Eric Andler (lighting designer/performer) is thrilled to be dancing again, many thanks to Eric K. and Dandelion for the opportunity. Most recently you've probably run into Eric A. over at ODC Theater where he holds the distinguished position of Technical Director. Look to see him soon at a Project Artaud Theater near you where ODC/T will be residing. Originally from Illinois, he received a B.S. in Acting from a state university that resides in a town named Normal. While in S.F. Eric has been fortunate enough to light such talents as RAW Dance, Fresh Meat Productions, and Scott Wells. Many thanks to his family, blood and abroad, who got him here.
Lucia August (performer) has been dancing since the age of 4-½. She has studied creative dance, folk, jazz and ballet. Particularly enjoyable was modern dance with Bella Lewitsky and Margaret Jenkins. Lucia credits her development in improvisational movement from Ruth Zaporah’s Action Theater. She has performed with Mass Movement- Big Moves’ Modern Dance Ensemble, the Erika Shuch Performance Project and has been a core company member of Dandelion Dancetheater since 2003. Her creative association with the Dandelion Tribe is the source of a tremendous amount of joy, passion and exuberance! Currently, Lucia is also doing her own choreographic explorations. She is a practicing psychotherapist in Castro Valley. www.augusthealing.com
Dana DeGuzman (administrative assistant/performer) was born and raised in the Bay Area. He is primarily a musician and is finishing his last year of studying jazz guitar at Cal State University East Bay in Hayward. Relatively new to dance, Dana is immersing himself in all aspects of it, from Dandelion's intensive rehearsal schedules, trainings, and taking outside ballet classes from CSUEB and the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance. He was first introduced to Dandelion Dancetheater while dancing in Tongues, and pulled even further into the company through Dan Plonsey's Bar Mitzvah. He is the newest and one of the youngest members of Dandelion. Dana is currently assisting the company in administrative work. He lives for and loves this new family he has become so apart of and is extremely grateful and blessed to have had such an opportunity.
Brad Guthrie (performer) is a veteran of Bay Area community theater for a shocking number of years. His stage experience ranges from "Arms and the Man" to "Zoo Story." In recent times he has appeared in several Dandelion productions, thanks to the good fortunes provided by modest but durable stage skills, an ability to play the harmonica a little, and a large dose of loving nepotism. He especially enjoys performing with Dandelion, because a) he gets to play everything from crazed train conductors to redneck ghosts, b) working with dancers and musicians is such a gas, and c) once a ham, always a ham.
Dorine Hoeksema (performer) danced her way from the Netherlands to San Francisco in 2005. She enjoys many forms of dance including dance theatre, butoh -- she loves moving about in general. Dorine danced with Dandelion Dancetheater in Anicca, DROP, Oust and Dan Plonsey's Bar Mitzvah. She looks forward more Dandelion dancing in the near future.
Julia Hollas (administrative coordinator/performer) grew up in New Mexico, where she received her early dance training with Moving People Dance Theater, the Santa Fe Dance Foundation, and Dance Arts Los Alamos. After attending the University of Utah, Julia moved to San Francisco in 2006 to train with the SF Conservatory of Dance. She has since split her time between administrative work (with the Conservatory and Dandelion Dancetheater) and performance. She has performed with the SF Conservatory of Dance Performance Company, Alyce Finwall Dance and punkkiCo, and is currently working with Amy Lewis’s Push Up Something Hidden and Dandelion Dancetheater.
Dawn Holtan (performer) was raised in Oakland, where she combined her outdoor dance improvisations, choreographed productions at home, and intensive ballet training in the studio. Dawn discovered modern dance at UC Berkeley and went on to graduate from Bard College with a degree in Dance Choreography and Creative Writing. She began working with Kimiko Guthrie and Eric Kupers in 1994 and has enjoyed being a Dandelion on and off ever since. Dawn’s choreography was once selected as one of ten major local performances by the SF Bay Guardian, and was described as “poignant” and “unpretentious” with “strength, versatility, and a sense of humor.” The MamaLOVE project marks Dawn’s return to performing after a self-imposed six years of maternity leave. During that time, she specialized in homebirth, breastfeeding, babywearing, and unschooling. She also taught children’s dance classes at Danspace, hosted an ongoing homeschooling dance jam, and spent many hours dancing with her three children in her living room, at parks, and on the beach. She’s thrilled to be back onstage -- it’s good to be home.
