Photo by Scott Leff
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Angelina Annino
Class Monitor Angelina Annino is a dancer, choreographer, dance film maker, and production specialist based in Connecticut and the New York City area. A graduate of Connecticut College with a dual B.A. of Dance and Sociology, she has performed in work by Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener, Ellie Goudie-Averill, Shani Collins, and multiple works by David Dorfman, Lisa Race and Heidi Henderson, along with a Cunningham MinEvent staged by Brandon Collwes. She has performed work at the American College Dance Association, The Craft (NYC), 7 Midnights Physical Research (NYC), and is currently a company member at TK Dance Lab. More info at angelina-annino.weebly.com/ Image description: Angelina is dancing on a stage. She is leaning to the left with her right leg extended and right foot flexed. Her arms are crossed and her left leg is bent. The lighting is blue and green on her body as well as the floor. Her long hair is falling to the left past her elbows. End description. |
Photo by Em Papineau
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Sofia Engelman
Co-Initiator, General Coordinator/Curator/Organizer Sofia Engelman is a dance maker-performer, writer-editor, administrator-advocate, and educator-facilitator who lives and works on Canarsie and Munsee Lenape land in Brooklyn, NY. Sofia's current focuses include advocating for young people, collective curation, and archiving/honoring. Sofia has presented solo works and collaborations with life and creative partner Em Papineau at festivals including FRESH Festival, EstroGenius Festival, AS220's Providence Movement Festival, Queer Spectra, and Dancing Queerly Boston; music/DIY venues such as 10 Forward and Flywheel; and other spaces Sofia loves dearly including Judson Church, Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Ponderosa, School for Contemporary Dance and Thought, The Living Room, Green Street Studios, Institute for Contemporary Art/Boston, Harvard University, and Smith College. Sofia has had the honor of performing under the direction of Michael Figueroa, Alice Gosti, Kathleen Hermesdorf, and Tyler Rai. Among other administrative roles, Sofia is Communications Manager and Contributing Editor at Contact Quarterly. www.engelmanpapineaudance.com Image description: Sofia wears maroon velvet pants, a maroon cape that reveals a bare belly, and blue/yellow/tan sneakers. Sofia is facing the camera with right leg plants and left extended forward and low, arms plastered to hips. Sofia is white with shoulder length brown wavy hair. Behind Sofia is a grey house and large green trees and bushes. Sofia stands on cement. |
Photo by Leah Fournier
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Leah Fournier
Website, Bookkeeping Leah is an improvisor, dancer, and dance-maker born and raised in Lewiston, Maine, on the land of the Wabanaki Confederacy, Abenaki, and Arosaguntacook peoples. She's lucky enough to have worked with and been shaped by Kathleen Hermesdorf, Angie Hauser, Chris Aiken, Selene Carter, Barbie Diewald, Shaina Cantino, and and and. She is the second half of Middle Space Dance, a creative partnership with longtime collaborator and friend, Amelia Koper Heintzelman. Their work has been fostered by some wild and wonderful organizations including FRESH Festival (CA), The School For Contemporary Dance & Thought (MA), Chez Bushwick (NY), ChaShaMa ChaNorth (NY), University Settlement (NY), and Centre Pompadour (France). They continue to create and show work in formal and found spaces in NYC, the U.S.A., and beyond. middlespacedance.com Image description: Two women are lying in the shallow valleys at the top of a sand dune. On the left is Leah in bright blue spandex leggings with her right leg straight and left leg bent. Amelia is on the right in bright pink spandex leggings with her right leg straight and left leg bent. Only their legs are visible as their upper bodies are draped over the back of the dune. The dune is lit by soft pink-ish sunset, and the sky behind them is blue. End description. |
Photo by Jonathan Hsu
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Lindsey Jennings
Class Monitor, Graphic Designer, General Support Lindsey Jennings is a Brooklyn based dancer and creative, originally from rural Illinois cornfields. She received her BFA in Dance from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2020, where she was fortunate to perform in works by incredible artists such as Jennifer Monson, Kendra Portier/BANDPortier, Abby Zbikowski, and many more. Her collage practice is very central to her work as a dancer, dance-maker, arts administrator, and teacher. More info at www.lindseyjennings.com Image description: A full body image of a woman in motion wearing layered clothing. End description. |
Photo by Anna Maynard
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Claire Lane
Class Monitor, Production Support Claire Lane is a Massachusetts-based dance artist and educator. She graduated summa cum laude from Smith College in 2020, receiving a B.A. with Highest Honors in Dance and French Studies. A recipient of the Smith College Excellence in Dance Studies award and the Five College Dance Department Virginia K. Wagner scholarship, she has performed in works by Doug Varone, Bebe Miller, Ephrat Asherie, Angie Hauser, Chris Aiken, Rodger Blum, and Danté Brown. Claire has trained and performed internationally in Belgium, France, England, Switzerland, and Thailand. Her recent embodied research practice investigates the construction of femininity and “womanhood” through the lens of feminist phenomenology, gender studies, and performance studies. Image description: In a black-in-white photograph, a white woman with curly hair cascading down her shoulders wearing a camisole has her hands twisted and arms bent in front of her chest. She is leaning slightly to her left with her head on an incline, her eyes cast downward and lips slightly parted with a serene expression on her face. End description. |
Photo by Trinity Bell
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Nisani Lopez
