Master Faculty ~ Festival 2019

These artists are just a sample of the many amazing faculty that are typically part of our annual festival!!

Kristen Stevenson

Ballet & Pointe

Bio Coming Soon!

Chris Law

Hip Hop

Chris Law has a foundation in various styles of hip hop dance through self-training and community involvement with Culture Shock D.C. & Dynamic hip hop dance team. He is a recent graduate from the University of Maryland's MFA dance program and continues to be present in the DMV community by teaching at Dance Place as well as working closely with the Dance and Theater departments at Howard Community College and Howard University in D.C. Law is co-director of Project ChArma, a collective of teaching artists who present works with the goal of inspiring change and creating space for progressive conversations. He most recently presented Full Circle: Bridging the Gap, an evening-length work at Dance Place in 2018 and was commissioned by the Kennedy Center to premier Rooted on Millennium Stage January 2019.

Ken Skrzesz

Limon Modern

Ken Skrzesz has served as the Executive Director of the Maryland State Arts Council since 2017, emphasizing procedural equity as the path toward quality arts experiences for all Maryland residents. From 2014-2017, Ken was the Coordinator of Fine Arts for the Maryland State Department of Education, where he shared his vision of creativity and collaboration as the driving forces of success for all students.  Ken has designed and implemented arts education and professional development programs in numerous locations through standards development, curriculum writing, and assessment. His knowledge of all art forms, with a special emphasis of developing the creative and collaborative processes, has allowed him to build successful community partnerships, donor development campaigns, and student recruitment programs with a special emphasis on serving economically challenged and culturally underserved populations.  Ken is an active master teacher of acting and dance throughout the United States. He has served as the Performing and Visual Arts Magnet Teacher Specialist for Anne Arundel County Public Schools, the Executive Director of the Clear Space Theatre Company and Kinetics Dance Theatre, and the Director of Student Life for the School of American Ballet. Long-term teaching posts include the Carver Center for Arts and Technology, Goucher College, Southwest Missouri State University, and the University of North Carolina. Ken’s former students have appeared on television (MAD MEN, SCANDAL, WILL AND GRACE), Broadway (MAMMA, MIA!, CHICAGO, THE WILD PARTY, SOUTH PACIFIC, THE LION KING, HAIRSPRAY, THE BOOK OF MORMON), and appear in numerous professional regional theatre and dance companies, movies, and national tours. Ken has danced, sung, acted, choreographed and directed both nationally and internationally.  He earned his Master of Fine Arts in dance from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro where he performed with the dance, opera, and theatre departments. He is a native Baltimorean where he received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Towson State University. Ken’s recognitions include the Baltimore Mayor’s Award for Distinguished Service in the Arts, distinguished alumni awards from Towson State University and from the University of North Carolina, a choreography commission from the National Endowment of the Arts, and multiple choreography awards from the Maryland State Arts Council. Ken is a member of Actors’ Equity Association and the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers. In 2016, Ken received the National Dance Education Association’s Outstanding Advocate and Champion of Dance Education award and in 2017 Ken received the Performing Arts Advocate of the Year award from the Scarborough Foundation.

Bakaari Wilder

Tap

Baakari Wilder is internationally known for starring in the Broadway musical Bring In Da Noise, Bring In Da Funk. He received a Bessie Award for his performance, and later assumed the lead role for a year. He has also received the Pola Nirenska Award for achievement in dance.

 

Baakari's dancing has delighted audiences around the world in places such as the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, France, Africa, Brazil, Germany, Japan, and Russia. He has a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Theatre from the University of Maryland at College Park. He shares his knowledge of tap dancing through his role as assistant artistic director of the Washington D.C. based company Capitol Tap. He is currently producing, directing, and starring in his new creation “Reform Live” at Dance Place in Washington, DC in November.

Adrienne Clancy

Improv

Adrienne Clancy has earned a reputation of working with conservatory students and dance enthusiasts alike. Prior to directing ClancyWorks Dance Company ( www.ClancyWorks.org ), Dr. Clancy worked as a Company Member for the following dance companies: Bella Lewitzky, Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, Nora Reynolds-Daniel, and Bill Evans. Clancy’s work has been presented nationally and
internationally in Australia, Colombia, England, Israel, Japan, Mexico, Paraguay and Poland.

 

Dr. Clancy, both an artist and a scholar, earned a PhD and a MFA in Dance from Texas Woman’s University (TWU), a MA in Dance from University of New Mexico. Dr. Clancy presented at the 2016 TEDx Midatlantic Conference on the power of arts integration. Awards for teaching include receiving the NDEO’s 2013 Outstanding Dance Educator of the Year Award and the 2017 MD Council for Dance Service to the MD Dance Community Award.

