Lines Ballet : School : Faculty

Faculty

Karah Abiog
Yannis Adoniou
Laura Bernasconi
Mary Carbonara
LeeWei Chao
Brion Charles
Duncan Cooper
Kara Davis
Gregory Dawson
Arturo Fernandez
Marina Hotchkiss
Maurya Kerr
Shirin Keyani-Rose
Alonzo King
Muriel Maffre
Robert Moses
Charles Moulton
Amy Raymond
Debra Rose
Carmen Rozestraten
Heidi Schweiker
Debbie Taylor
Katy Warner
Keelan Whitmore

Karah Abiog (Modern)

Originally from Saratoga, California Karah received her bachelor�s degree in dance from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. �Her earlier years training began at Ballet Capriole under Elizabeth Neumann and Karen Millar. She has danced and toured extensively with companies such as Complexions Contemporary Ballet, Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble, Deeply Rooted Productions, Earl Mosley�s Diversity of Dance, nathan trice/RITUALS, Wylliams Henry Danse Theatre, among others, fortunate to experience such an array of amazing choreographers and artists. She was a visiting professor of modern dance in the Dance Division of the Conservatory of Music and Dance at UMKC. �Since 1995, Karah has continued to perform and teach for the International Seminar of Brasilia. She is also a certified Pilates instructor.

Yannis Adoniou (Ballet, Contemporary Partnering, Choreography)

Yannis is the artistic director of KUNST-STOFF and a native of Athens, Greece. He has lived in San Francisco for nearly 15 years and has become a vital part of the Bay Area dance community, as an Izzie award winning dancer, a choreographer and as member of the faculty at San Francisco Dance Center, LINES Ballet Summer Program and the LINES Ballet/Dominican University BFA program.

Adoniou began his passion for dance at an early age at family gatherings and discos. The freedom and expression that he found through movement swiftly transformed into a calling that led him to more intensive study at The State School of Dance in Athens and then John Neumeier's Hamburg Ballet School in Germany. There he immersed himself in ballet and technique, but soon found that what he was seeking lay beyond the classical codified movement forms. In contemporary dance he found a place where experimentation and discovery were encouraged and his own voice could take root and grow. Yannis moved to San Francisco to join LINES Ballet where he was a member of the company from 1993-1998.

Throughout his career in Europe and the US, Adoniou continually created works of his own, collaborating with other artists, often alternating between the roles of choreographer and filmmaker. These creative endeavors found a permanent home in 1998, when Adoniou left LINES Ballet to co-found his own company KUNST-STOFF. Since then, he has premiered over 20 new works in the Bay Area, frequently in collaboration with nationally known visual and media artists and composers. His work embodies the curiosity of a true seeker. It challenges the viewer to reconsider the established knowledge and social behavior they have been taught and find their own personal truth. It encourages dancers and audiences alike to open their senses and be present in the moment. Adoniou's work has been commissioned and presented by the Bonn Ballet, Summerfest/Dance, Burning Man, the Herbst Dance Festival in Heidelberg, Germany, Dance Forum Monaco, the Dimitria International Dance Festival in Thessalonica, Greece, the Athens International Festival and Ballet Frankfurt among others. He has received support and acknowledgement for his work as a Dancer/Director and Choreographer from the Isadora Duncan Awards, the Irvine Foundation and Dance/USA, the 2005 Goldie Awards, and the San Francisco Arts Commission.

Laura Bernasconi (Ballet)

Laura Bernasconi trained on scholarship in modern dance and classical ballet with the San Francisco Ballet, Cleveland Ballet, Marin Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, Academy of Ballet, SF Dance Center (LINES), and Jacob�s Pillow Dance Festival.

