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Home , Ballet Minnesota, Donald Byrd, Donald McKayle, Originally

Friday, February 9, 2018, 8pm Saturday, February 10, 2018, 2pm and 8pm Metro Operahouse, Oakland Spectrum Dance Theater , executive artistic director

A Rap on Race Premiere: May 5, 2016 at The Leo K. Theatre at Seattle Repertory Theatre, Seattle, WA

CO-CREATORS Donald Byrd & Anna Deavere Smith

CHOREOGRAPHY & DIRECTION Donald Byrd

LIGHTING & SCENIC DESIGN Jack Mehler

COSTUME DESIGN Doris Black

LIGHTING DIRECTION Nathan W. Scheuer

STAGE MANAGER Sara Torres

TEXT A Rap on Race by James Baldwin and Margaret Mead

MUSIC The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady composed by

This performance will last approximately 85 minutes and be performed without an intermission.

A Rap on Race used by kind permission of The Estate of James Baldwin and Dr. Mary Catherine Bateson. The creation of A Rap on Race was supported by 4Culture, ArtsFund, the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, the National Endowment for the Arts, MapFund, Tricia Stromberg Professional Dancers Fund, Nesholm Family Foundation, and Laird Patterson.

The presentation of Spectrum Dance Theater was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Cal Performances presentations in Oakland are generously underwritten by Signature Development Group. Cal Performances’ 2017 –18 season is sponsored by Wells Fargo.



Anna Deavere Smith and Donald Byrd Talk A Rap on Race

Donald Byrd: So the first question… and I about persona and language. I then learned and don’t want to do the interview, I think, as some - performed the edit that you have as a one- body who is not vested in it in some way, be - person piece for the opening of Zankel Theater cause that’s kind of impossible… at Carnegie Hall. I then directed actors in it in 2014. The recording and book are compelling Anna Deavere Smith: Yes, and not true. to me as a drama. Race is the topic of discus - sion, but the drama is actually more complex. DB: In your usual process you do the fieldwork It is a drama about two people who have met of interviewing the subjects. You have met them their match intellectually, but who substantively and have a real sense of them beyond the inter - see the world differently, in part because of their view. Because this was a pre-existing recording, histories and their experiences, but also because how are the challenges different, in shaping the one of them, Baldwin, thinks and talks in meta - script and, in this particular case, it not being phor and the other collects and absorbs what devised as a solo performance? she calls “facts.” The fire in the conversation is about two inevitably different ways of seeing ADS: I have been learning and studying this and connoting the world. material since the early 1980s, when I found it in the bookstore of the American Museum of DB: Can you tell me what it is about this mate - Natural History in New York, where Margaret rial—the recordings—that attracted you in the Mead worked in the Department of Anthro - ? pology from the 1920s until her death. I have taught it for years in my acting classes, having ADS: The musicality of it, and also their will - students play parts and switch sides to learn ingness to talk with one another and their desire

Opposite: A Rap on Race . P hoto by Tino Tran.  PROGRAM NOTES

to pick up the pieces of the 1960s and to make he is doing it in a way that is not meant to set sense of them. And so the vigor of the inquiry her up, but just to allow her to revel in some on both sides is very interesting to me. ways in who she is and what her background is.

DB: This thing you said about the musicality ADS: Yeah, I mean I don’t know if he had a mo - of it… when you and I were working together, tive. I know from watching audiences watch it, you said, “Listen to the tapes and try to capture they assume certain things—they laugh because the musicality of it….” they think that it’s this white woman, you know, talking so much. ADS: Yeah. DB: Yeah. DB: I’ve found the same thing happens when doing it, performing it, is that they—Mead and ADS: But I actually think that any good writer, Baldwin—start to make sense, literally just in any good artist, any good thinker spends a good the abstraction of the musicality of how they deal of time listening or reading or watching. speak to each other. Do you think that that’s And so I think that he’s truly—my choice if I where the truth of it really is, in how they are were performing him—is that he’s truly inter - playing their music together? That there is ested. something about that , their music, as much as in what they are actually saying, their interplay, DB: Right. in the counterpart of the musicality of their conversation? ADS: He doesn’t know her.

