Artistic Collaborators
Bret Yamanaka
Bret Yamanaka is a New York based writer, teaching artist, and performer. He has been a Guest Teaching Artist for The Juilliard School, Paul Taylor American Modern Dance, and was a Lecturer at the University of California, Irvine. Until 2018 he was Donald McKayle’s Rehearsal Director and Choreographic Assistant. Currently he restages and directs revivals of McKayle’s choreographic repertory such as Songs of the Disinherited, Heartbeats, Death and Eros, Ancestral Flight, Uprooted: Pero Replantado, Crossing The Rubicon, as well as a number of solos and smaller works. As a performing artist outside of his work for the Donald McKayle Legacy, Bret has worked with and performed works by Akram Khan, Crystal Pite, and Charlotte Griffin. |
Iskra Valtcheva
A native of Bulgaria, Iskra Valtcheva is a versatile cinematographer with a unique perspective on visual storytelling, and excellent work ethic. Her cinematography credits include award-winning projects that have screened on HBO (Southern Rites, dir. Gillian Laub), PBS (Tattooed Under Fire, dir. Nancy Schiesari), the Sundance Channel (Kids Green the World, dir. Amy Grappell), and at numerous festivals worldwide including Cannes and SXSW (Love, Sadie, dir. Naiti Gámez). The short Fatakra, dir. Soham Mehta, won the 2011 Student Academy Award, and Red Wednesday, dir. Nazanin Shirazi, was a 2008 AMPAS nominee. Iskra has shot on location in Ethiopia, Zambia, Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama, and most recently – along the Camino de Santiago in Spain, where she lensed the feature-length documentary Strangers on the Earth, dir. Tristan Cook, while walking the 800km pilgrimage. Iskra holds a B.A. in Art from Williams College, MA, and an M.F.A. in Film Production from the University of Texas at Austin. While at UT, Iskra was nominated for the 2007 John Alonzo, and the 2009 Bud Stone ASC Student Heritage Awards in Cinematography. |
Johanna Witherby
Johanna Witherby is an award-winning director/producer and editor who loves to create highly stylized worlds. Her work has screened at Lincoln Center in New York and the Chinese Theaters in Hollywood, amongst others. She has directed and produced over 10 narrative and documentary short films and music videos, as well as co-directed/co-produced one feature documentary. Johanna is currently in pre-production on her latest music video, for Mr. Corazon. She was recently selected as a member of Free The Bid, an online collection of female directors started by Alma Har’el (HoneyBoy). Johanna is currently editing the CarbonShack webseries. She worked in the Independent film world in NY for a decade in post-production as an assistant editor/editor. She has edited a narrative feature and co-edited a feature documentary, as well as multiple short films, including Martha (2008) which was an Academy Awards semifinalist. Johanna majored in Film Studies and Molecular Biology at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, receiving her BA with Honors as well as Phi Beta Kappa. She got her MFA in film from the University of Texas, Austin, where she was awarded the Campbell Endowment for Creative Vision. |
Megumi Iwama
Megumi Iwama is a New York City based dancer/performer born and raised in Southern California, where she began her dance training at age 6. She danced competitively for 6 years at Pacific Dance in Irvine, CA training in diverse styles and starting her career in the commercial dance industry. Meg trained at the University of California, Irvine where she graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts-Performance as well as a Bachelor of Fine Arts- Choreography. There she trained under highly distinguished professors and was a member in modern dance legend Donald Mckayle's Etude Ensemble. She has performed in many genres both in concert and commercial dance and has trained with multiple companies such as Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Danceworks Chicago, and BodyTraffic. Commercially, she has had opportunities working with award winning choreographers such as Ryan Ramirez and have assisted master classes with Marguerite Derricks. Upon graduating, Meg was invited to work with director Boroka Nagy as an original company member for the contemporary company, Re:borN Dance Interactive. She worked with them for 4 seasons performing in interactive and site specific work. Prior to moving to New York City, Meg also trained for one season as a member in professional Adult competitive performance company, Rogue Makers under artistic direction of Beau Fornier. There she had the opportunity to perform in Carnival LA and various Hip hop competitions such as Arena LA, and Bridge Dance Competition. Meg is also a certified Pilates Instructor, and teaches private clients in New York. On her downtime, you will find her working out and giving her clients a burn! |
Miki Orihara
Miki Orihara is renowned for her 27-year career as a Principal Dancer with the Martha Graham Dance Company. She upholds the traditional legacies of classical modern dance in part by teaching the pedagogical methods of her mentor Yuriko Kikuchi (famed Japanese-American Graham Dancer). Simultaneously, Orihara is forging new ground with her solo concert series, Resonance, which synthesizes her intimate knowledge of modern dance history, her personal cultural roots, and her eye for contemporary innovations. www.mikiorihara.com/biography |
Milica Paranosic
