co-Founder, Co-Artistic Director: 2013-2022) is a director, performer, and teacher in Chicago. He specializes in blending acrobatics and theatre, drawing on his work with theatre and dance companies and acrobatic training centers in Europe and the U.S. He has performed in and directed professional productions ranging from musical theatre to mime to Shakespeare, with companies such as the Walnut Street Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, Pig Iron, Gravity Optional, Sinfonicron Light Opera Company, Familie Flöz, Red Dot Theatre, The Home For Wayward Artists, Lifeline Theatre, BoHo Theatre, and Steppenwolf Theatre. Dan was on the 2022-24 national tour of Frozen performing as Sven. He is currently performing in Harry Potter and The Cursed Child on Broadway.