Hermione Rhones

Rhythm Tap

Hermione Rhones is a native Washingtonian with twenty-five years of experience as a teaching and performing artist. She currently teaches dance, drama, creative writing and spoken word poetry at Archbishop Carroll High School. She also currently works part-time at Dance Place, Joe’s Movement Emporium, One Common Unity, and BloomBars teaching and facilitating dance, yoga and youth empowerment classes.


Since childhood she has studied various forms of movement including: ballet, tap, various modern dance techniques, jazz, and West African dance. She has performed with Adrain Bolton, Tony Powell Music & Movement, Images in Cultural Artistry (directed by Sherrill Berryman Johnson), Carla & Co. (Directed by Carla Perlo) and Coyaba Dance Theater (Directed by Sylvia Soumah). Hermione’s solo works have combined her love of spoken word artistry with her passion for movement and she has enjoyed performing and/or teaching at various performance venues, schools, community centers and churches throughout the area.


She has written a book of poetry entitled Naked, published in 2013. Hermione is also an advocate of the healing arts. She teaches yoga, meditation and water aerobics. Finally, she loves to upcycle garments and create original crochet accessories and occasionally sells her creations under the alias Accents by H.

 

Hermione feels compelled to live and love artistically every day and strives to be a source that uplifts in her family, community and in the world at large.

Stephen Nadeau

Cha-cha; Swing

Stephen is a professional ballroom dance instructor, competitor, and choreographer.  ancing since the age of 15, he has found a love for ballroom and Latin dancing in all forms and has a passion for the expressiveness of the movements and finer techniques involved in dance. Having been a teacher for 14 years now, Stephen has experience in teaching people of all ages and ability levels. In his competitive career, Stephen and his partner focus on the International Style and specialize in the 10-Dance category. Together, Stephen and his partner have won several regional ompetitions and placed in the finals in many national events including the Southwestern Invitational, the King’s Ball Dancesport, the Gumbo Dancesport Championships, and the United States Dance Championships. He and his partner have even been featured on the cover of the American Dancer magazine after one of their big wins at the Gumbo Dancesport Championships. In addition to his professional competitive career, Stephen has many students who compete and have done exhibitions and local dancing charity events. For this year’s festival, Stephen will be teaching Cha-Cha and Swing.

Lester Holmes

Musical Theatre; Jumps, Tricks, & Turns

Lester Holmes has an extensive background in all forms of dance, both as performer and teacher. Lester has taught tap, jazz, and musical theater at private schools and colleges including Peabody Preparatory, Goucher College, and Towson University, as well as previously directing and owning his own studio.  He has exercised his passion for teaching jazz, tap, ballet, acrobatics, and musical theater for many years in master classes all over the East Coast including the Broadway Dance Center and STEPS in NYC as well as  in Florence, Italy.

 

Having been a successful professional in NYC, singing and dancing on and off Broadway, in national tours, on television, and in nightclubs, as well as having been an acrobat in two productions at the Metropolitan Opera, Mr. Holmes now enjoys choreographing and teaching locally near his home in Yardley, PA.

Algernon Campbell

Jazz

Algernon J. Campbell is originally from Savannah, GA. He is a graduate of Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA; where he began his dance training. He started taking dance classes at Spelman College under the tutelage of Kenneth Green and Sarah Yarborough. While in Atlanta, he continued his dance training at Ballethnic Academy of Dance, founded by Waverly and Nena Lucas. His teachers were Roscoe and Diane Sales, Mia Alegria Paxton, Stephanie Dabney, and Milton Tatum. After graduating with a BA in Theatre and Drama, he moved to New York where he was accepted into the Ailey School’s Certificate in Dance Program. His teachers were Denise Jefferson, Anna Marie Forsythe, Milton Tatum, Fred Benjamin, and many others. Upon receiving a Certificate in Dance, he worked at the Metropolitan  Opera, Seraphim Dance Company, and the Joan Peters Dance Company. He eventually auditioned and was accepted into the Dallas Black Dance Theatre where he was a member for 4 years. While with DBDT, he danced the works of Yuriko, David Parsons, Fred Benjamin, Earl Moseley, and other renowned choreographers.
Having performed nationally and internationally, he eventually moved to San Francisco where he performed with the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre for two seasons. He then moved to the DC where he taught at Washington Ballet at the Arc and danced with the Adrian Bolton/Kathy Smith Dance Company.