ADS: I think that’s part of it. But I do think that DB: Yeah. there is also just the heft, the intellectual heft, that even if we had never heard them and we ADS: As you know they met specifically for this just saw this on the page, you can feel the intel - and he doesn’t know the terms of the conversa - lectual energy there and the bulk of knowledge. tion yet. So I think it would be wise for any of us You know, these are true public intellectuals. So in that same situation to listen before we speak. I would say that both are true, that both count in this case. DB: I agree. I find that he just—they don’t know each other—he just listens. And then the other DB: One of the things I find really interesting is thing… I mean, one other question is about the that, in the beginning of the conversation with role of alcohol in loosening them up. As the her, he seems to let her speak. He acquiesces in conversation progresses, would they have been some way or—what’s the word I’m looking able to have a conversation like this if they had for?—he is “gracious” in his letting her tell him not been so sloshed? all about her northern background and her northern good and all of that stuff, that pro - ADS: Well I don’t know. We don’t know if they gressive liberal kind of way of thinking, and that were drinking because we didn’t see it. You

Berkeley RADICAL – JOINING GENERATIONS ese performances are part of the 2017/18 Berkeley RADICAL Joining Generations programming strand, which explores the work of four generations of African-American choreographers who have expanded the terrain of contemporary dance, each speaking profoundly, deliberately, and uniquely to issues of identity. Joining Generations concludes later this season with the annual visit by the Alvin Ailey American Dance eater (Apr 10 –15). For more information, please visit calperformances.org.

6 PLAYBILL PROGRAM NOTES n a r T

o n i T know what I’m saying? Maybe that slurred do so, and I think without alcohol it would be speech is that they’re tired. I mean at one point, just as open and just as fiery. he says “these last 48 hours” or whatever. DB: Right. I wonder if…I mean, I think… one DB: Right. of the things I’ve said to people and wonder if you agree with this or if there is something you ADS: So that’s a long time. So we don’t know want to add to it… I kind of look at this, their for sure. I think we have to say that. We don’t conversation as a model. That if we … that the know if they were drinking. It seems that they value of bringing it up, the Mead/Baldwin con - were. And do I think that they could have had versation, and kind of putting it in front of peo - the same conversation? Absolutely. Absolutely. ple is in some ways… they are a model for how I have no doubt about that. Because you and I we might… the degree of honesty and openness are both old enough to know how those quote- that we might have… and the kind of messiness unquote “conversations” about race went quote- and sloppiness of having a conversation about unquote “back in the day,” when we weren’t so race. My hope is that in some ways their con - careful about talking about white privilege or versation is a model and might give us permis - this or that or the other. I think that people were sion to have deep uninhibited conversations in a vigorous seeking, asking how can we find around race. our way together after, you know, more than 100 years—or 200 years depending on when ADS: Well I think, yes, I think it’s a model, very you landed on American soil—all these years hard to find now. But I also think that we again of a very peculiar relationship that was guarded can’t underestimate that this isn’t just like a and where people didn’t have a chance to have truth-telling session. These are two people who their full humanity expressed. So I think many are extremely accomplished researchers in their of us dove into that when we had a chance to own way, thinkers and writers.