She has performed as a soloist and principal dancer with Bern Ballet, Switzerland� Ballet Mainz. Germany; Joyce Trissler Dance Company, New York; Labayen Dance/SF� KunstStoff/SF; Margaret Wingrove Dancers, California; Jyoti Kala Mandir, India. Her repertoire includes the works of Geogre Balanchine, Hans van Manen, Carolyn Carlson, Martin Schlaepfer, Samuel Wuersten, Enrico Labayen, Milton Meyers, Yannis Adoniou, Fabrice Lemiere, and Kyoti Rout.

Ms. Bernasconi has worked as rehearsal director for Ballet Nuerenberg (Daniella Kurz, Stijn Celis, Jo Stromgren); West Side Story, Bergenz, Austria (Richard Wherelock); Smuin Ballet/SF (Amy Seiwert); Labayen Dance/SF; KunstStoff/SF, as well as staging classical ballets and the choreography of award winning choreographer, Enrico Labayen, who choreographed works specifically for her.

Her choreography and restagings have been featured in festivals in the Bay Area and abroad such as the Krzysztof Pastor�s �Aida� for the dancers of Ballet Deutche Oper am Rheim at the LTU Arena in Dusseldorf, Germany; the choreography and performance of �Dance of Salome� with the Bruckner House Orchestra in Linz, Austria and �At Shiva�s Feet� for Layayen Dace/SF performed at the Cowell Theater in San Francisco.

Mary Carbonara (Modern)

Mary has been choreographing, performing and teaching in the Bay Area since 1988. Her choreography has been described as �exquisitely shaped dancing� by the San Francisco Chronicle and she has been called a �remarkable dancer� by the SF Bay Guardian and �a powerful dancer and choreographer� by Voice of Dance. She has been presented by Summerfest/Dance 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2003, Dance Mosaic, Dance Works, Dancers� Group�s Local Choreographers Series, and as part of Venue 9�s Women�s Work Series and Monterey Dance Week 2003. She has choreographed commissions for San Jose State University Dance Theater (UDT) and Mills College Repertory Dance Company.

Mary debuted her own company, Mary Carbonara Dances, in 2002 with Dwellings, an evening of original works performed at San Francisco�s Dance Mission Theatre.She is the recipient of a CA$H Grant (2001) and two Zellerbach Family Fund Grants (2002 and 2003).

Mary has been a member of Margaret Jenkins Dance Company since 2000 and is formerly a member of Robert Moses� Kin, Project Bandaloop, Liss Fain Dance, and Wendy Osserman and Company. She has taught nationally, internationally and throughout Northern California, including San Jose State University, East Carolina University, UC Davis, St. Mary�s College, Mills College, Citicenter Dance Theatre, Dancers� Group, ODC/San Francisco, Shawl-Anderson Dance Center and in Washington, North Carolina, New York City and Tokyo, Japan. She currently teaches at San Francisco Dance Center and San Francisco Ballet School. Mary holds a M.F.A. in Choreography and Performance from Mills College and a B.A. in English from Barnard College.

LeeWei Chao (Ballet)

A native of Taipei, Taiwan, LeeWei Chao was a member of the Milwaukee Ballet Company from 1998 to 2005 after dancing wit the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago, the Festival Ballet of Rhode island, Singapore Dance Theater, Taipei City Ballet, and Henry Yu Dance Company. He has performed in works by Balanchine, Choo San Goh, Robert North, Kathryn Posin, David Parsons, Jean-Paul Commelin, and Simon Dow. He received his early ballet training from Xiao Lee who brought the Vaganova ballet method from Russia to Taiwan. He completed his education at the National Institute for the Arts in Taipei, which hosts guest teachers from all over the world. His training there included Chinese folk dance, ballet, modern dance, Spanish, India, and Bali dance. After his two years of mandatory army training, he was hired by Singapore Dance Theater. In 1996, he came to NYC to join the Joffrey Ballet Concert Dancers. He was awarded the outstanding Dance Award by the Taiwanese Department of the Arts, and was voted Best Male Dancer in Taiwan by Taiwan Dance Magazine. Since 2001, Mr. Chao has been a regular guest choreographer and theater for the Milwaukee Ballet School Summer program and for the Milwaukee Ballet II. He also choreographed for the Space Between program at the Milwaukee Art Museum. In 2002 and 2003, Mr. Chao was commissioned for new works by the Milwaukee Ballet Company.

