Immersive Choreography for Le Dîner en Blanc - Jersey City 2022!

Immersive choreography from morgaine de loenardis will blend different dance styles and incorporate the natural surroundings at our secret location.

Meet the creators and cast:

morgaine de leonardis 

Photo by: Alexandrina Flemming 

morgaine de leonardis, (she/her/they) is an irish-italian-american Dance Artist, Choreographer, Performer, and Access Practitioner from Jersey City, New Jersey, the land of Lenapehoking and is a dyslexic creative body/mind/soul. morgaine has shared her site-specific dance/theater works across NJ, NY and PA, most honorably at the historic Loews Jersey Theater as a part of Art House Production’s Your Move Dance Festival in 2019. In her creative and access practices she builds and facilitates a wide range of experiences such as: site-specific and experimental intimate performances, artist conversations, workshares, exhibitions, installations, music gigs, dining experiences, parties, and more. At the root of all her work is a care and curiosity for what magic is possible when people feel held in a room together. She aims to hold spaces where stories are shared, expressions have space to live, and people feel seen, heard, and felt. 

morgaine has had the joy of performing with Third Rail Projects as a cast member of Then She Fell (2019-2020), is a dancer with Lucy Kerr (2018-present), and has most recently worked with KDV Dance Ensemble in Berlin, Germany on a film, Looping Low.

Tara OCon is a multidisciplinary performing artist, experiential consultant and professional transformation coach. She draws from over a decade of experience devising and performing in immersive and site-specific theater settings; most notably as a collaborating artist with Third Rail Projects where she originated roles in Then She Fell and The Grand Paradise, and was part of the creative cast of Ghost Light (off broadway), among many other productions over the years. As an independent choreographer and consultant, she leads performance workshops and works with experiential brands and immersive theater-makers to create engaging storytelling experiences for their audience. Her expert coaching program provides creatives of all backgrounds support to meet their goals and enact powerful change in their personal and professional lives. IG:@taraocon
 

Ash Johnson 

Ash Johnson (Jersey City, NJ) began her professional training with former Murray Louis and Nikolais Co. dancer Trista Defilippis. While studying for her BFA in Dance at Temple University, she performed and trained with Philadanco 2 under Donald T. Lunsford II and Eleone Dance Theater’s Apprentice Company. She’s attended the Joffrey School of Ballet Summer Intensive, DCNS Dance Intensive, and Mason Gross School of the Arts Summer Intensive all on scholarship. She is a two-time recipient of the Frances Bowden Award. Certifications include Umfundalai technique and Physique57 barre technique.

Her performances in Vignette For You by Meghan McFerran and [Ey-vis} by Emma Valeria Girandola made top 10 works in the annual ACDA Gala concert for two consecutive years. [Ey-vis} went on to perform at ACDFA Nationals in DC’s Kennedy Center. Other works include Brian Sanders’ Kingdom of Fools, Kip Martin’s Arabian Dance, Dara Meredith-Stevens’ Beneath the Surface, Four Degrees of Separation, and many others.

Her film works include B.O.O.R. by Dara Meredith-Stevens’ and FLOAT by Elisa Hernandez. Currently she works as a freelance artist and administrative professional. She aspires to pay it forward to the black, queer, and arts communities that continue to accept and support her. 
 

Mamiko Nakatsugawa 

Mamiko Nakatsugawa is a dancer, choreographer, model, and yoga teacher based in NYC, Originally from Miyagi, Japan.

As a dancer, Mamiko has been dancing professionally for 3 years in the city. She worked with Jon Lehrer Dance Company for 3 seasons right after college and performed nationally and internationally. Currently she is reconnecting with dance again, training, and working on different projects in and out of New York City.

As a choreographer, she has started choreographing from 2020 - She has presented her work at Flushing Town Hall, The Theater at Gibney, Incu Art Gallery, Smush Gallery, Lazy Susan Gallery, and Gowanus Art Building. Winter of 2022, she will be part of LEIMAY Incubator Program to play with new ideas to research and create new work to premier 2023.

Sonya Rio-Glick

Photo by Amelia Wright, 2021

Sonya is a Georgia-based multidisciplinary artist and activist. Her approach to art and activism is informed by the principals of Disability Justice and her lived experience as a queer and Disabled woman. Fortunate to have studied and crafted dance across the United States, Sonya has been choreographing and performing on and with ability-diverse bodies and concepts since 2011. Most recently, she was a choreographer-fellow in Axis Dance Company’s 2022 Choreo Lab. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Arts Management from Purchase College, SUNY. Notably, she has danced with Full Radius dance, and is the former Co-Executive Director of Dance for All Bodies. She is the 2022 Barbara Seegert Memorial Housing Grantee, which partially supports her involvement in this work. Support also comes from the AXIS Dance Company Choreo-Lab funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Happiest when fostering community, Sonya dreams of and strives for a more equitable, accessible, artistically daring world.

Beaudau (Bo-day) Karel Banks

Choreographer, Dancer, and Production Technician born and raised in Belize, Central America; Beaudau is a black, queer, gender non-conforming immigrant artist and Theatre Technician based in New York City. Beaudau started formal dance training at the age of thirteen studying ballet and modern dance. They were accepted and graduated with a BFA in Fine Arts from the University of South Florida BFA program in Tampa, Florida. They are now living in New York City freelancing with various dance artists while still following their love of theatre production. 
 

Diana Uribe 

Diana Uribe is a first gen American, NYC/NJ-based teacher, dancer, choreographer, visionary, and believer. She has diverse dance training and holds a BA in Contemporary Dance and Psychology from Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts at The New School. She has performed at Movement Research, BAAD! Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, Abrons Arts Center, Barclays Center, CHI Movement Arts Center, Bridge for Dance, United Palace, King’s Theatre, and Manhattan Center. Diana develops dance works with questions of social belonging, and culture, as she seeks to display the labor and unseen processes of dance to create intimate relationships with audiences.

Kimiko Tanabe 

Photo by Julia Discenza 

Kimiko Tanabe is a freelance artist hosted on Lenape land, currently known as Brooklyn, NY. She explores the mediums of performance art, dance, writing, origami and paper, and is in a committed partnership with her .38 Muji pen. She is forever fascinated with Japanese folklore and as a lover of literature she finds herself making important life decisions under the eyes and influence of fiction. For Kimiko, art is intimate and inexact. She is a BAX Space Grant recipient (2022), Gallim Artist in Resident (2022) and Artist in Residence at The Floor on Atlantic (2021). She currently performs with marion spencer and glenn potter-takata and has performed with Kizuna Dance, Seymour:: Dance Collective, Lisa Fagan and Hannah Mitchell, HIJACK, Nial Ibragimov, and Kristi Cole & Guests.