7 ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Spectrum Dance Theater York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater, La Under Donald Byrd’s artistic leadership since Jolla Playhouse, San Francisco Opera, Seattle 2002, Spectrum Dance Theater has become the Opera, and Opera. Honors foremost contemporary modern dance organ - include the Masters of Choreography Award ization in the Pacific Northwest, gaining recog - (Ken nedy Center), Fellow of the American nition nationally and abroad. For over 30 years, Academy of Jerusalem, James Baldwin Fellow Spectrum Dance Theater has brought dance of of US Artists, and Fellow at the Institute on the the highest merit to a diverse community, Arts and Civic Dialogue. Byrd was a NEA and working to make dance accessible to all through Princess Grace Awards panelist and served as a contemporary dance performances and high- cultural envoy for the US State Department. He quality dance training in a variety of dance currently serves on the SDC Diversity Task styles. Three compo - Force and SDC Journal nents comprise the Editorial Board, and organization: the pro- THE CAST recently completed his fessional company, the term o n the Tony nom - school, and the out - JAMES BALDWIN inating committee. reach programs. With Donald Byrd Donald Byrd’s vision - ANNA DEAvERE ary artistic leadership, MARGARET MEAD SMITH (co-creator ) the organization has Kathryn Van Meter* Anna Deavere Smith embarked on an exhil - has performed in film, arating transforma - SPECTRUM COMPANY ARTISTS television, and on stage. tion that has attracted Blair Jolly Elliot, Marco Farroni, She currently appears world-class dancers, Paul Giarratano, Marte Osiris Madera, in the role of Attorney produced some of the Nia-Amina Minor, Robert Moore, General Mary Camp - most avant-garde works Madison Oliver, Alexander Pham, bell on Madame Sec- in contemporary dance, Emily Pihlaja, Andrew Pontius, re tary and as Alicia and generated local Fausto Rivera, Mary Sigward, on Blackish . She also and national praise. Jaclyn Wheatley played Mrs. Akalitis For more, please visit on Nurse Jackie ; Nancy spectrumdance.org. * The Actor appears through the courtesy McNally, the National of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union Security Advisor, on DONALD BYRD of Professional Actors and Stage Managers The West Wing , and (executive artistic in the United States. was featured in the director, co-creator, series Presidio Med . choreographer, and Smith has been fea - director, James Baldwin) tured in several films, including Rachel Getting Donald Byrd, the Tony-nominated and Bessie Married, The Ameri can President, The Human Award-winning choreographer, is the executive Stain, Dave, and Rent. As a writer and a hu - artistic director of Spectrum Dance Theater, manist, she has received numerous awards for and formerly artistic director of Donald Byrd/ her work, including the prestigious 2013 Gish The Group. He is credited with over 100 dance Prize for achievement in the arts; the 2012 works for his own groups, as well as for Alvin National Humanities Medal, presented to her Ailey American Dance Theater, Dayton Con - by President Obama; and the 1996 MacArthur temporary, Phila danco, Pacific Northwest Bal - “Genius” Award. In 2015 she was named the let, , and Dance Theater of Harlem, Jefferson Lecturer, the federal government’s among others. He has worked with the New highest honor in the humanities.

