Lucia August has been dancing since the age of four and a half. 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 and has been a core company member of Dandelion Dancetheater since 2003. Her creative association with Eric and the rest of the Dandelion Tribe is the source of an unusual amount of ongoing joy, passion and exuberance! She is a practicing psychotherapist in Fremont.
Bonnie Baskin tap danced in cute costumes and bunny tails at age four,
but was quickly distracted (a life theme). Returning to dance as an
adult,
explored contact improvisation, creative movement, industrial nightclubs
and "Belly Dance as Ritual Performance." She teaches "Belly Dance From The
Inside Out" and is co-director of the Sabah Ensemble.
Julie Brown, a native of Japan, is currently a theatre/dance major at CSU East Bay. She enjoys performing, designing, directing, and teaching. Julie is also grateful to be a junior company member at Theatre of Yugen learning Noh and Kyogen under Yuriko Doi sensei and company members. This spring, she went back to Japan to perform Caliban in The Tempest, directed by Gogh Nakajima, who first pulled her into the world of theatre.
Julia Hollas (administrative assistant) is happy to be in San Francisco. In addition to her work for Dandelion Dancetheater, she currently dances with the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance under the tutelage of Summer Lee Rhatigan and Alex Ketley, works as their Administrative Project Manager, and rides her bicycle through the park. Growing up in New Mexico, she performed with Moving People Too! and the Aspen Santa Fe Ballet. During her degree program at the University of Utah, she performed in and photographed many departmental shows and organized the first Ballet Student Concert.
Debby Kajiyama 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.
Julie Kane - dancer, teacher, choreographer, explorer of movement and beauty. Early movement experiences included gymnastics and acrobatics; she later trained ballet and modern dance forms, and earned her MFA in modern dance (University of Utah 1998). She is the director/teacher of the Dance Program at Marin Academy, and also teaches at Cal State East Bay and at the Shawl-Anderson Dance Center. Julie created and performed with the legendary Contraband, back in the day (1989-95). She is crazy to be still at it, but like the Dandelion weed…can’t keep her down.
Hector Marin-Rodas was born in Colombia, SA. He grew up dancing Salsa, Merengue, Cumbia, and Afro-Colombian rhythms and recently graduated as a dance major at UC Davis. He has trained in and performed Ballroom Dance, Dancesport, Modern Dance and teaches Swing and Latin Dances.
Stacz Sadowski 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.
Mantra Ben-Ya'akova Plonsey's 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 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 and 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.
Luiza Silva has worked with Dandelion Dancetheater since 2004 as a designer, photographer, and most recently a performer. She holds an MFA in scenic design from UC Davis and has also worked with ArtShip and the Veterans Memorial Theater. To see some of Luiza's work, visit her website.
Deborah Trudell 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.
April Taylor 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.
Jennifer Wong (Jenjen) 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.
Bob Webb 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.
Rob Woodman began his dance career in his mid-fifties, with Dandelion Dancetheater. Since then he has danced with choreographer Dawn McMahon. Rob has a BA in trumpet, and artist diplomas in trumpet, conducting, and acting from the Conservatory of Toulon, France. He studied "Expression Corporal" with Marcel Marceau's son Etienne, and has a second-degree black belt in Aikido.
Please Note that due to the project-to-project nature of our work, this does not include everyone we work with. come see us perform and meet more of our incredible dancers!