Class Monitor, Instagram Assistant, FERN Curator Nisani Lopez is a New York-based dance artist, improviser, dance maker, administrator. She graduated from The George Washington University in Spring 2020, receiving her B.A. with Honors in Dance and Psychology. She began her journey at GWU as a Presidential Scholar in Dance and graduated receiving the Nancy Diers Johnson Award for Outstanding Choreography. She has studied closely under Tiffany Rea-Fisher, Sarah Beth Oppenheim and Maida Withers. Nisani has also worked behind the scenes with the International Association for Blacks in Dance and A.I.M by Kyle Abraham. Through both choreography and improvisational study, Nisani's current focus explores the relationship between music and the mind, body, soul tri-experience. Image description: Nisani precariously balances while posing on a light grey wooden bench in front of a beautiful forest scene of leafless trees and bright green grass. Wearing maroon leggings, a black strapped leotard, and long hanging locs, Nisani reveals to us her side profile. She has her arms outstretched in front of her and her legs in the air in parallel to her arms, balancing on her Sitz Bones. |
Photo by Anna Maynard
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Anna Maynard
Co-Initiator I am an interdisciplinary artist living in Saxapahaw, North Carolina, originally inhabited by the Sissipahaw Tribe. I am in the process of locating and learning about the histories of settlement, and relationships held by the people of my blood line dating back to the early 1800’s in what is known today as the Piedmont region. I am currently cultivating a new creative process for myself as something long term, patient, and concerning things that I can touch and that can touch me. I have been “a dancer” for as long as I can remember, and have recently rearranged my life and practice to incorporate studies and musings in painting, textiles, sewing, voice and photography. This, all since, participating in the initiation of freeskewl at the onset of COVID-19. I am excited and touched by the caretaking of the community through virtual teaching, performance and conversation, and hope that it will sustain us until we can be together again. Image description: A profile view of Anna, placed in the center of the image standing in a field wearing a blue and white striped button down shirt with her hair in a low ponytail with a middle part. Golden sunlight is hitting her face, her arms are raised in front of her, bent at the elbows and fingers extended toward the sky. Behind her is a large Oak tree about 200 yards in the distance and the branches are framing Anna’s head. End description. |
Photo by Jim Coleman
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Jennifer Nugent
Pedagogy/Poetic Entry Series Initiator Jennifer's practices are profoundly inspired by Daniel Lepkoff, Wendell Beavers, Patty Townsend, Thomas F. DeFrantz, and Paul Matteson. Through performing and teaching she aims to nurture the proposition of physicality as a theoretical and complex language that resides inside a rejuvenating container of possibility; and continues to augment these practices through sharing and refining ideas in front of others—a transmission of spoken and gestural language. Since living in NYC Jennifer has performed most notably with Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company (NYC 2009-2014), Paul Matteson (NYC 2002-2020), David Dorfman Dance from (NYC 1999-2007), and Martha Clarke (NYC 2007-2008). She is currently a teaching artist at Gibney Dance (NYC), Sarah Lawrence College, (NY), and the online space freeskewl where she hosts a monthly series called Pedagogy/Poetic Entry. Image description: Jennifer is a white woman with a shaved head. She is visible within the frame from her hips to her head. Behind her is a solid black background and she is wearing a pale pink tank. She is looking toward the bottom right corner of the frame with her right arm reaching in that direction and left hand resting on her right shoulder. |
Photo by Peter Raper
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Em Papineau
Co-Initiator, On The House & Instagram Coordinator, FERN Curator Em is a dance artist who lives and works on Canarsie and Munsee Lenape land in Brooklyn, NY. Em's solo, With Pulp, has been presented at Queerly Contemporary Festival, as well as Smith College. Em graduated with a BA in Dance and Religion from Smith College. Em has an ongoing collaborative practice with partner Sofia Engelman. Em and Sofia’s first collaborative work, Where the air is light and clear, was presented at the National College Dance Festival at the Kennedy Center. Together, they have held choreographic residencies at The Living Room, Ponderosa (Germany), the Dance Complex, and School for Contemporary Dance and Thought. In addition to presenting their work in these spaces, the pair have performed at festivals including FRESH Festival, EstroGenius Festival, AS220's Providence Movement Festival, and Dancing Queerly Boston; music/DIY venues such as 10 Forward and Flywheel; and other spaces they love dearly including Judson Church, Green Street Studios, and Smith College. www.engelmanpapineaudance.com Image description: Em is a white, queer human of French Canadian descent. Standing in front of a completely black background, Em’s fuzzy red sweater clad torso and head fill the center third of the photograph. Four vibrant balloons frame Em’s face, accentuating the sloppily smeared blue, purple, and red makeup and lipstick they have on. Em’s deep brown eyes gaze slightly past the camera as their mouth is gapes open in an expression of wonderment and awe. |
Photo by Chidozie Ekwensi
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Ogemdi Ude
Reparations Initiative Facilitator Ogemdi Ude is a Nigerian-American dance artist, educator, and doula based in Brooklyn. As an artist and educator, she supports others in investigating their cultural, familial, and personal histories - how they are embedded in their bodies and influence their everyday and performative movement. Her work has been presented at Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Danspace Project, Gibney, Center for Performance Research, Movement Research at the Judson Church, Streb Lab for Action Mechanics, Lewis Center for the Arts, La Mama Courthouse, and for BAM's DanceAfrica festival. She currently serves as Head of Movement for Drama at Professional Performing Arts School in Manhattan. Image description: This image frames Ogemdi from right below her clavicle to an inch above her head. Behind her is a tan background. She is wearing a top with black straps and large, round gold earrings. Her earrings match the color of her hair and she is looking slightly to her right which is our left. |