7B PLAYBILL ABOUT THE ARTISTS

DORIS BLACK (costume design ) NATHAN W. SCHEUER (lighting direction ) Doris Black has been designing costumes for New York City design credits include A Taste theater, film, and dance for 19 years. In six sea - of Things to Come (York Theatre), Shoes and sons with Spectrum, she has designed for Love , Bag gage (the cell), Lord Tom (York Theatre), La Carmina Burana , The Minstrel Show Revisited , Plage (Tom Gold Dance), and associate designer A Rap on Race , and Autopsy of Love , among for Manilow on Broadway. Regional credits in - others. She designs for many theaters in the clude The Sleeping Beauty, Cipher, Beneath One’s Puget Sound area, including Seattle Shakes - Dignity (); After the Cur tain , peare Company, The Seagull Project, Book-It That’s Where I’ll Be Waiting, Come Together Repertory Theatre, and Intiman, and has taught (Shaping Sound); Aida, Mamma Mia, Beauty at and designed productions for the University and the Beast, Buddy, Grease, Addams Family, of Puget Sound. Black has been the company Les Miserables, Shrek, Thoroughly Modern Millie costume designer for the Seattle Men’s Chorus (The Muny); Spamalot (Arkans as Rep); Masha’s and Seattle Women’s Chorus since 2004. Her Sea gull (Berkshire Theatre Fes ti val); and Around film work includes The Dark Horse , Cthulhu, the World in 80 Days, Good People, and Next to Police Beat, Deadline, A Water Tale , and Shut Nor mal (Theatre Squared). Scheuer has worked Eye. Black received her MFA in costume design with the , Paris Opera from the University of Washington and her BFA Ballet, and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theat - from Washington University in St. Louis. er. He was also the lighting designer for Selena Gomez’s Stars Dance tour, scenic designer for JACK MEHLER (lighting and scenic design ) Alice Cooper’s Raise the Dead tour , and produc - Based in New York for 25 years, Jack Mehler tion designer for Toby Keith’s Hammer Down designs for a wide variety of musicals, dance, tour . He is a proud member of United Scenic plays, and corporate projects. He received the Artists, Local 829. 2013 Korean Musical Theatre Award (the Ko - rean Tony Award) for his lighting of Rebecca SARA TORRES (stage manager ) and the 2012 award for Elisabeth . He also re - Sara Torres is a native of the Pacific Northwest ceived IRNE (Boston Critics’ Award) nomina - who began studying technical theater and the tions for A Christmas Carol, Nine , and Camelot , performing arts in her early teens and went on all at North Shore Music Theatre. to earn a BFA in performance production from Mehler has designed scores of projects with Cornish College of the Arts in 2008. Her eclec - Donald Byrd, including A Rap on Race (scenery) tic skill set has kept her active in many circles of and Dance, Dance, Dance (lighting) for Spec - the Seattle arts community. Torres is perhaps trum Dance Theater. Other highlights include best known in the Seattle dance scene for her 10- Theatre of Needless Talents for Spec trum; Mo - year tenure as technical director for Beyond The town Suite & To Know Her for the Joffrey Ballet; Threshold: Seattle Inter\national Dance Festival. Burlesque and Fin de Siècle for Alvin Ailey; and She has designed lighting and stage managed for Train and Harlem Nutcracker for Donald local choreographers Cyrus Khambatta, Wade Byrd/The Group. Madsen, Karin Stevens, Alex Crozier, Coleman Other dance projects include Joffrey Ballet Pester, and many others. Torres also designs works by Nic Blanc, Donald Byrd, Edwaard lighting for theater and special events including Liang, Lar Lubovitch, Yuri Possokhov, Stanton the Fremont Oktoberfest. She served as stage Welch, and, for nine years, Robert Joffrey’s Nut - manager for Spectrum Dance Theater’s produc - cracker. Other dance designs include Ballet tions of Rambunctious 2.0 and A Rap On Race Memphis, BalletMet, Buglisi Dance Theatre, in 2016 before joining the company full-time. Hubbard Street, José Limón, Lar Lubovitch, and This is Torres’ second full season with Spectrum , among others. Dance Theater.

8 ABOUT THE ARTISTS

THE TEXT & MUSIC MARGARET MEAD (December 16, 1901 – November 15, 1978) JAMES BALDWIN Margaret Mead was born in Philadelphia on (August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987) December 16, 1901 into a family of social sci - James Arthur Baldwin, the grandson of a slave, entists. Her mother, Emily Fogg Mead, was a so - was born August 2, 1924 in New York City and ciologist and early supporter of women’s rights, was the eldest of nine children. He was raised while her father, Edward Sherwood Mead, was in Harlem, growing up in and surrounded by a professor at the Wharton School. Mead’s poverty. During his teen years, Baldwin was ac - grandmother, Martha Ramsay Mead, was a tive as a preacher in a small revivalist church, child psychologist and encouraged Margaret to an experience that later served to inspire his observe the behavior of younger children as a semi-autobiographical first novel, Go Tell It on means of understanding their actions. the Mountain (1953). Mead’s early education was highly unortho - Baldwin spent the years following his gradu - dox, as she attended school for only one year of ation from high school in Greenwich Village, fourth grade and six years of high school. This working low-paying jobs while beginning his education was heavily supplemented by that career as a writer, finally attracting the attention offered by Mead’s family. Mead would go on to of established novelist Richard Wright. Wright study psychology at DePauw University before would eventually assist Baldwin in securing a transferring to Barnard College, where she grant that allowed him to devote himself full- graduated in 1923. That same year Mead began time to writing. graduate school at Columbia University, study - In 1948, at the age of 24, Baldwin left New ing anthropology with Franz Boas and Ruth York City for Paris, where he would spend Benedict and earning her MA in 1924 and a the next eight years studying American society PhD in 1929. from a distance. “Once you find yourself in It was during her time at Columbia Uni - another civilization, you’re forced to examine versity that Mead embarked upon the first of your own,” Baldwin said. many trips to the South Seas. She conducted After time spent in Paris and Istanbul, Bald - field research in American Samoa and Papua win returned to the United States, motivated in New Guinea, collecting material that would part by a desire to participate in the Civil Rights form the foundation for the first of her 23 books, Movement. Baldwin’s experiences traveling Coming of Age in Samoa (1928). In this text throughout the South brought forth his work Mead’s characteristic reliance on observation, The Fire Next Time (1963), focused on black rather than statistics, was already apparent. identity and racial struggle, which became a Mead would later serve for many years with bestseller and landed Baldwin on the cover of the American Museum of Natural History in Time magazine. New York City, first as assistant and then asso - Baldwin would eventually return to France, ciate curator, before being named Curator of settling in St. Paul de Vence, following the Ethnology. assassinations of his friends Medgar Evans, The wide-range of topics covered in Mead’s Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm work is notable: women’s rights, child rearing, X. During the last 10 years of his life, Baldwin sexual morality, nuclear proliferation, race rela - began teaching as a means of connecting with a tions, world hunger, and the cultural condition - new generation, while continuing to produce ing of sexual behavior and natural character. socially relevant fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Mead was posthumously awarded the Presi - James Baldwin died in St. Paul de Vence in dential Medal of Freedom, the United States’ 1987 at the age of 63. highest civilian honor, in recognition of her contributions to science.

