1999 Dance Media fellows

CHARLES DENNIS is a multi-disciplinary artist who creates works of dance, performance art and video. A former member of Robert Wilson's theater company Dennis has gone on to create a body of work that has been presented in venues throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe. Dennis has received two Choreographer's Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and was the recipient of two Fellowships in Choreography and Performance Art from the New York Foundation for the Arts. His repertory includes solo works as well as intergenerational community-oriented group. Dennis currently is the director and producer of a video documentary series about cutting edge dance and performance artists entitled "Alive and Kicking" (www.ps122.org/palive.htm) which airs on Manhattan Cable and is distributed to museums and universities worldwide. Additionally Dennis is a gifted teacher who, since 1978, has taught dance, performance and video workshops in a wide variety of settings including art centers, schools, mental health facilities, senior centers and universities. Dennis co-founded Performance Space 122 in New York City, one of this country's most active centers for new dance and performance, and presently serves on its Board of Directors and Artists Advisory Board.

MARLENE MILLAR is an experimental and documentary filmmaker who has been working with dance and film since 1988. Her exploratory and collaborative work with both visual and performing artists has resulted in a number of award-winning films and videos. She received her BFA in film production and contemporary dance from Concordia University in Montreal where she later taught video production classes that she developed specifically for dance. Now based in the Midwest, Millar has studied in the graduate filmmaking program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is presently completing a documentary on small town life in the Bible-Belt. An expert in the field of digital editing technology she has created training seminars and has worked as an advisor on feature films, television series, and documentaries. Planned projects include a series on creative process in the arts with colleague Philip Szporer.

MORLEIGH STEINBERG is a dancer, choreographer, lighting designer, and filmmaker. She was a co-founding member of ISO Dance Theater and a formative member of Momix with which she has toured extensively. She has also toured with Daniel Ezralow and Friends, rock group U2, and as a solo artist/performer. She has collaborated with Los Angeles based dancers Oguri and Roxanne Steinberg on several productions and has been working as lighting designer for OGURI and RENZOKU. She has choreographed and performed in numerous music videos and films, inspiring her to explore the medium of film. She conceived and directed her first film, "Traveling Light" which was noted in festivals around the world. Steinberg continues to shoot and direct projects including dance inspired shorts, music videos and documentaries.

VICTORIA MARKS creates dances in community settings and for stage, film, and professional dancers. Marks is currently an assistant professor in the Department of World Arts and Cultures at UCLA. Before taking her post at UCLA, she lived in London where for three-and-a-half years she worked on choreographic projects and directed the choreography program at London Contemporary Dance School. Her film collaborations with British film director Margaret Williams have been broadcast on television in the U.S., Europe and Australia. Recent projects include site-specific work for the opening of the Getty Center; "Ah Q," a dance/theater collaboration with acclaimed Beijing playwright, Xu Ying; and performances in New York (DTW), Washington, D.C. (Dance Place), Los Angeles (J. Paul Getty Museum, California Plaza and Dance Kaleidoscope) and Antwerp, Belgium. Marks received the 1997 Alpert Award for Outstanding Achievement in Choreography, and has been the recipient of grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the London Arts Board, among others. She has received a Fulbright Fellowship in Choreography, and numerous awards for her dance films, including the Grand Prix in the Video Danse Festival (1996 and 1995), the Golden Antenae Award from Bulgaria, the IMZ Award for best screen choreography and the Best of Show in the Dance Film Association's Dance and the Camera Festival.

DIANA SHERWOOD is a dancer, performer and writer working on her MA in the Department of World Arts and Cultures at UCLA. Her academic background includes studies in religion, philosophy and dance. She entered UCLA's Department of World Arts and Cultures to explore connections between performance and belief systems cross-culturally. The evolution of her studies has been to consider what meaning we make and express when performance is bound to media and new technologies. Sherwood has created and performed in premiere dance and media installations at UCLA and has danced as a soloist for the Los Angeles-based Movement Company. She has also danced with the Boston Ballet; Royal Winnipeg Ballet; at the Graham School in New York; and with modern dance pioneer, Hanya Holm. Sherwood was honored by working on a piece especially choreographed for her by Ms. Holm.

PHILIP SZPORER is a freelance writer, broadcaster, producer, lecturer and consultant living in Montreal. He has done various broadcast work for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio and television networks, BBC-Radio, and Radio Netherlands International, in the arts, music, variety, and public affairs divisions. He is currently a correspondent for the daily radio programme, The World, a co-production of the BBC and WGBH Radio, broadcast on Public Radio International. Publication credits include HOUR (for which he is dance critic and feature writer); The Gazette; The Village Voice; The Globe and Mail; and Dance Connection. Philip was dance consultant on the National Film Board of Canada's award-winning "Lodela," an experimental film that unites the arts of dance and film. Future projects with colleague Marlene Millar include a series of films about the creative process.

ANDY ABRAHAMS WILSON is an Emmy Award-nominated, independent filmmaker with a specialty in films about dance and the arts. He received a BA in Cultural Anthropology from Northwestern University and a MA in Film and Anthropology from the University of Southern California. His feature film, POSITIVE MOTION, documents choreographer Anna Halprin's dance group of men with HIV-disease. Drawing connections between performance and ritual, the film won Best of Show in the Dance on Camera Festival and top awards at the Grand Prix de Video Danse Festival. His other collaboration with Halprin, EMBRACING EARTH, shows dancers moving with the shapes, rhythms and textures of nature. Fascinated by the transformative power of dance and movement, Wilson uses his camera literally to enter the dance. In all his work he strives to dissolve barriers between observer and observed to create a heightened sense of intimacy. Wilson resides in San Francisco, where he operates an independent production company, Open Eye Pictures.