Brion Charles (Physical Therapist)

Brion has studied ballet and modern dance for 25 years, while working as a dance medicine specialist in physical therapy for over 10 years with Dr. James Garrick at the St. Francis Center for Sports Medicine. He is the resident physical therapist for Alonzo King's LINES Ballet and the LINES Ballet School and Summer Program, the School of the Arts SF, the Oakland Ballet, and other companies and professional artists.

He believes that education in dance is really education in self-awareness. He supports the art of each dancer by integrating knowledge of technical aspects of movement with various dance styles, recognizing that every dancer has their own personal ideal placement, which can be developed to increase strength and self-awareness while decreasing the risk of injury.

Duncan Cooper (Ballet, Classical Partnering)

Mr. Cooper considers himself a native of both New York City and San Francisco. He received most of his training in the San Francisco Ballet School and later spent 5 years dancing the company.� He joined The Dance Theatre of Harlem as a Principal Dancer in 1995, until 2004. � He has danced notable leading roles such as Balanchine�s �Apollo�, �Prodigal Son�, �Agon�, �Allegro Brilliante�; Albrecht in �Giselle�; Robbins� �Fancy Free�; Ashton�s �Thais�, Glenn Tetley�s �Sphinx and Dialogues� and Smuin�s �A Song For Dead Warriors�, to name a few. His list of guest artist appearances includes lead roles for New York City Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Washington Ballet and more. Most recently in September of 2007 he invited to dance a new work for the 12th International Ballet Festival of Miami. Mr. Cooper continues to travel nationally and internationally as a guest teacher, in addition to choreographing and dancing for various projects he find interest in. Currently, he is deeply committed the national outreach program for kids at risk, called Athletes For Kids, for which he helped create and is the assistant director of.

Kara Davis (Modern, Choreography)

Kara, a native of Hutchinson, Kansas, has danced for Ballet Met, Atlanta Ballet, Ohio Ballet, the San Francisco Opera Ballet and Ballet Jorgen in Toronto, Ontario. For the past ten years she has lived in San Francisco and has danced for Margaret Jenkins Dance Company, Pearl Ubungen Dancers & Musicians, Mary Carbonara, Robert Moses, and Kathleen Hermesdorf. She is a founding member of KUNST-STOFF and Janice Garrett & Dancers. She won an "Izzie" in 2003 for "Outstanding Achievement in Individual Performance" and was Bay Area dance critic Rachel Howard's pick for 2005's MVP. She has taught at the San Francisco Ballet School, Berkeley Ballet, Atlanta Ballet School, ODC, Guangdong Modern Dance Academy in Guang Zhou, China and Alonzo Kings' Lines Pre-Professional Program. She currently teaches at the SF Dance Center & Mills College. Her work has been shown at ODC Theater, the Headlands Center for the Arts, Jon Sims, the banks of the Eel River (Camp KUNST-STOFF) and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

Gregory Dawson (Ballet, Choreography)

Mr. Dawson began his studies in Chicago at Ruth Page School of Ballet and then left for Southern Illinois to study ballet and Haitian dance with Katherine Dunham. He moved to San Francisco where he studied with Evelyn Schuert at Shawl-Anderson Dance Studios and with Alonzo King at Dance Central. Mr. Dawson left for New York in 1982 to study with The Dance Theatre of Harlem. From 1983-1986 he danced with Theatre Ballet Canadian, returning to the Bay Area to perform with Oakland Ballet, Berkeley Ballet Theater, Sacramento Ballet and the San Francisco Opera Ballet. Mr. Dawson joined LINES in 1987. Upon retiring from the company in 2005, he began to teach and choreograph for the LINES Ballet/Dominican University BFA Program and for the LINES Ballet Training Program. Recently, the BFA program was selected to represent the Southwest Region to perform his Solid Soil Beneath Our Feet at the ACDF's National College Dance Festival in New York. Mr. Dawson has also been on faculty for the San Francisco High School for the Arts for the last three years. In the fall of 2008 he will begin a major work for Charles Anderson's Company C. He feels blessed and well prepared to pass his knowledge of the dance that was so graciously given to him by Alonzo to the next generation of young dancers.

