ADF in Cleveland Workshop Series- Faculty Bios Charles O. Anderson, a native of Richmond, VA, is Head of Dance at the University of Texas at Austin and artistic director of the critically acclaimed afro-contemporary dance-theater company, dance theatre X (founded in 2003). He received his MFA in Dance from Temple University 2002. Hailing from Philadelphia, Anderson joined the Theatre and Dance faculty of the University of Texas at Austin as a tenured associate professor of African Diasporic Dance in 2011. As a dancer in New York City he worked with such noted choreographers as Ronald K. Brown, Talley Beatty, Jim Self, Mark Dendy, Sean Curran, Joy Kellman, and Miguel Gutierrez. Anderson’s choreography has been presented throughout the US as well as internationally. His latest work recently premiered at the Austin Fusebox Festival and at New York Live Arts as part of the Live Ideas festival, James Baldwin, This Time! Anderson was selected as one of “The 25 Artists to Watch” by Dance Magazine and is a Pew Fellowship in the Arts recipient. Brian Brooks is the inaugural Choreographer in Residence at Chicago's Harris Theater for Music and Dance. This innovative three-year fellowship supports several commissions for Brooks each season, including Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Miami City Ballet, and his own New York-based group. The recipient of a 2013 Guggenheim Fellowship, Brooks’ other recent awards include a NY City Center Fellowship and Joyce Theater Artist Residency. His work has toured internationally since 2002 with recent presentations by the American Dance Institute at The Kitchen, Joyce Theater, Jacob’s Pillow, the American Dance Festival, BAM’s 2013 Next Wave Festival, NY City Center’s Fall for Dance Festival, the Guggenheim Museum, Dance Theater Workshop, Lincoln Center Out of Doors Festival and the 92nd Street Y Harkness Festival. The American Dance Institute/Lumberyard, where Brooks is a member of the Artist Advisory Board, has presented his company three times and supported him with two Incubator Production Residencies. Brooks has been commissioned by Damian Woetzel at the Vail International Dance Festival to create three new works featuring dancers from NYC Ballet and Pacific Northwest Ballet, including First Fall, in which Brooks dances with former NY City Ballet Principal Dancer Wendy Whelan. He is currently touring a duet evening, Some of a Thousand Words, together with Whelan and the string quartet Brooklyn Rider. Theatre for a New Audience has invited Brooks to choreograph two Off-Broadway Shakespeare productions – A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2013), directed by Julie Taymor, andPericles (2016), directed by Trevor Nunn. Brooks has created dances for schools including The Juilliard School, The Boston Conservatory, The School at Jacob’s Pillow, BalletTech, and Harvard University. He dedicated 12 years as a Teaching Artist of Dance at the Lincoln Center Institute for the Arts in Education and has been on the part-time faculties of Rutgers University and Princeton University. www.brianbrooks.us Carlye Eckert, originally from Portland, Oregon, is a New York based dance artist and performer. She holds a BFA from the Juilliard School (2009). Ms. Eckert has worked and collaborated with Tino Sehgal, Jonah Bokaer, Jack Ferver, Luke Murphy Dance, Yara Travieso, Lucie Baker, The Equus Projects, Boris Charmatz/Musee de la Danse and appeared as a guest dance artist with Aszure Barton & Artists and Keigwin+Company. She has performed in the work of Brian Brooks since 2013. Ms. Eckert teaches Contemporary Technique and Improvisation at Rutgers Mason Gross School of the Arts, where she has set Brook’s work Torrent (2015). She is a founding member and producer of STUFFED: Dinner + Dance, a free performance series established in 2011 at Judson Church in New York City and STUFFED: d.a.n.c.e., a platform for exploring community engagement and social activism through dance (www.stuffed-arts.org). Ms. Eckert's choreographic work has been seen on NPR’s First Look (2016); presented at A-WOL and the West Linn Theater in Portland, Oregon; and in Upstate New York and New York City at Garner Arts Center, Chapman Steamer Arts, Judson Church, Center for Performance Research, CAVE, CUNY, Dance New Amsterdam, West End Theater, Dixon Place, Location One, DUMBO Dance Festival, Green Space, The Peter Jay Sharp Theater at Lincoln Center, and The Juilliard School. www.carlyeeckert.com Pamela Pietro has equally combined careers on stage and in academic fields of dance successfully. She has performed professionally with Houlihan and Dancers, Anthony Morgan Dance Company, Michael Foley Dance, RaceDance, bopi’s