Kimiko Guthrie (co-artistic director/performer) is the co-founder and co-artistic director of Dandelion Dancetheater. Her work has been presented throughout the greater Bay Area, as well as in Los Angeles, New York, Minnesota, Hawaii, Scotland, and India. She has been a resident choreographer for Asian American Dance Performances and a member of the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company. She is the recipient of several awards, including grants from the Serpent Source Foundation for Women Artists, the Zellerbach Family Foundation, and Theatre Bay Area, and a residency from the Djerassi Resident Artists Program. She has also performed with numerous other Bay Area-based companies and choreographers. She has choreographed for several theater venues, including California Shakespeare Festival. Her writing has been published in an anthology of short stories, Intersecting Circles, by the Bamboo Ridge Press. Kimiko is currently a lecturer at Cal State University East Bay, an MFA candidate at Mills College, and through all of this is delighting in being a new mom.
Eric Ray Kupers (co artistic-director/ensemble director/performer)has co-directed, choreographed, and performed with Dandelion since its inception, creating numerous works that have been presented throughout California, nationally and internationally. He is deeply influenced by his work as a performer in the companies of Della Davidson and Margaret Jenkins. Eric is an Assistant Professor of Dance at Cal State University East Bay and is heading up the development of the "Dance for All Bodies and Abilities" Program at the university. He has been an artist-in-residence at ODC TheaterCELLspace and the Jon Sims Center for the ARts. Eric has received grants for his projects with Dandelion and collaborating artists from the Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation, Irvine Foundation (with Dance USA), Princess Grace Foundation, Rockefeller MAP Fund, San Francisco Arts Commission, Wattis Foundation, Zellerbach Family Foundation, Theatre Bay Area CA$H Program, and the Cal State University East Bay Faculty Grants. He has created commissioned works for Big Moves, Cal State University East Bay, California Choreographers Festival, Dancing in the Streets/NYC, and choreography for projects by John Killacky, California Shakespeare Festival, and Highland Summer Theatre.
Read Eric's Blog, Experimental Performance as a Spiritual Practice