Arturo Fernandez (Ballet, Choreography)

A native of Oakland, California, Arturo began dance training at the School of Performing Arts in San Diego. He joined the San Diego Ballet in 1978, and performed with the California, Arizona, Sacramento and New Jersey Ballets as well as the Ballet Trockadero de Monte Carlo and Pittsburgh Ballet Theater. In 1981, Arturo joined modern dance company ODC/San Francisco, and served as the assistant to the choreographers from 1988 until spring 1991. Arturo has choreographed for the James Sewell Ballet, Inland Pacific Ballet and LINES Ballet, and has also demonstrated his work in self-produced concerts throughout the region. Since 1992, he has been the Ballet Master for LINES Ballet, assisting Alonzo King in the creation of new work. ��

Since 1998 he has coordinated and taught in Alonzo King's Professional Summer Intensive. In 2001 he directed the first summer Pre-Professional Program at LINES. For more than a decade he has been an integral part of the faculty of the San Francisco Dance Center. He has set ballets by Alonzo King on companies and Universities throughout the United States including NYU, Washington University in St. Louis and the Florida State University, Most notably, in August of 2006 he set Handel, choreographed by Alonzo King, on the Royal Swedish Ballet in Stockholm.

Marina Hotchkiss (Ballet; Director, LINES Ballet/Dominican University BFA in Dance Program)

Marina joined LINES Ballet in 1983, after having danced with the Deutsche Oper Berlin for four years. In Berlin, Marina worked directly with such dance luminaries as Rudolf Nureyev, Birgit Cullberg, Loyce Houlton, Anna Markard and Valery Panov. In addition to the works of these artists, she appeared in ballets by George Balanchine and Kenneth McMillan, amongst others. In her eighteen years with LINES Ballet, Marina participated in the making of over forty original ballets by Alonzo King, creating memorable roles in Lila, Alkan Pas de Deux, Without Wax, Gurdjieff Piano Music, String Quartet, The Hearts Natural Inclination, Tarab and Who Dressed You Like a Foreigner? Since 2002, she has been an integral faculty member of LINES Ballet School and LINES Ballet Summer Program, shaping curriculum and developing her Metaphor workshop, which explores the embodiment of meaning. She was on the faculty of School of the Arts for four years. In addition to her work with LINES, Marina was a tenured member of the San Francisco Opera ballet for eighteen years. In 2001 Marina received an Isadora Duncan Award for Outstanding Achievement.

Maurya Kerr (Ballet, Choreography)

Maurya danced with Alonzo King's LINES Ballet from 1994-2006. She trained at Pacific Northwest Ballet and danced professionally with PNB and Fort Worth Ballet before joining LINES. Alonzo King created roles for her in many ballets, including The Hierarchal Migration of Birds and Mammals; Baker Fix; Rite of Spring; The Patience of Aridity,Waiting for Petrichor; Road; Koto; Soothing the Enemy; People of the Forest; Tango; Handel Trio; Rock; and Klang. She is currently a freelance artist, and has been a principal guest artist with Joanna Haigood's Zaccho Dance Theatre, Alex Ketley and Christian Burns' The Foundry, Robert Moses' Draft project, Robert Henry Johnson Dance Company, Ballet Zinoun in Morocco, and was featured as Juliet in The Crucible's 2007 Romeo and Juliet. She is a senior faculty member for the LINES Ballet Summer Program, on faculty with the LINES Ballet/Dominican BFA program, and is a certified GYROTONIC trainer. She was also a principal dancer in "The Matrix II: Reloaded", and the 2004/2005 model for Mirella Dancewear.