8B PLAYBILL ABOUT THE ARTISTS

CHARLES MINGUS THE COMPANY (April 22, 1922 – January 5, 1979) Born on a military base in Nogales, Arizona Blair Jolly Elliot , born in Los Angeles, started in 1922 and raised in Watts, California, Charles dancing at the age of 11. She summited Mt. Kili- Mingus’ earliest musical influences came from manjaro via the Western Breach (age 11), sailed the church choir and group singing, and from in the Flanders Youth Regatta in Nieuw poort, hearing Duke Ellington over the radio when he Belgium on the US National Team (age 12), and was eight years old. He formally studied double competed in the Junior Olympics for swim - bass and composition, while absorbing ver - ming (100 m butterfly, age 8). Elliot studied na cular music f rom the great jazz masters, first- dance at the Pinellas County Center for the Arts hand. His early professional experience, in the at Gibbs High School (St. Petersburg, FL) with 1940s, found him touring with the bands of Suzanne Pomerantzeff and Patricia Paige-Parks. Louis Armstrong, Kid Ory, and . She received her BFA from the Univer sity of the Eventually Mingus settled in New York, Arts. During her college years, she was an in - where he played and recorded with the leading tern with Koresh Dance Company and trained musicians of the 1950s, Charlie Parker, Miles extensively with Ronen Koresh and Melissa Davis, Bud Powell, Art Tatum, and Duke El - Rec tor. In 2016 Elliot earned her personal train - ling ton. By the mid-1950s he had formed his ing certification from the National Academy of own publishing and recording companies to Sports Medicine. This is her fourth season with protect and document his growing repertoire Spectrum Dance Theater. of original music. He also founded the Jazz Workshop, a group that enabled young com - Marco Farroni , born in the Dominican Re - posers to have their new works performed in public, attended New Jersey Performing Art concert and on recordings. Center’s young artist program, where he was in - Mingus soon found himself at the forefront troduced to modern dance and ballet. He re - of the avant garde. His recordings bear witness ceived a BFA in dance from the University of to the extraordinarily creative body of work that the Arts under the direction of Donna Faye followed and include Pithecanthropus Erectus , Burchfield, where he trained in ballet, modern, The Clown , Tijuana Moods , Mingus Dynasty , jazz, and improvisation. Farroni has performed Mingus Ah Um , and The Black Saint and the works by Sidra Bell, Earl Mosley, Kevin Wynn, Sinner Lady . His music was also performed Keelan Whitmore, Katie Swords, Jesse Zaritt, frequently by ballet companies, and Alvin Ailey Ronald K. Brown, Tommie Waheed-Evans, choreographed an hour-long program called Douglas Becker, Mark Haim, Mark Caserta, The Mingus Dances during a 1972 collaboration and Jillian Peña, among others. He has partici - with the Joffrey Ballet. pated in the six-week In 1977 Mingus was diagnosed as having a school, Alonzo King LINES Ballet summer in - rare nerve disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Scler - tensive, Alonzo King LINES Ballet professional osis. He was confined to a wheelchair, and al - workshop, and the Earl Mosley Institute of the though he was no longer able to write music Arts summer intensive. This is Farroni’s first on paper or compose at the , his last works season dancing with Spectrum Dance Theater. were sung into a tape recorder. He loves dance. At a memorial following Mingus’ death in 1979, Steve Schlesinger of the Guggenheim Paul Giarratano was born and raised in Long Foundation commented, “I look forward to the Island, New York. He began his dance training day when we can transcend labels like jazz and at age 10 at Vic D’Amore’s American Studio acknowledge Charles Mingus as the major of Performing Arts. Giarratano later attended American composer that he is.” SUNY Purchase College, where graduated sum-

