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ARTISTIC DIRECTOR DANCERS COLLABORATORS
"Not only is Mellor one of this decade's most talented
choreographers - her performance is that of new perspective into the self & soul of dance."
Review of Libretto by Gina Clark, Co-Creative Director & Curator of the Shoulder (Beaubourg 268), San Francisco.
JENNIFER MELLOR, DANCER & CHOREOGRAPHER, can't imagine a life without dance.
Jennifer believes that dance as an art form reminds us we are alive, creative, and beautiful. Dance is a shared experience,
a handshake between the artist and viewer, changing and evolving with each performance. At its best, it can
offer a moment of transcendence beyond our current and immediate focus.
Born in Colorado and raised in Oklahoma, Jennifer Mellor has lived in Tulsa, San Francisco, Philadelphia and New York, NY, and as a dancer,
she has toured professionally throughout the U.S. and Europe. She has performed in international festivals and venues, including New York’s DUMBO Dance Festival and Wave Rising Series,
the Merce Cunningham Studio, and San Francisco’s West Wave Dance Festival. She has toured as a featured soloist in Italy, Greece,
Czech Republic, Hungary, Vermont, Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, Tucson, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Boulder, Columbus, Chicago, and New York.
With training in classical ballet, pointe, jazz,
rhythm tap, and modern dance, as well as a B.S.
in Mathematical & Computational Science from Stanford University, Jennifer has found a unique path through various technical
and artistic pursuits.
As an independent choreographer, Jennifer currently directs her own modern dance works for Jennifer
Mellor Dance Project. Her work has been seen in San Francisco, Berkeley, San Jose, and Houston, and will soon be presented in New York and Tulsa.
In 2011 her work was featured in the Women on the Way Festival, a weekly pick by the San Francisco Bay Guardian. In 2010 and 2011,
Jennifer was an artist-in-residence for the Resident Artist Workshop (RAW)
at The Garage, an intimate performance space in San Francisco,
where she premiered two new works: Libretto (2010), a modern dance work for four dancers, interweaving a poetry reading by Jennifer Kwon Dobbs
and a live, original cello composition by Jessica Ivry, and "Les Muses" (2011), a playful
pair of duets which premiered May 4-5 for her second
residency at The Garage. Other choreographic credits include Prism (2009), a modern dance trio Jennifer
has performed live with musical collaborator and singer-songwriter Jason Brown.
She has also choreographed works for High Release Dance Company, for whom her credits include
"Uneven" (2007) and
"Hanami" (2008).
Jennifer has an upcoming artist residency at Living Arts LAB in Tulsa and will be presenting new work for a
program with Movement Research in New York in April 2012; she will also be performing “Les Muses” in a program
with Tulsa Ballet in May 2012.
As a dancer, Jennifer currently dances in New York City with DOUBLE VISION, a modern dance and intermedia
company (formerly based in San Francisco) directed by Pauline Jennings
and Sean Clute, which has been featured on KQED Spark! and PBS's Meaning of the 21st Century and with whom she tours nationally and
internationally, Beth Soll & Company, Ella Rosewood Dance, Laurel Desmarais and has danced in film
projects with Andy Byers, Jonathan Peck, and Allie Tsypin, and when not on the east coast she also lives in Broken Arrow, OK.
While in San Francisco, Jennifer performed with Copious Dance Theater,
Courage Group, DOUBLE VISION, High Release Dance Company, Diane Frank, and Lisa Burnett.
Previously she has danced for Tulsa Dance Theater, FootSong,
A Call to Feet Tap Dance Ensemble, and Dance on Tulsa, where she was featured in works by Johnson/Long & Co, Dina McDermott, Mimi Chen,
and Kathy Dunn Hamrick. As a technologist, she collaborated with DOUBLE VISION on a dance work for the University of Arizona, involving
two 8x6ft rear-projected interactive screens leveraging IR and webcam technologies.