Reese (Corissa) Johnson (performer) is a 2008 graduate from California State University East Bay where she obtained a B.A in Theatre Arts-Dance. She has been teaching and studying dance for over 10 years and currently teaches in the Bay Area for Lori Buffalow's Next Step Dance Studio in Danville, at CSUEB as a fitness instructor, and at Studio One in Oakland as a recreation specialist. Corissa is honored to be a part of the Dandelion Dancetheater family!
Debby Kajiyama (performer) is a lucky girl. She has performed with Dandelion
Dancetheater since 1998, and has toured with them to New York, Hawaii and
Scotland. She also directs Navarrete x Kajiyama Dance Theater with
co-conspirator Jose Navarrete.
Mickey Kay (performer) Mickey Kay enters the performance world heavily influenced by his background in athletics and art. Now he enjoys blurring the lines between these disciplines, creating movement, structures, and concepts that mix his favorite elements from each. Mickey graduated from UC Berkeley in 2009 with a BA in Art and Anthropology, focusing primarily on mixed-media sculpture. He is also a wheelchair basketball coach, adaptive sports athlete, and world traveler.
Heather Lukens (performer) has been performing for over 3 decades in musicals, travelling children's theater, independent films, choirs and singing telegrams. Heather thanks her "Honey" David, her mother Bonnie and her sister Robyn for all their love, support and inspiration!
Flo Nakamura (performer) is grateful to be performing with the sweet geniuses of Dandelion Dancetheater. Having danced with the Giinko-Marischino(sic)/Wild Hair Jabong ensembles and Iona Contemporary Dance Theatre in Hawaii, and having sung for start-up rock and world-beat bands on the East Coast, she currently throws herself into the intersections of performance, inspiration, and meditative (non-thinking and transpersonal) dance in the Bay Area (and beyond).
Nadia Oka (performer) is a Bay Area choreographer and teacher of dance and yoga, as well as a Certified Movement Analyst from the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies in New York. In 2007 she earned an MFA at Mills College in Choreography and Performance. Ms. Oka collaborates with visual artist, Anthony Discenza, and their work has been presented at CounterPULSE. Nadia also performs with Katie Faulkner's little seismic dance company.
Keith Penney (performer) is a multi-instrumentalist performer and aspiring physicist who is visiting this planet from a galaxy far far away. He is involved in an interplanetary research colloquium and is currently gathering data on his family, Cal State University East Bay, IKEA and Dandelion Dancetheater in order to develop a general theory of relatives.
Mantra Ben-Ya'akova Plonsey's (make-up artist/performer) credits stagger drunkenly from musical theater (Gypsy, The Music Man) to avant-garde performance art. She is an alumna of Kitka Eastern European Women's Chorus, and led the chamber-punk groups KuKuKu and Dreamland. In two films of the 9@Night cycle she played the character Baby, created in collaboration with Rob Nilsson utilizing the techniques of Direct Action Cinema, and can be heard on several sound scores for Nilsson, Jerry Garcia's Poco Loco, and NPR radio. Plonsey starred in the male role of Eddie in Theatre Rhino's FOOL FOR LOVE, and at George Coates Performance Works, she was the leading man in the world premiere of UP YOUR ASS, the long-lost feminist play written by Valerie Solanas, Andy Warhol's would-be assassin. She and her husband Dan Plonsey are hard at work writing an autobiographical opera with and featuring graphic novelist Harvey Pekar.
Jacques Poulin-Denis (performer) takes great pleasure in devoting himself to multidisciplinary art. He has studied theater, music and dance and works as a composer and dancer. He has collaborated with Katie Faulkner, Randee Paufve, O Vertigo, Melanie Demers and AXIS Dance Company, before founding his own company Grand Poney, in 2009. Although Montreal has been his home since 2003, he keeps coming back to work with Dandelion Dance Theater every chance he gets. Click here to find out more about Jacques.
Laura Renaud-Wilson (performer) has been active in the Bay Area as a educator, choreographer, dancer, and leader for 40 years. She was coordinator of Dance at California State University East Bay, taught at UC Berkeley, and Directed California Arts Project at Hayward for a number of years. She has sponsored and produced dance performances for local artists, and serves on the Board of Dandelion Dancetheater and Off Broadway West Theatre Co.
Anne-Lise Reusswig (performer) started dancing in high school and went on to graduate from UC Santa Cruz with a degree in Theater Arts. She then moved to New York, where she was a scholarship student at the Cunningham Studio and performed with many different choreographers. In the San Francisco Bay Area, Anne has appeared in works by Element Dance Theater, Lisa Townsend Company, Company Mecanique performing the works of Sara Shelton Mann, Kathleen Hermesdorf, Heidi Schweiker, Dandelion Dancetheater, Nancy Karp + Dancers, and Shift >>>Physical Theater. She has been teaching at California State University East Bay for the last 4 years.