Shrin Keyani-Rose (Ballet; Summer Program Director, Alonzo King LINES Ballet School)

Shirin is a native of Iran. She received her early training at the Conservatory of Fine Arts in Tehran, under the direction of Bijan Kalantari. In 1975 she moved to United States and continued her training in Santa Barbara with Tamara Kinsell and by age 15 was performing principal roles in major classics with the Santa Barbara Ballet. During her early years, she received scholarships to North Carolina School of the Arts, Pennsylvania Ballet and San Francisco Ballet school summer programs. Ms Keyani-Rose has served as dancer, faculty member and ballet mistress to Sacramento Ballet. Shirin joined Alonzo King�s LINES Ballet in 1989 and is a faculty member of LINES Ballet School�s summer program. She currently lives and teaches in the Sacramento area.

Alonzo King (Artistic Director, Alonzo King LINES Ballet)

Alonzo King has been commissioned to create works for the repertories of companies throughout the world including the Swedish Royal Ballet, Frankfurt Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, Dance Theater of Harlem, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, Hong Kong Ballet, North Carolina Dance Theatre, and Washington Ballet. In 1982, Mr. King founded Alonzo King's LINES Ballet, which has developed into an international touring company. Seven years later, he inaugurated the San Francisco Dance Center, and in 2001, he started the LINES Ballet School. In fall 2006, Alonzo King and the Dominican University of California co-launched a Joint BFA program in Dance. Last year, Alonzo King�s LINES Ballet celebrated its 25th anniversary.

In December 2006, Alonzo King was recognized as one of the fifty outstanding artists in America by the United States Artists organization. In the first year that these awards have been given, Alonzo King was one of only four Fellows in Dance, and the only Dance artist outside of New York to be honored by the USA Fellowship. The Fellowship is the second major national award Alonzo King has received in the past three years�in 2005, he won the Bessie Award for Choreographer/Creator�and one of many such honors he has received over the course of his career. He holds two honorary doctorates, and is also the recipient of the NEA Choreographer's Fellowship, Irvine Fellowship in Dance, National Dance Project and the National Dance Residency Program, as well as five Isadora Duncan Awards.

Muriel Maffre (Ballet)

Born in Enghien-les Bains, France, Muriel Maffre received her ballet training from the Paris Op�ra Ballet School and Paris National Conservatory of Music from which she graduated with a Premier Prix with honors. Prior to joining the San Francisco Ballet as a Principal Dancer in 1990, Muriel danced with the Hamburg Ballet and Monte-Carlo Ballet.

She is a Gold Medalist from Paris 1st International Ballet Competition, and the recipient of two Isadora Duncan Award for Outstanding Achievement in Individual Performance for both 1990 and 2002 repertory season performances with the San Francisco Ballet. Muriel holds a B.A. in Performing Arts from St Mary�s College of Moraga, California.

Muriel�s repertory includes leading roles in Swan Lake, La Sylphide, Sleeping Beauty, Giselle, Don Quixote, and Nutcracker. She also performed and created principal roles in choreographies by Ashton, Balanchine, Robbins, Tudor, Forsythe, Morris, Ratmansky, MacGregor, Mrozewski, Wheeldon and Welch. She toured extensively and made appearances in eminent theaters in the USA, and in Europe, Asia, Russia and South America. Muriel received many accolades for her revival of Fokine�s The Dying Swan for SFB�s Opening Night Gala, 2002.

In 2004, Muriel collaborated on the concept development and choreography of a new multi-media staging of Stravinski�s The rite Of Spring, premiered at the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival�s summer season. Subsequently, the Festival commissioned her to create and perform in a new dance and puppetry production of Stravinsky�s L�Histoire du Soldat, which premiered on Orcas Island in the summer 2006.