Additionally, Jennifer serves on the Board of
Directors of STEPOLOGY, a nonprofit organization to preserve and promote the understanding and
appreciation of tap dance. She also shares her passion for dance as an instructor, most recently teaching ballet, modern, and tap classes
to adults and children at the JCC San Francisco, and she has mentored aspiring young artists
through the YouthWorks program at Brooklyn Arts Exchange.
In her work, Jennifer often draws on her
interdisciplinary interests in the cerebral realms of logic, algorithms, and interweaving patterns, as well as the technique and physicality
of rhythm, fluidity, and weight, to create richly layered movement. Jennifer is interested in exploring intersections of technology and the
arts as well as collaborating with musicians, dancers, poets and other artists to create new works and
challenge the status quo of dance as a performing art.
DANCERS (NEW YORK)
PATTY CHEN, DANCER, a native of New Jersey, graduated from Princeton University where
she majored in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology with a certificate in African Studies and a certificate in Dance. At Princeton, she was privileged
to perform works by Marianela Boan, Zvi Gotheiner, Rebecca Lazier, Mark Morris, Deganit Shemy, and Take Ueyama. Patty studies Japanese taiko
drumming in Brooklyn with musician Kaoru Watanabe (www.taikonyc.com/). Reach her at www.pattychen.wordpress.com/. |
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DANIEL CHENOWETH, DANCER, is originally from the San Francisco Bay Area
where he studied Tap, Jazz and Partnering from Katie Maltsberger. He received a Bachelor of Science in Biology and a Bachelor of
Arts in Dance Performance, receiving honors in each. While studying at Skidmore College he performed works by Ohad Naharin,
Robert Moses, Robert Battle, Kevin Wynn, Alex Ketley, and Melecio Estrella. Daniel also dances with Ella Rosewood Dance and
BodyStories/Teresa Fellion Dance. |
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HOLLY HEIDT, DANCER, is from Bloomington, Indiana,
where she grew up doing
ballet with the Indiana University Pre-College Program. She studied
literature and dance at Oberlin College and after graduating in 2010
cofounded and choreographed for In Noon Dance with her fellow alumni
Katherine Anderson and Jan Trumbauer. In New York, she has worked with
Andy Byers and Jonathan Peck on their film Harvest, performed work by
Stacey Jardine, and is a member of Ella Rosewood Dance. This spring
she will be performing with Racoco and Play House and will be
presenting her own choreography at The Tank. |
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DANCERS (SAN FRANCISCO)
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WENDY MARINACCIO, DANCER, earned a minor in dance from Stanford
University and a M.A. in Performance Studies from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts with a focus in dance and
gender studies. She has choreographed several productions for El Gato Del Diablo Theatre Company. Wendy has danced with
San Francisco-based DOUBLE VISION, with whom she toured nationally, as well as the contemporary dance company
Dog Patch Superstars, and was a Stanford Dollie. |
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VICTOR TALLEDOS, DANCER,
began his dance training in Mexico City with Guillermo Maldonado and in 2008 graduated from "Escuela Superior de Musica y Danza de Monterrey". He moved to NYC to attend the Ailey school. As a choreograpaher he has has shown his work at The Ailey Citigroup Theater and DNA studios for "The Latin Choreographers Festival 2010". He recently moved to San Francisco as a member of Labayen Dance SF and also dances with Copious Dance Theater.
