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Summer Dance - Theater Intensive
June 24 - July 1, 2007

Program Director: Kevin Kane

A unique eight-day intensive for advanced high school students (sophomores, juniors, seniors), mixing the disciplines of dance, theater, music, and social activism, this program is geared towards those students who are interested in exploring how the arts can be used to raise awareness and consciousness regarding a variety of socially relevant themes.

Offered by UCLA's acclaimed dance and cultural studies faculty, with director/choreographer Kevin Kane at the helm, the Dance-Theater program includes daily movement classes ranging from postmodern dance to hip-hop, ensemble physical theater classes, as well as improvisation and composition that explore issues such as social justice and Arts and civic engagement. The program will guide students as they investigate their roles as young artists through special sessions devoted to the idea of art as social action.

After each rigorous day of dancing, training, sharing and studying, the students return to their dorms and participate in fun and engaging activities, which also offer them the chance to explore the UCLA campus, Westwood Village, and get a taste of what it is like to live in a college dorm. Students will benefit from the experience of collective creativity and collaboration as they apply their newly acquired skills to the preparation of an ensemble piece. Parents and friends are invited to attend this work-in-progress performance on the last day of the program. The process of creating relevant original dance theater and performing it together as a group forms bonds that will last much longer than the one-week intensive.

Students who successfully complete the program receive 2 units of University of California credit. Each applicant must submit a Letter of Reference from a high school instructor or dance teacher verifying the ability to successfully participate in a disciplined and rigorous dance-theater program. You will be asked to submit the name of your referee and contact information at the time of registration. A decision will be made on your application within 3 weeks of submission of your application and receipt of your teacher recommendation.

Due to the intense nature of the program, the residential plan including supervision, a meal plan, and a schedule of activities is required for all students.

Online application link: http://www.summer.ucla.edu/institutes/Dance/overview.htm

Summer 2007 Faculty Bios:

This program is being designed and led by WAC Department Chairperson, Angelia Leung, and faculty member, Kevin Kane. The instructors for the 2007 summer program will include:

Kevin Kane — Originally from Philadelphia, Kevin is a graduate of New York's Hofstra University with a BFA degree in Theatre Arts and Dance, and holds an MFA in dance choreography from UCLA Department of World Arts and Cultures, where he has been a lecturer and dance/theater maker since 2002. Since moving to Los Angeles in 1991, he has worked extensively as a teacher, director, choreographer, and filmmaker. A former high school performing arts teacher, he has collaborated with hundreds of young artists, creating original dance theatre productions featuring large, diverse ensembles, for which has received several grants, honors and awards. He is currently teaching movement and dance for NYU's advanced acting program in Los Angeles through The Atlantic Theater Company and often facilitates workshops for both students and teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District, other Los Angeles area organizations, and several international residencies (most recently at the University of Ghana, Africa), presenting his concepts of creating original dance theatre productions. Additionally, Kevin serves as the Executive Director for The Flourish Foundation, a philanthropy group dedicated to supporting arts and educational projects and programs in the Los Angeles area. Most recent WAC-related projects include directing Shelter - a short dance on film project exploring issues of displacement and homelessness, and creating and directing Flesh and Blood, a dance theater piece exploring issues of HIV/AIDS for the WAC Make Art/STOP AIDS Initiative, which was performed throughout the winter of 2007 for high school and community audiences. In addition, Kevin will once again direct the WAC Summer Dance Theater Intensive 2007 for high school students - a week of dance, theater and social action with high school participants from around the country.

Nehara Kalev — is a dancer, choreographer, and teacher who most recently enjoyed teaching her Upside Down Technique course at UCLA, where she earned her MFA degree. Nehara’s work is influenced by aerial arts, acrobatics, avant-garde dance and extensive world travel. As co-founder of Catch Me Bird Dance Theater, Nehara creates reality based dance theater performances. She performed featured roles while touring nationally and internationally with Diavolo Dance Theater for four years. She will be part of David Rousseve's new work which will have a New York residency in May 2007. Nehara is currently setting choreography on dancers at Cal State University Los Angeles and is preparing for a Catch Me Bird tour of Europe.

Jackie Lopez — a Los Angeles native, graduated in June 2004 from UCLA’s Department of World Arts and Cultures. Jackie, in collaboration with Leigh Foaad, is the Artistic Director/ Choreographer of Versa-Style, a dance theater company based in Los Angeles. She is currently the program director for The Flourish Foundation, a non-profit private philanthropic organization created as a response to lack of funding in the arts. She presently is working with renowned Hip-Hop Director Rennie Harris in his new work titled “100 Naked Locks.” As a cultural educator, Jackie has worked with students and artists of all ages in schools, summer camps, community organizations, theater, and arts festivals. She has a wide range of knowledge and training in dance styles such as Salsa, Merengue, Cumbia, Afro- Cuban, Nigerian, and Hip-Hop. She has been working with Kevin Kane for 12 years and owes a lot of her good fortune to their partnership.