In April 2006, Muriel collaborated with UC Berkeley professor and conceptual artist Ken Goldberg on a solo, Ballet Mori, danced to the movement of the earth that was presented as part of San Francisco Ballet season at the War Memorial Opera House during the San Francisco 1906 Earthquake Centennial.

Muriel retired from the San Francisco Ballet with a Farewell Gala on May, 6th 2007. Since, Muriel has been involved in dance education and public humanities. She was a Visiting Fellow at Cornell University in March 2008, and the 2008 Arts Honoree for the French American School Soir�e de Arts. In December 2008, Muriel received the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres from the hands of Jean-Fran�ois Mourier, Consul General of France in San Francisco.

Robert Moses (Modern, Choreography)

Robert founded Robert Moses' Kin in 1995 and since then has created numerous works of varying styles and genres for his highly praised dance company. �Robert Moses creates dances that speak to our times. His work is a powerful combination of athletic technique, rhythmic complexity, a fusion of different dance styles, and gestural detail. �He explores topics ranging from oral history in African American culture to the life and work of author James Baldwin, the isolation found in new love to the dark side of contemporary urban culture, and the simple joyous expressions of pure movement.

Moses and his company have been honored with many prestigious grants and awards, among these a 2003 Isadora Duncan Dance Award ("Izzie") for Best Choreography, the Bonnie Bird North American Choreography Award, a San Francisco Bay Guardian "Goldie" and the SF Weekly "Black Box" Award. �Moses has held residencies at ODC Theater and in the San Francisco public schools as part of the San Francisco Arts in Education Foundation Artist-in-Residence Program, and was a Duke/Wattis Artist-in-Residence at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. �He has performed with his company at many nationally esteemed venues such as Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival (2002 and 2004), Colorado Dance Festival, and the Bates Dance Festival. �He has created commissioned works for Oakland Ballet, Cincinnati Ballet, Lawrence Pech Dance Company, Robert Henry Johnson Dance Company, Savage Jazz Dance Company, England's Transitions Dance Company of the Laban Centre, Dance Exchange in London and Goucher College in Baltimore, MD. �His work has been performed nationally and internationally, including England, Italy and Ireland.

Moses' film and theater credits include major productions for the Lorraine Hansberry Theater, New Conservatory Theater, Los Angeles Prime Moves Festival (L.A.C.E.), Olympic Arts Festival, and Black Choreographers Moving Toward the 21st Century. �Moses has worked with many notable artists, among them are Julia Adam, Margaret Jenkins, Alonzo King, Sara Shelton Mann, SoVoSo, Marcus Shelby, Keith Terry, Frank Boehm, Will Power, Somei Yoshino Taiko Ensemble and Youth Speaks. �

A much sought-after teacher, Moses has been a lecturer at Stanford University since 1995 and teaches ongoing technique classes at San Francisco Dance Center. �Prior to establishing Robert Moses' Kin, Moses has danced in Twyla Tharp Dance, ODC/San Francisco, Long Beach Ballet, Walt Disney World Productions, and Gloria Newman Dance Theater, among others.

Charles Moulton (Choreography)

Mr. Moulton has created and set works on Mikhail Baryshnikov�s White Oak Project. The Joffrey Ballet, The Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, The Ohio Ballet, Oregon Ballet Theater, Gauthier Dance (Stuttgart) and many other companies around the world.

A 1983 Guggenheim Award winner, Mr. Moulton is a co-founding director of Performance Space 122 and the recipient of the 1989 Dorothy B. Chandler Performing Arts Award. He has received numerous other awards and fellowships including three Jerome Foundation awards and three Meet The Composer/Choreographer awards. In 2007 he received a Dance: Creation to Performance Grant from the Irvine Foundation for his work �60 Person Precision Ball Passing� performed at the Orange County Performing Arts Center.