 ABOUT THE ARTISTS

ma cum laude in 2016 with a BFA in dance and Robert Moore , from Hamden, Connecticut, a minor in arts management. While at SUNY began dancing at New England Ballet and con - Purchase, he had the opportunity to perform tinued at Dee Dee’s Dance Center and New works by Doug Varone, Larry Keigwin, Loni Haven Ballet. He is an alumnus of Earl Mosley’s Landon, Gregory Dolbashian, and Brian Enos, Institute of the Arts, the Ailey Summer Inten - and he also studied a semester abroad at the sive, the Cunningham Trust Workshop, Jacob’s Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts. Pro - Pillow’s Commercial Dance Program, and the fessionally, Giarratano has performed with Oui Complexions Intensive. Moore went to Mexico Danse under the direction of Brice Mousset and with JUNTOS Collective, and taught with RudduR Dance under the direction of Chris- Notes in Motion, Arthur Aviles Typical Theatre, topher Rudd. This is his second season with and JD/dansfolk. He has performed works by Spectrum Dance Theater. Fredrick Earl Mosley, Ronald K. Brown, Ray Mercer, Jessica Lang, Marcus Willis, Norbert De Marte Osiris Madera was born in Guadalajara, La Cruz III, Rena Butler, Germaul Barnes, Mat - Mexico. He has been a company member thew Rushing, Jeffrey Page, Francesca Har per, with Dance Kaleidoscope of Indianapolis, and Jacqulyn Buglisi, Sidra Bell, Bradley Shelver, Lar worked in the San Francisco Bay Area and Lubovitch, William Forsythe, Donald McKayle, California with Oakland Ballet, Menlowe and Alvin Ailey. Moore graduated magna cum Bal let, Margaret Wingrove Dance, Man Dance laude from the Ailey/Fordham BFA program Company, sjDANCEco, and Central West and has danced with Amanda Selwyn Dance Ballet. Madera has also worked on the East Theatre, The Steps Repertory Ensemble, and Coast with Lustig Dance Theater of New Jersey. AATMA Performing Arts. He joined Spectrum He has guested for various dance companies in Dance Theater as an apprentice last season, California, including for Robert Moses Kin, and becoming a full company member in the fall has worked for various choreographers, includ - of 2017, the start of his second season with the ing Donald McKayle, Stephanie Martinez, and company. Molissa Fenley. He has a BFA in dance from San Jose State University, where he graduated cum Madison Oliver was born in Mesa, Arizona, laude . This is his first season with Spectrum and raised in Orange, California. She studied Dance Theater. at Tracy Dee Academy of Dance, where she had the opportunity to be coached by various artists Nia-Amina Minor is a performer, teaching from around the world. Throughout her train - artist, and screen dance filmmaker from South ing she worked with artists from Houston Bal - Los Angeles. She began dancing at the Debbie let, , Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Allen Dance Academy and received her BA in Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, New York communications with a minor in film and City Ballet, and Alonzo King LINES Ballet. In media studies from Stanford University. She 2009 and 2010 Oliver competed, placed in the then earned her MFA in dance at the University top 12, and traveled to New York for the Youth of California. In addition to performing at America Grand Prix. At age 15 she moved to RedCat and Jacob’s Pillow, Minor was a faculty Las Vegas to join Nevada Ballet Theater, where member at Saddleback Community College she spent two years dancing under the direc - and Cypress College and a former arts admin - tion of James Canfield. During those years she istrator with San Francisco Ballet, Alonzo King performed in The Nutcracker, Swan Lake , Sleep - LINES Ballet, and Heidi Duckler Dance Thea - ing Beauty , Giselle , Coppelia , George Balan - tre. She is also the co-founder of a movement- chine’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream , and vari ous based collective called No)one Art House based choreographic showcases. Oliver is now in her in South Los Angeles. This is her second sea - third season as a company dancer with Spec- son with Spectrum Dance Theater. trum Dance Theater.