Since moving to Baltimore, he has taught at Carver High School, Greater York Center for Dance Education (York, PA), Dance Conservatory of MD, and EMC Performance Arts Studio. He has taught at Morton St. Dance Center for 14 years. His work has been set on the Collective, Full Circle Dance Company, and his own dance company, the Campbell Dance Experience. The Campbell Dance
Experience has been in existence for 6 years.

Ryan Johnson

Tap; Step-Fusion

Ryan Kenneth Johnson [@rkj.dance] is a virtuosic performer, choreographer and Founding Artistic Director of SOLE Defined, a company in residence at Dance Place in Washington, D.C.  He is a well-​-known global performing and teaching artist who has been called "purely amazing" by Septime Weber, Artistic Director of the Hong Kong Ballet. Johnson started his professional journey in the arts performing with Gregory Hines and Marvin Hamlisch with The Baltimore  Symphony Orchestra in his hometown of Baltimore, Maryland. In 2008 & 2018, Johnson's was awarded Individual Artist Award for Choreography from Maryland State Arts Council. Johnson made history in 2010 by becoming the first tap dancer to win the D.C. Metro Dance Awards:  Outstanding Solo Performance. That same year, Johnson was a finalist for the D.C. Metro Emerging Artist Award. Johnson believes that he was created to perform, entertain, and use the
arts to enhance the lives of people globally.


Johnson spent two decades on stages including; The Beatles LOVE by Cirque Du Soleil as Sugar Plum, and One Drop by Cirque Du Soleil under the direction of Mukhtar Omar Sharif Mukhtar. He was in the New York City and Tour of the Americas cast of the hit show STOMP where he played Particle Man and Ringo. Johnson was the soloist, and production manager for the world renown step company Step Afrika!, and the resident tap dancer for The Washington
Ballet's "The Great Gatsby," under the direction of Septime Weber. Johnson performed in the Tony Award-winning show After Midnight created by Jack Viertel and choreographed by Warren Carlyle with NCL Productions.

 

While on stage, Johnson continues to develop his passion for the arts by creating work for social change. He was the lead choreographer for the 2010 Season Premier of Extreme Makeover Home Edition in Baltimore, MD starring Raven-​-Symone. He has premiered new works at the International Body Music Festival in Brazil, New York City Tap Festival: Tap International, and Cirque Du Soleil with The Nevada Ballet's "A Choreographers' Showcase" in Las Vegas. Of this performance, the Las Vegas Review Journal wrote, "Urban Jungle: The Village, by Ryan Johnson of The Beatles LOVE, is a burst of pure feeling, the most infectious
entry of the program."


Johnson has been commissioned to teach workshops, residencies, lecture demonstrations, and art integrated programming at universities, dance festivals and conventions worldwide. He has partnered with United States Embassies to participate in cultural exchange performances and workshops throughout Africa, North America, South America, and SouthEast Asia.


Johnson co-​-founded SOLE Defined with Quynn Johnson, an award-​-winning percussive dance company that intersects music, movement, and imagination, creating an exciting twist on theater and percussive dance. SOLE Defined's mission is to educate youth, empower communities, and entertain the masses through high quality performing arts and impactful arts education programming. The Washington Post has noted SOLE Defined as presenting "the coolest number of the night with its high-​-stepping and toe-tapping blend of styles." Under the Artistic
Direction of Johnson, SOLE Defined has performed on stages globally including DancEncore, Jacobs Pillow, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and The World Children's Festival in Turin, Italy. SOLE Defined has premiered five new shows, Black Amer-​-I-​-Can (2013), The Experiment (2014), Phenix (2015) and Frequency (2016), and Zaz (2018) all written and directed by Ryan K Johnson.

 

Johnson credits his passion for the arts to his mother, Vanessa Jackson, and tap teacher Mary Slater.

Jasmin Walters

Hip Hop

This Massachusetts born, Maryland raised woman is well versed in the disciplines of performing, recording and visual art. Jasmin "Jazzo" Walters has been songwriting, producing and recording music for the past decade, teaching dance for over 13 years and is currently a teaching artist in various schools in the Baltimore area. She received her degree in Dance and Composition from UMBC in 2014. She facilitates workshops and events that create performance and educational platforms for local independent artists. She also paints and creates crafts. She is always looking for mission based opportunities and ways to give back and is grateful to be with you all for this year's Council.

Contact Us Today!

 

MD Council for Dance

mdcouncil4dance@gmail.com

410.739.7307

 

Please mail correspondence to:

MD Council for Dance

c/o Shari Smigo, Exec Director

1030 Carmichael Rd.

Queenstown, MD 21658

 

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