Moulton is an active commercial choreographer. He has created a featured solo for Academy Award winner Tilda Swinton in the movie "TEKNOLUST", the choreography for a national print and television ad campaign for Peregrine Communications, and a rave scene for 1000 dancers in "THE MATRIX RELOADED".

In May 2008 he collaborated with choreographer Janice Garrett and the Del Sol String Quartet to create �StringWreck� and evening of live dance and music performed at the Yerba Buena Forum in San Francisco, which was received to popular and critical acclaim. Moulton currently lives in Oakland California and is on the board of Trustees of the Djerassi Resident Artist Program.

Amy Raymond (Improvisation, Choreography)

Amy trained as a classical dancer in Washington D.C and at the Centre De Danse International in Cannes, France. She entered the Dutch National Ballet in 1991 and was promoted to soloist in 1997, working with leading choreographers including Hans Van Mannen, Edouard Lock, Christopher Bruce, Jan Fabre and William Forsythe. In 2000, Raymond joined Ballett Frankfurt to work with William Forsythe.

She has embarked on her own creative work, including a movie installation, �Moving Movie,� that premiered in Das TAT as part of Ballet Frankfurt�s Artist Members Projects. She also has created and performed works in San Francisco, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, London, the Netherlands, Marseilles and Austria. She was selected as a winner of Hubbard Street 2�s National Choreographic Competition and premiered Pulse for HS2�s 10th anniversary celebration in September 2007. Raymond has assisted choreographer David Dawson with �00:00� and �The Grey Area,� which won a Bennoir de la Danse prize; restaged �A Million Kisses To My Skin� on The Royal New Zealand Ballet, assisted Prue Lang with staging �Infinite Temporal Series� on the Melbourne-based company Chunky Move and has also staged William Forsythe�s �Artifact Suite� on San Francisco Ballet and Paris Opera.

She is an active teacher of improvisation techniques, codified by William Forsythe, and heads the Forsythe Exchange Program with the Rotterdam Dansacadamie. She teaches open workshops, including an annual improvisation workshop in San Francisco, and teaches and choreographs the LINES Ballet Summer Program headed by Alonzo King, artistic director of LINES Ballet. Raymond has taught at the �Learning By Doing� festival coordinated by Hebbel Theater in Berlin and will return there in 2008 to head the launch of Forsythe�s new interactive DVD project of �One Flat thing Reproduced.� She is on faculty at the European DANCE program at the Palucca Schule Dresden and has also taught at the American Dance Festival, Scapino, Rotterdam Dance Works, San Francisco Ballet, Ballet De Marseilles and The Forsythe Company.

Debra Rose (Master Trainer, SF GYROTONIC ®)

Debra is a founding member and Executive Director of San Francisco GYROTONIC � primarily created to serve the San Francisco Bay Area�s dance community in 1988. Since that time, San Francisco GYROTONIC � has grown to become one of the world�s foremost GYROTONIC � training facilities serving a variety of individuals and needs. Debra is not only a certified Master Trainer in all aspects of the system and equipment, but she is one of the few Master Trainers authorized by GYROTONIC ��s creator, Juliu Horvath to teach the Level I Final Certification Exams in Miami and Asia, previously taught only by him. As one of the first GYROTONIC � Master Trainers, Debra has worked closely with Mr. Horvath in developing and implementing syllabus that has been used throughout the world and is responsible for training hundreds of GYROTONIC � trainers currently working everywhere. �

As a dancer, Debra completed her training at New York City�s School of American Ballet, after which she danced with the Oakland and San Francisco Ballets before becoming a founding member of Alonzo King�s LINES Ballet where she danced for 20 years. In addition to being a principal dancer, Debra served as a Ballet Mistress for LINES and assisted Mr. King in setting choreography on various companies that include Alvin Ailey, Dance Theater of Harlem and the Joffrey Ballet. Most recently, Debra has created the first syllabus and GYROTONIC� manual associated with a dance program for the LINES Ballet/Dominican University Bachelors of Fine Arts in Dance. In addition, Debra continues to dance as a tenured member of the San Francisco Opera Ballet where she has been dancing since 1985.