B PLAYBILL ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Alexander Pham , born and raised in Rose - SemperOper Ballet in Germany, where he mount, Minnesota, received his BFA in dance danced for two seasons, before moving to and BS in human resource development from Madrid to dance for the Victor Ullate Ballet. the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, with He is happy to be home, dancing in the Pacific dual honors. Pham has had the privilege of per - Northwest in his fourth season with Donald forming works by artists such as Roy Assaf, Byrd at Spectrum Dance Theater. Gregory Dolbashian, , Bill T. Jones, Larry Keigwin, Stephen Petronio, Uri Fausto Rivera is a Chicano dance artist from Sands, Zoe Scofield, and Yin Yue, among oth - the Pacific Northwest. He graduated with a ers. He also trained through Springboard Danse BA in dance and a minor in anthropology from Montreal, Keigwin + Company, Visceral Dance the University of Washington, where he was Chicago, and Velocity Dance Center. After awarded the Evelyn H. Green Endowed Schol - dancing for two seasons as a company artist with ar ship for artistic merit and promise. Rivera Contempo Physical Dance in Minnea polis, grew up training in Mexican folk dance, and Pham has since performed with Seattle-based trained in ballet and modern dance in college. companies and choreographers zoe | juniper, While at the UW, he danced with the Chamber Anna Conner +CO, Kim Lusk, and, most re - Dance Company, performing work by Lar Lu - cently, with LED, based out of Boise. He pre - bovitch, Danny Shapiro/Joanie Smith, Bill T. sented his own choreography at CHOP SHOP Jones, and Doug Varone. He also trained at the Contemporary Dance Festival in 2016. Pham is San Francisco Conservatory of Dance, North - grateful to be in his third season with Spectrum west Dance Project’s Launch: 10, and, for a Dance Theater. semester, at the University of Guadalajara in Jalis co, Mexico. Rivera is a founding member of Emily Pihlaja is from New Canaan, Con nec- Seattle’s Au Collective, a group of dance artists ticut, and received her early dance training highlighting the work of artists from margin - from the New England Academy of Dance. alized communities. He has been a company She attended the Kirov Academy of Ballet in member of Spectrum Dance Theater since Washington, DC, where she graduated in 2009. January 2015. She then moved to Portland where she per - formed for four seasons with Oregon Ballet Mary Sigward was born and raised in Cin - Theatre. Pihlaja was featured in ballets such as cinnati, Ohio. She began dancing at the age of George Balanchine’s Serenade , Divertimento five at the Connie Ferguson School of Dance, No. 15 , Emeralds , The Four Temperaments , Swan and continued her formal training with Mere - Lake , Coppelia, Giselle , and The Nutcracker . She dith Benson and Mario de la Nuez at De La also performed in New York with Thomas/ Arts. In 2015 she graduated magna cum laude Ortiz Dance. Her performances with Spectrum from the University of South Carolina with Dance Theater include 5th Avenue Theatre’s a BA in dance performance, where she was Carousel and Donald Byrd’s Carmina Burana , awarded the Outstanding Senior Award for Rambunctious ( 1, 2 and 3 ), Drastic Cuts , Jazz 1 , artistic achievement. Under the direction of and Love . This marks Pihlaja’s fourth season Susan Anderson and Stacey Calvert, Sigward with Spec trum Dance Theater. had the honor of performing works by George Balanchine, Twyla Tharp, Tanya Wideman- Andrew Pontius , from Bremerton, Davis, Thaddeus Davis, Helen Pickett, Lynne Washington, started studying ballet at the age Taylor-Corbett, and Paul Taylor. She has at - of 11 with . At age 15 tended summer and winter workshops at Hub - he left for Washington, DC, and he graduated bard Street Dance Chicago, Spectrum Dance from the Kirov Academy of Ballet in 2010. He Theater, Complexions Contemporary Ballet, began his professional career with the Dresden Lemon Sponge Cake Contemporary Ballet,

