NCI - Choreographers and Dancers

Ron De Jesus was a member of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago for 17 years. After leaving the Company in 2002, he joined the original cast of Twyla Tharp and Billy Joel’s Broadway musical Movin’ Out. His choreographic works have been presented by many dance organizations, including HSDC and HSDC2, Gus Giordano’s Jazz Dance Theater, Momenta Dance Company, and Luna Negra Dance Theater. He has received numerous awards including the Chicago Dance Festival 2004 “Best Choreographer” and the Chicago Music and Dance Alliance Award 2004. He has worked with many well-known choreographers including Lynne Taylor-Corbett, Lou Conte, Nacho Duato, Bob Fosse, Jiri Kylian, Ohad Naharin, and Alonzo King. He has also performed and been involved with various television and film projects.

Graham Lustig received his dance training at the Royal Ballet School. In 1980 he joined the Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet. During that time he created four works for the company’s repertoire. He has choreographed for numerous companies including the Scottish Ballet, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, Ballet West, Singapore Dance Theatre, American Ballet Theatre, Chautauqua Dance Festival, Hong Kong Ballet, North Carolina Dance Theatre, and the Sacramento Ballet. Washington Ballet chose him as its Choreographer-in-Residence in 1993. During this three-year tenure, his works were performed at the Joyce Theatre in New York, the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., and on tour. In 1999 he was named the artistic director of American Repertory Ballet and in 2003 was named a charter member of the Artists Council for Americans for the Arts in Washington D.C. He has served as a panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts, 2003 & 2005 Dance Grants and Policy Panels and currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Choo-San Goh and H. Robert Magee Foundation.

Charles Moulton has created and set works on Mikhail Baryshnikov’s White Oak Project, The Joffrey Ballet, The Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, The Ohio Ballet, Oregon Ballet Theater, and many other companies in the U.S. and abroad. A 1983 Guggenheim Award winner, he is the recipient of the first Dorothy B. Chandler Performing Arts Award in 1989, three Jerome Foundation awards and three Meet the Composer/Choreographer awards. He has received funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Arts Council, and The Zellerbach Family Fund. Moulton has choreographed and directed numerous works for television and film. His collaboration with John Sanborn and Mary Perillo, Visual Shuffle/Fractured Variations, won the 1987 Los Angeles Film Festival Blue Ribbon. He most recently completed choreography for over 1000 dancers in The Matrix Reloaded. He began his career in New York, dancing with the Merce Cunningham Company from 1973 to ‘76. He is a co-founding director of Performance Space 122, in lower Manhattan, and currently resides in northern California.

Gina Patterson started her dance career as an apprentice with Pittsburgh Ballet. She has danced with Ballet Florida and is currently a principal dancer with Ballet Austin. She performs a diverse repertoire including works by Vicente Nebrada, Ben Stevenson, Peter Martins, Val Caniparoli, Lynne Taylor-Corbett, Daniel Ezralow, Sean Lavery, and Trey McIntyre. Her choreography has been commissioned by Ballet Austin, Dayton Ballet, Ballet East, Montana Ballet, and Booker T. Washington High School for the Visual and Performing Arts in Dallas. Three of her works were presented at the Ballet Builder’s Showcase in New York. She has been awarded the Choo-San Goh Award for Choreography in 2002, the B. Iden Payne Award for Outstanding Choreographer by Austin Circle of Theaters, and won the Hubbard Street Dance Chicago 2 National Choreography Competition in 2005.

Lighting Designer

Monique L’Heureux is an award winning lighting designer who has been working in the field of dance for over two decades. This year, she is celebrating her third collaboration with artistic director, Molly Lynch.

Past designs include: Ma Cong’s French Twist for Smuin Ballet; Molly Lynch’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Anjani Ambegaokar’s Made in Mumbaii at the Cerritos Performing Arts Center;The Motion Picture and Television Fund event featuring Chita Rivera, Dick van Dyke, Shirley MacLaine, Hugh Jackman,Catherine Zeta-Jones, Jennifer Hudson, and others; Charles Moulton’s Ball Passing piece in Fall for Dance at the Orange County Performing Arts Center; Robert Sund’s Alice in Wonderland; the National and Pacific Festivals of Regional Dance America; the summer season at the Hollywood Bowl; and associate design work on the Universal Studios’ Magical Starlight Parade in Osaka, Japan.

She attended Pepperdine University and received her MFA from the University of California, Irvine, after which she apprenticed at the Los Angeles Music Center’s Mark Taper Forum. She has taught for the dance departments at Loyola Marymount University and Moorpark College and the theatre department at El Camino College.She is the recipient of four Lester Horton Dance Awards.

She is an accomplished artist and photographer whose work has been shown in galleries including the Long Beach Public Library’s Art on Display, the Carl Broderick Gallery, VIVA Gallery, Long Beach Arts Center, City of Brea Gallery, and The Stage Gallery, as well as a permanent installation in the Glendale Adventist Medical Center. She is a member of United Scenic Artists. www.artanddesigns.net

2006 Dancers
Men: Dallas Blagg – National Ballet of Canada Francisco Gella – California Ballet / Ballet Pacifica Robert Gosnell – Nashville Ballet Geoffrey Kropp – Kansas City Ballet Nicolas Lincoln – James Sewell Ballet Eddie Mikrut – Nashville Ballet Kristopher Wojtera – Louisville Ballet Women: Cory Bufkin – Inland Pacific Ballet / UC Irvine Stayce Camparo – Kansas City Ballet Elizabeth Chasteler – Festival Ballet Theatre / UC Irvine Gina McFadden – State Street Ballet / Ballet Pacifica Lauren Fagone – Richmond Ballet Brittany Fridenstine – James Sewell Ballet Valerie Tellmann – Richmond Ballet Catherine Russell – Kansas City Ballet	2006 NCI dancers

All photos by Robert Salas