Carmen Rozestraten (Ballet, Choreography)

Carmen is one of the founding members of LINES Ballet. For the last 10 years she has been guest teaching at major companies and schools in Europe and the U.S. Three years ago she became interested in making films.

Heidi Schweiker (Modern, Choreography)

Heidi first performed in San Francisco in July, 1996, and has been a steady and diverse participant in Bay Area dancemaking since then. A member of Janice Garrett & Dancers and Margaret Jenkins Dance Company since 2000, she has also performed with Mary Carbonara Dances, Nancy Karp + Dancers, and with choreographer Lea Wolf. Her choreographic works have been presented by Summerfest/dance, West Wave Dance Festival, Theatre of Yugen/Noh Space, ODC Theater, Yerba Buena Arts & Events, the Southwest American College Dance Festival, through choreographic commissions from her alma mater StanfordUniversity, and on programs shared with Mary Carbonara Dances and Project Agora. Heidi is on faculty at San Francisco Dance Center where she teaches Beginning Modern Dance, and at ODC Dance Commons where she teaches Intermediate/Advanced Modern Dance. She is also a costume designer and collage artist.

Debbie Taylor (Modern, Improvisation)

Debbie has been dancing her journey most of her lifetime. She currently teaches dance and improvisation as a faculty member of the LINES Ballet Summer Program and LINES Ballet Training Program. She teaches movement with Purple Moon Dance Project�s community programs. She has taught modern dance in San Francisco, Berlin, Santa Fe and around the U.S. She was on the faculty of the National Theater of the Deaf�s Professional Summer School for four years and performed as a guest artist with the company in their 60-city tour of Peer Gynt. She has taught and choreographed for Challenge New Mexico, a summer arts camp for adults with disabilities. Debbie choreographs and performs her own work, and has performed with Bay Area choreographers Sara Shelton Mann, Kim Epifano, Dance Brigade, Scott Wells and Dancers, Company Chaddick, Kirstin Williams/Strong Current, and others. Nationally and internationally she has toured with David Rousseve/Reality, and with Dance Berlin. Debbie is a certified GYROKINESIS� teacher, ASL interpreter, and a member of two Taiko performance ensembles, Taiko Ren and Triple Threat Taiko.

Katy Warner (Ballet)

Katy is a dancer, choreographer and teacher who has performed throughout the United States, Central and South America, and Eastern Europe. She studied with Maggie Black, Aaron Osborn, Carlos Carvajal, Alonzo King, Anatole Vilzack, Madame Sholar, and Xenia Chlistowa, among others. She danced with San Francisco Ballet, San Francisco Dance Spectrum (founding member), Zaccho Dance Theater, Santa Fe Opera, and San Francisco Opera Ballet. She was also a founding member of Alonzo King's LINES Ballet, with whom she performed from 1982 to 1996, creating a wide variety of roles. She was honored by the Isadora Duncan Dance Awards for her outstanding contributions to LINES as a dancer.

Keelan Whitmore (Ballet, Choreography)

Keelan Whitmore is originally from Rockford, Illinois, where he began his training at the Rockford Dance Company and later went on to graduate from Interlochen Arts Academy. Keelan also studied at the Joffrey Ballet School/New School University and has danced with Kansas City Ballet for five seasons, where he performed works by George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Twyla Tharp, and Nacho Duato. His choreography has been showcased in workshop and gala performances with Kansas City Ballet, Virginia School of the Arts, and Regional Dance America, where he received the 2005 National Choreography Recognition Award. Keelan is the co-founder/co-artistic director of Quixotic Performance Fusion. Keelan has danced with Alonzo King�s LINES Ballet since 2005.