0 ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Visceral Dance Chicago, and Company E. Crozier, Vincent Michael Lopez, and The Ca- She became a certified Pilates instructor in biri. This is her fourth season with Spectrum April 2017. This is Sigward’s third season with Dance Theater. Spectrum Dance Theater and her first season as the academy coordinator for the School of Spectrum Dance Theater. SPECTRUM MANAGING STAFF Donald Byrd, executive artistic director Kathryn van Meter (Margaret Mead ) is a Alexander Pham, interim marketing multi disciplinary theater artist based in Seattle. and media associate Previous roles include: Nurse in Romeo and Hayley Shannon, outreach coordinator Juliet and Chorus Leader in Medea (Seattle Susan Daggett, Bob Gribas, and Mary Brown, Shakes peare Company); Myrtle in The Great front desk Gats by (Seattle Rep); Gwen in Rapture Blister Burn (ACT); Texas in Cabaret, Shirley Mark - SPECTRUM PRODUCTION STAFF owitz in The Producers , and Shelby in Steel Mag - Lizzy Melton, company manager no lias (Village Theatre); and Vibrata in A Funny Michael Sterkowicz, technical director Thing Happened (5th Avenue). Also a director Sara Torres, production stage manager and choreographer, Van Meter most recently Abby I. Gordon, DPT directed Into the Woods for Village Theatre and choreographed a flamenco-based Man of THE SCHOOL OF La Mancha for Arizona Theatre Company, The SPECTRUM DANCE THEATER Magic Flute for the Seattle Opera, and the Net - Joshua Crouch, school principal flix original series 13 Reasons Why. She is a Donald Byrd, contemporary and modern head proud member of SDC and AEA. Van Meter is Christopher Grant-Montoya, ballet head honored to join Spectrum Dance Theater and Mary Sigward, academy coordinator the visionary Donald Byrd in this ground - breaking work. SPECTRUM BOARD OF DIRECTORS Russ Stromberg, president and board chair Jaclyn Wheatley , originally from Vancouver, Josh LaBelle, vice chair BC, received her early dance training under the Joanna Lau, secretary tutelage of Kathryn Long, Rachael Poirier, and Moriah Levy, treasurer Li Yaming. Other training includes American Sun McElderry Ballet Theatre, Central Pennsylvania Youth Samantha Nyham Ballet, Dance New York International (Paris, Shirley Wong France), and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. Tricia Stromberg, emeritus An alumna of the Alvin Ailey/Fordham Uni - versity BFA program, Wheatley graduated sum - ma cum laude with a major in dance and a For more information about booking Spectrum minor in business administration. A member Dance Theater for touring, please contact: of the JUNTOS Collective, she has travelled to David Lieberman Artists’ Representatives Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Nicaragua to par - [email protected] ticipate in dance outreach activities. Wheatley Tel: (714) 979-4700 has performed the works of Alvin Ailey, Jen - DLArtists.com nifer Archibald, Joshua Beamish, Ronald K. Brown, and Arch Contemporary Ballet. Since For more about sponsoring or contributing to her move to Seattle, she has performed in Spectrum Dance Theater, please contact: many of Donald Byrd’s productions, including Meghan Villanueva Drastic Cuts , Love, Carmina Burana, Shot, and [email protected] (Im)pulse, as well as works presented by Alex Tel: (206) 325-4161

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