“Amazing… astonishing,” (New York Times), Milica Paranosic is a Serbian-born composer, educator, producer and a “…free-wheeling performance-art-type cat “(Kyle Gann), living in New York City. Classically trained to the highest standards (masters in composition from Juilliard), Milica considers herself ‘classically challenged’, constantly challenging the meaning of ‘classical’, ‘academic’, ‘formal’ and other limiting labels. Milica’s works range from one-woman multimedia shows, theatrical soccer chants, film scores, sound installations to operatic and symphonic works. Her work was supported, commissioned and presented by organizations such as LMCC, NYSCA, ASCAP, Whitney Museum, New Dramatists, HERE Arts Center, American Composers Orchestra, LVMH Moët Hennessy/ Louis Vuitton, Vision Into Art, Buglisi Dance Theater, Joyce Theater, Symphony Space, Zankel Hall/Carnegie, Alice Tully Hall/Lincoln Center, Jazz at Lincoln Center, BAM Café, Bohemian National Hall among others. Intercontinental highlights include BEMUS (Serbia), EtnaFest (Italy) and UFBA (Brazil). After over 20 years as a music faculty at The Juilliard School Milica has recently left that position for running her Harlem-based non-profit for music and multimedia, Paracademia Center, Inc. and a full-time freelance career. www.milicaparanosic.com www.paracademia.org |
MiRi Park
MiRi Park is a b-girl, choreographer, performer, producer, scholar and mother based in Thousand Oaks, CA. She spent 15 years living, working and performing in New York City where she learned the art of b-girling and other underground dance forms. Notable performances include the Bessie Award-nominated evening-length piece A Single Ride by choreographer Ephrat Asherie, RENT at the Hollywood Bowl (Dir., Neil Patrick Harris), and the final Broadway tour of RENT (Dir., Michael Greif). She has also worked with choreographers Maura Nguyen Donohue/inmixedcompany, Doug Elkins, Marlies Yearby, Nia Love, Rennie Harris, and actor/producer Kate Rigg. MiRi was the B-Boy Consultant on the Sony Screen Gems feature film Battle of the Year 3D (Dir., Benson Lee). MiRi served as Producer/Curator and Marketing Director at Dance New Amsterdam (formerly Dance Space Center). She later helped launch Columbia University’s Oral History Master’s Program (OHMA) as Program Coordinator, under MA advisor and OHMA/Columbia Center for Oral History and Research (CCOHR) Director Mary Marshall Clark. MiRi is currently on faculty at Cal State University, Channel Islands and is the Associate Choreographer of the 20th Anniversary tour RENT. She is currently producing The ReadIn Series, an action that brings together performers and scholars to read seminal history and cultural books in online live stream events. MiRi’s previous scholarly work focused on the oral histories of NYC b-girls in the 1990s. Her current research areas in her doctoral studies include: hip hop studies, dance history, oral history, consumption studies, postcolonialism, trauma, feminism, African American studies, Korean history, Asian American studies. Crews: Fox Force Five, Tru Essencia Cru, Breakin’ In Style. PhD student WAC/D, UCLA; MA American Studies, Columbia; BA Journalism, BFA Dance, UMass Amherst. 2004 US & World Air Guitar Champion |
Waeli Wang
Waeli Wang is a movement artist, filmmaker, collaborator, and educator. She creates interdisciplinary contemporary works interweaving personal, familial, social and artistic contexts to investigate the human condition. She sees art-making as a means for social justice, as contemporary and historical representations of intersectionality, and as a way to cultivate community. She is driven to make work that fuses movement/imagery, figurative/abstract, and the poetic personal. Waeli’s work has been presented by Movement Research Lab, WAXworks, Prelude Festival, 92Y Dance Educators Collective, and the American College Dance Association. Additionally, she has been commissioned by Built for Collapse, Harunalee Theatre Company, Santa Clara University, and Rogue Co. Dance Company, focusing on an experimental contemporary dance vocabulary. Waeli earned her M.F.A. in Dance from the University of California, Irvine and B.F.A. in Film Studies from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Waeli currently lives on the ancestral lands of the Kiikaapoi, Wazhazhe, Kaw, and Očeti Šakówin, also known as Lawrence where she is a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Kansas. |
Administrative Team
Minga Prather
Minga Prather, a Dallas native, began her training at Booker T Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, graduating in 2014 with highest honors. She moved to New York City, to attend the Ailey/Fordham BFA in Dance program, graduating in 2018 cum laude with departmental honors in dance concurrently performing full-time with Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. Afterwards, she joined Mark Morris Dance Group, performing works internationally and in productions with the Metropolitan Opera. She has performed as a guest artist with Nimbus Dance Works, Alessandra Corona, Megan Williams, and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. She was recognized in 2014 by the National YoungArts Foundation as a Modern Finalist and Presidential Scholar of the Arts Nominee. She was also named a Dell Scholar that same year, an award for promising students who show grit, ambition, and drive. Prather is extremely passionate about arts administration, and has performed administrative work for companies such as Alessandra Corona Performing Works, Dance Artists National Collective, and the Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation. |
Quincie Hydock
Quincie Hydock is a dancer, choreographer, administrator, and fitness professional approaching her seventh Brooklyn-versary by way of her childhood in Virginia Beach. Upon arriving to NYC, she co-founded her dance company, Q&A Productions, alongside Annalee Dare Harlow and has self-presented original work at venues such as JACK (Brooklyn), Bar Boulud (NYC), The Tank (NYC), Dixon Place, and Spaceworks (Brooklyn). As a dancer, Quincie has performed the works of Christian Von Howard, Jillian Pena, Lisa Fagan, Buggé Ballet, Reggie Watts and Mark Dendy. Quincie contributes to the dance and music community through her work in non-profit arts administration, enjoying seven years of job-title juggling at Pentacle and playing wing-woman to the founder of the Brooklyn Americana Music Festival. She is also a fitness instructor specializing in trampoline choreography and pre/postnatal exercise and health. Most recently, Quincie has started making clothes and small costume pieces for herself and others. Quincie earned her BFA in dance & choreography at Virginia Commonwealth University. www.quinciehydock.com |