black sheep/dances, Jennifer Nugent, and Adrienne Westwood. She collaborated with choreographer Mark Haim for several projects at the Wooden Floor. Pamela has been on the faculty at ADF since 1997 and taught for the Festival’s linkage programs to Guangdong Dance Company in Guangzhou (China), the Dance Library Summer Conference in Tel Aviv, and Henan Normal University in Henan, China. Internationally, Pamela has taught at Newtown High School in Sydney, Australia, Momentum Danza in Panama, LaSalle College of the Arts in Singapore, Tsekh Festival in Moscow, Ekoda de Dance in Tokyo, Aswara in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Korea, Dance Library in Tel Aviv, Israel and Jakarta, Indonesia and community work in Mumbai, India. Pamela’s choreography has been presented by Dancespace Draftworks, Dance New Amsterdam, BAX, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Dancespace in Miami, Booker School for the Arts, Fuzion Dance Artists, Momentum Danza Company/Panama, Meredith College, University of Wisconsin Madison, La Salle Academy/Singapore, and Aswara in Malaysia. Most recently, Pamela performed solo work with the production SOLAS with five other women choreographers. She has presented and taught at the ACM Multimedia Conference and the Tennessee Association of Dance. Pamela received the first place award from the National Society of Arts and Letters and at the Asiagraph Video/Choreography competition in Shanghai, and her research was presented at the Hawaiian Arts and Humanities Conference in Waikiki and at the National Dance Educators Organization in Chicago. Currently, Pamela is an Associate Arts Professor at New York University Tisch School for the Arts where she was awarded the David Payne-Carter Award for Excellence in Teaching. She is a certified Pilates instructor as well as the assistant to pioneering Neuroanatomist, Irene Dowd. Pamela received a BFA/Dance from Florida State University and her MFA/Dance and minor in Biomedical Ethics from University of Washington. Otto (Aquaboogy) Vazquez is an internationally acclaimed performer, instructor, choreographer, and street dancer that honed his craft in Miami and New York. Some of his credits include Pitt Bull, Ne-Yo, Kanye West, i- Luminate from America’s Got Talent, Diesel NYC, and Dr. Pepper’s “One in a Billion” national commerical. He’s toured the world with the off Broadway show Break, The Urban Funk Spectacular, Cirque Du Soliel, Donald Trump, Run-D.M.C., VH1, MTV, Latin Billboard Awards, Premios Juventud, The Miami Heat, Kilo (aka Down), Carnival Cruise Lines, and Rennie Harris’s Iladelph Legends. He recently was the only US soloist in the UK’s Breaking Convention 2015 tour. He’s toured over 20 countries and nearly every state in the US. Aquaboogy has learned from legendary dancers like Don Campbell and Fluky Luke (of the original Lockers), Skeeter Rabbit and Jazzy Jay (of the Electric Boogaloos), and many other pioneers of street dance. Raphael Xavier is an Award-winning artist originally from Wilmington, Delaware; Raphael Xavier is a self taught Hip-Hop dancer and Breaking practitioner since 1983, Raphael has forged an exceptional approach to improvisation. Brenda Dixon Gottschild deemed Xavier, ‘A fine rhythm technician who transforms a bravado dance style into an introspective meditation.’ A self-described Innovative Movement Conceptualist, Xavier creates new ways to expand the vocabulary of the dance form. He draws not only upon the culture but also his equally important visual background as a Hip Hop magazine photographer and musical artist. As the sound designer for his works, Xavier’s understanding of movement and musicality allows him to structure beats, noises and sounds into captivating music that draws upon emotion and coincides with his choreography. His extensive research in the Breaking form has lead to the creation of Ground-Core, a Somatic dance technique that gives the practitioner a better understanding of the body within all dance forms. As an active alumnus of the world- renown Hip Hop Dance Company, Rennie Harris Puremovement, his solo and ensemble choreographic dance works have been performed world-wide. Xavier has been awarded numerous accolades including a 2013 Pew Fellowship, a MacDowell Fellow in 2014 and most recently a 2016 Guggenheim Fellowship for Choreography. He currently lives in Philadelphia and is a second year Guest Lecturer in Dance at Princeton University. His dance works have been performed at REDCAT Los Angeles, Kennedy Center in Washington DC, ART (American Repertory Theatre in Boston), Dance Theatre Workshop in NYC, the Dance Center at Colombia College Chicago and Painted Bride in Philadelphia, PA among others. .