David Ryther (performer) has been featured as a composer and violinist at the Darmstadt festival of new music, was a Banf Center resident and is currently pursuing a Doctorate in contemporary violin performance at UC San Diego. Based in San Francisco, his diverse activities include playing with the San Francisco Ballet, being a member of the Presidio ensemble, and teaching violin at the Crowden School and as an affiliated teacher and sometime conductor of Villa Sinfonia. His performance activities have taken on a more theatrical dimension with his recent collaborations with Dandelion Dancetheater, blurring the boundaries between music, dance and theater.
Stacz Sadowski (performer) has been dancing since 1993.. you do the math. He plans to dance many more years and from beyond the grave if possible. In addition to dancing with Dandelion he has performed with Element Dance Theater and Nina Haft and has worked as a technician at the CSU Hayward Theatre and Dance Department.
Lily Storm (performer) was born in Seattle, the only child of marionette puppeteers. Her favorite class in elementary school was music, taught once a week by one fabulous Ms. Nigh, and she often entertained herself by making up strange melodies and interesting sounds. She began performing Eastern European music with friends in college and, upon moving to the Bay Area, joined the ensemble Kitka, which provided many more opportunities for performing, traveling, and studying music of other cultures. However, the idea of "becoming a singer" didn't really occur to her until she was midway through recording her debut album If I had a key to the dawn, released in 2009. She is currently working on an album of traditional lullabies, and occasionally performs with a small band. She also teaches group classes and private lessons in voice. www.songbat.com
April Taylor (performer) joined the Undressed Project in 2002. She has worked extensively throughout the Bay Area since 1995. April is a trained singer, dancer and actor who graduated from Mills College in 1997. Currently she is on the faculty of Shawl-Anderson Dance Center and New Conservatory Theater Center.
Deborah Trudell (performer) has been performing in some way, shape or form since she was a little girl. She has been a member of Dandelion Dancetheater from the beginning of the "Undressed Project" late 2001. She received a BA in Theatre and Dance from CSU Hayward and started dancing professionally after graduation. Deborah also studies and competes in Ballroom dancing and enjoys performing in musical theater.
Bob Webb (stage manager/performer)likes to divide his time more or less equally between dance and theatre, with the odd opera, rave, film, and/or street performance thrown in for good measure. He makes most of his living as a stage manager, but is also an actor (A.E.A.) and dances with several Butoh companies. He has done shows in almost every state in the U.S. as well as France, Germany, Japan, and Thailand.
Rebecca Wilson (performer) is a dancer, choreographer, and a creator of performance art installations. Her choreography is inspired by Surrealism, ecology, and psychic automatism, among other experiences. Currently she performs with Dandelion Dancetheatre and Group A. Rebecca has performed with Molissa Fenley and Dancers, Nancy Lyons, Anne Bluethenthal, and has toured across the U.S. as a dancer for DoubleVision Intermedia. She graduated from Sonoma State University in 2003 with degrees in Dance and Environmental Conservation, and in 2007 received an MFA in Choreography and Performance from Mills College. Rebecca has been teaching all levels of modern dance technique at Sonoma State University since 2007.
Jenjen Wong (development assistant/performer) relocated to the Bay Area after graduating from UC Davis and has been working with Dandelion Dancetheater since late November 2002. Jenjen is excited to work, create and grow with Dandelion Dancetheater.
Past Performers
In addition to the artists listed above who are currently working with us, we have been honored to work with:
Nadia Adame
Josie Alvite
Hannan Jen Arnoth
Manuelito Biag
Julia Brown
Hilary Bryan
Christine Chen
Iu Hui Chua
Patrick Cress
Christy Funsch
Lena Gatchalian
Jesse Hendrich
Rebecca Johnson
Julie Kane
Edmer Lazaro
Jezebel Lee
Laura Renaud-Wilson
Hector Marin-Rodas
Claudine Naganuma
Cleveland Plonsey
Dan Plonsey
Mischa Plonsey
Melanie Rios
Sue Roginski
Manfred Schaechtle
Frances Sedayao
Frank Shawl
Nol Simonse
Liz Solomon
Justine Sutton
Oscar Trujillo
James Williams
Rob Woodman
Ching Chi Yu
Collaborators
We have been pleased to collaborate with:
Lori B
Jess Hooks
Nils Jorgenson
Mary Ann Mackey
Jesse Miller
Nancy Ostrovsky
Dan Plonsey
Rajendra Serber
Luiza Silva