Jose Luis Reynoso — is a Mexican immigrant who has gotten his B.A. (Magna Cum Laude) (2000) and his M.A. (2003), both in Psychology, from California State University Los Angeles; his M.F.A.(2006) in Dance from UCLA’s Department of World Arts and Cultures (WAC); and he is currently pursuing his Ph.D. in Culture and Performance in WAC. Jose has danced for Hae Kyung Lee and Dancers, Cid Pearlman and has collaborated with many other local dancers and choreographers. He also has worked with La Pocha Nostra’s Guillermo Gomez-Peña, Roberto Sifuentes and Violeta Luna in UCLA, Highways Performance Space and in Oaxaca, Mexico where along with a group of 20 artists from 7 countries presented a 2 ½-hour-interactive performance at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Oaxaca (MACO). Jose’s work has been presented twice as part of Anatomy Riot (#1 and #10) at the Zen Sushi in Los Angeles; as part of “Emanaciones del Caos” at the Les Fleurs Du Mort and also at the Lavoratorio de Artes Variedades (LarVa) both in Guadalajara, Mexico. His four-piece-show, “Border Zones” was presented in March 2006 at the Glorya Kaufman Dance Theater in UCLA. He also has presented work as part of the Word Up Festival at the Ford Amphitheater and in collaborations with Jia Wu at the American College Dance Festival Association’s Adjudication #4 and Gala concerts (2007) in San Francisco. Jose will premiere work at Le Centre National de la Danse, Paris, France on June 22, 2007.

Carolina San Juan — was the first person in her family to go to college and is now a PhD student at UCLA in the Department of World Arts and Cultures. She researches American Popular Culture in the Philippines to better understand how the world understands Americans. She has performed for over ten years and taught various classes including, Filipino Folk Dance, Tinikling Hip Hop, and classes on arts and activism. Carolina continues to perform and teach about performance because she firmly believes that performances are the passages of peoples' lives.

Jia Wu — Jia Wu started professional training in dance at the age of five and began to perform as a soloist and principal dancer shortly afterwards. In 2001, Jia got her B.A in Chinese dance performance and choreography at Beijing Dance Academy, graduating with honors, and worked as a full-time dance instructor in the Dance Department at South China Normal University. In 2004, Jia came to the United States to pursue her MFA at UCLA. In her current work she applies Asian dance elements and aesthetics to interpret modern issues such as globalization, feminism, and racialism. Jia received awards for outstanding performance and choreography at the Chinese National Dance Competition in 2000 (Shanxi Province), the most prestigious dance competition in China. Her work received the Best Performance Award in the International University Music Festival in France in 2004. She is also the recipient a 2007 DanceWeb Scholarship of ImPulsTanz Festival at Vienna, Evelyn and Mo Ostin Performing Arts Award, Edna & Yu-Shan Han Scholarship, and the Clifton Webb Scholarship from the School of Arts and Architecture at UCLA.

Ashley Carvalho is a fourth-year undergraduate at UCLA, pursuing a double major in World Arts and Cultures (dance concentration) and Communication Studies. Ashley is originally from San Jose, California where she started studying ballet and tap at the age of five. By the age of thirteen, Ashley was studying ballet, tap, jazz, hip hop and modern dance at the Adage School of Performing Arts in Milpitas, California, and was a member of the Adage Repetory Company, under the direction of Heather Cooper and Mara Williams. She became part of the Adage faculty in 2002, teaching pre-ballet, ballet, tap and creative movement to young children. Currently, as an undergraduate in the World Arts and Cultures department, Ashley primarily studies modern and postmodern dance technique under Maria Gillespie. She is the Co-President of the World Arts and Cultures Undergraduate Society and the Co-Producer of the department's annual undergraduate showcase of work, WAC Smash! Ashley will graduate from UCLA this coming June and looks forward to pursuing a career in the non-profit sector.

Tittus Mendez was born in Coban, Guatemala and raised in Los Angeles, the middle child from a family of six. Tittus is the first to attend a university in his family and is a World Arts and Cultures major with an emphasis in dance (salsa). Tittus has performed at Highways (Santa Monica), The Redcat (Los Angeles), The Fringe Festival (New York), Tecate and Mexicali (Mexico) as a member of a Los Angeles based salsa group, Contra-Tiempo. Tittus is now focusing on mastering the technique of video editing as well as other forms of dance. Having both law enforcement knowledge and street knowledge, Tittus hopes to one day create his own film based on the similarities of the Project System and the Prison System using dance and theater as a tool of expression.

Mo Marmesh is a recent graduate of UCLA, where she received a B.A. in World Arts and Cultures (dance concentration), and a B.A. in Communication Studies with an emphasis on mass media. She was born and raised in Miami, where she studied tap, jazz, and hip hop at Dance Gallery from the age of 2 to 18. In high school, she was member of the prestigious Gablettes Dance Team, earning several national and state titles. In 2003, Mo was asked to be a staff member for the American Dance Alliance, and for the past 4 years has enjoyed working with the company, doing camps and workshops for middle school, high school, and collegiate dance teams. She was Co-President of the WAC Undergraduate Society and Co-Produced the 2006 Production of WAC Smash at the Glorya Kaufman Theater. In 2006, she had the honor of working for the first ever UCLA WAC Summer Dance/Theater Intensive under the direction of her mentor Kevin Kane. Most recently, Mo returned to her alma mater at Coral Gables High School in Miami and is currently the dance teacher and director of the Gablettes.

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