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JAMIE VENCI, DANCER,
is a San Francisco based visual and movement artist. She began dancing while at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, where she received a BFA in Visual Art - Painting & Drawing. While there she studied a variety of modern dance techniques and had the opportunity to dance for Janet Lilly and Luke Vanier. Since moving to San Francisco she has performed with Channing Sargent, Kat Worthington, and Jennifer Mellor. She most recently presented a collaborative multimedia movement based installation in New York, as part of the Windows Brooklyn exhibition, and was a resident at the Garage Theater artspace in San Francisco for the SPF3 Festival, collaborating on a multimedia performance. Her visual work has been a part of the LAB’s Post-Postcard show, Kearny Street Workshop’s APAture, and Southern Exposure’s Monster Drawing Rally. |
JENNIFER WANG, DANCER,
began her dance training in the San Francisco Bay Area studying ballet, tap, jazz and Chinese cultural dance. She received a minor in Dance from Santa Clara University, and attended the Professional Division Training Program at The Ailey School in New York City. Jennifer has performed and worked with companies including the Chinese Performing Artists of America, Kristin Kusanovich Dance, David Popalisky, Jumping Buddha Dance Ensemble, Tandy Beal & Company and Kim Shipp Dance Theater. Most recently she served as co-leader, choreographer and performer with Eight Count Dance Ministry. |
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COLLABORATORS
JASON BROWN, SINGER-SONGWRITER, was born and raised just outside Tulsa, Oklahoma, and currently lives in Houston, Texas. Although he fell in love with music at an early age it didn’t really find him until his freshman year at the University of Tulsa. A few learned chords on a borrowed guitar and he fell in love with the instrument and the joy of making music. He made his first record in 2000 with multi-platinum selling recording artist Steve Ripley at the famous Church Studio in Tulsa. After receiving an MBA from the University of Notre Dame, he spent a year touring the country as a solo acoustic artist, playing everywhere from the Black Box Theater at California State University at Monterey Bay to the legendary Living Room in New York’s East Village.
He recorded his second album in 2005 with Producer Donnie Boutwell, and
in 2009, Jason worked with Musician and Producer Justin Glasco on his third album, which will come out in Spring 2010. |
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JENNIFER KWON DOBBS, POET, was born in Wonju-Si, South Korea. Her debut collection, Paper Pavilion, received the 2007 White Pine Press Poetry Prize and The New England Poetry Club’s Sheila Motton Book Award. Her chapbook, “Song of a Mirror,” was a finalist for the Tupelo Snowbound Chapbook Award. Recently, her poems have appeared in 5 AM, Blackbird, Cadences, Crazyhorse, Cimarron Review, Cream City Review, MiPOesias, Poetry NZ, Tulane Review, among other journals; have been anthologized in Echoes Upon Echoes (Asian American Writers Workshop 2003) and Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia, and Beyond (W. W. Norton 2008); featured on radio and in film; and translated into Greek, Korean, and Turkish. Currently, she is assistant professor of creative writing at St. Olaf College and is working on an essay collection.
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JESSICA IVRY, CELLIST/COMPOSER, is a freelance musician and instructor of music at the College of Marin. She plays with the Real Vocal String Quartet, and with avant-cabaret composer and singer Amy X Neuburg and the Cello ChiXtet. Jessica has also performed and toured with Beth Custer Ensemble, with singer/songwriter Vienna Teng and with Balkan women’s choir, Kitka. For San Francisco’s A Traveling Jewish Theatre’s 2005 and 2007 seasons, she scored and performed original music for The Bright River, a hip-hop retelling of Dante’s Inferno, and for Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. Jessica recorded on Grammy nominated album, "Blueprint of a Lady" for jazz vocalist, Nneena Freelon. In summers 2008 and 2009, she performed with The Ark Project, an ensemble of Bay Area and New York Klezmer and Eastern European musicians on tour in Poland and Ukraine, featured on KQED's “Spark” television series. Jessica holds degrees from Skidmore College and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
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RICK MELLOR, PHOTOGRAPHER,
is a San Francisco transplant from Tulsa, Oklahoma. Passionate about technology, cycling, and aviation, Rick is a software engineer working on video technologies for a large firm in Silicon Valley. After spending many years watching Jennifer dance, picking up a camera seemed like the best way to get to spend more quality time with his wife and to justify buying a bunch of new toys. Beyond the materialistic excesses, the artistic and technical challenges of photography are of great interest to Rick, and he revels in the challenge of capturing dynamic movement in sparse ambient lighting. (If only he could get his hands on the Zeiss 50mm f/0.7 used in the film Barry Lyndon!) |
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