Press Releases Fall 2006

CONTACT: Mary Planding
Director, Marketing & Communications
(831) 479-5744
mary.planding [at] cabrillo.edu

November 16, 2006

Cabrillo College's Dance Department presents
The Winter Dance Concert:
Faculty, Community, and Student Choreography

 The Cabrillo College Dance Department presents The Winter Dance Concert, Friday and Saturday, December 1st and 2nd, 2006. The concert will be held at the Cabrillo College Theater, 6500 Soquel Drive, Aptos, at 8:00 pm. Tickets are $12 general, $10 students, and $8 dollars with student activity card. Call (831) 479-6331 for reservations.

The Winter Dance Concert features dance works created by faculty, community, and student choreographers, performed by students from the Cabrillo College Dance Department. Choreographers presenting work include David King, Rhonda Martyn, Beth Pettengill Riley, Yasmina Porter, Sharon Took-Zozaya, Marissa Valera and Lambert Van Buuren. 

From explosive physicality to subtle minimalism this evening of dance covers a broad variety of topics and styles. Pettengill Riley’s The color of bone, inspired by the life and works of painter Georgia O'Keefe, rubs up against Valera’s Green Eggs and Chop Suey, which utilizes a cutting edge street dance vocabulary to ask, “What is the greatest thing we fear?” Took-Zozaya’s Within Reach, a playful and sensitive duet for two dancers and a wheelchair, shares the stage with Rhonda Martyn’s Fado: O Gente Da Minha Terra, an investigation into the intricacies of Portuguese “soul music.” David King’s The Beautiful Game creates a dance response to the excitement and energy of last summer’s World Cup soccer tournament and Yasmina Porter combines traditional African forms with contemporary Hip Hop. Artists’ biographies follow. For additional information, contact David King, 831-479-5027 or email daking [at] cabrillo.edu

Photographs of the dancers by Steve Di Bartolomeo are available at our web site:  http://www.cabrillo.edu/news/press/index.html
           

Artist Biographies

David King is a dancer, choreographer, durational installation artist and movement educator. Since 1992 he has been a principle dancer and choreographic collaborator with Cid Pearlman/Nesting Dolls (San Francisco/Los Angeles). Nesting Dolls’ work has been presented by numerous venues including the Joyce SoHo (NYC), Theater Artaud (SF), and The Getty Center (LA). In addition to his work with Nesting Dolls, he has performed with choreographers Eric Stern, Liam Clancy and Carmela Hermann, among others. In 1991 he earned a BA in Theater Arts/Dance from UC Santa Cruz and completed a four-year Feldenkrais practitioner training. In 2001 he received an MA in Dance from UCLA. King is a full time Dance faculty member at Cabrillo College.

Rhonda Martyn, choreographer, dancer and dance educator, was the founding Artistic Director of the San Francisco Moving Company. She has been a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Choreography Fellowship, and an Artist-in-Residence at the Djerassi Foundation and the Esalen Institute. She was an independent choreographer and dancer in New York City and San Francisco, and worked with such artists as Mark Morris, Ann Carlson, the Kronos Quartet, Joan Jeanrenaud, the Dance Theater of Harlem, and Mercy Sidbury. She has taught choreography and dance at Princeton University, the Alvin Ailey Center for American Dance in New York City, Esalen Institute, U.C. Santa Cruz, De Anza College and Cabrillo College.

Beth Pettengill Riley, M.A. in Dance Educations, Stanford University.
Dancer, singer, choreographer, somatic educator and poet arrived with a soul call: “MOVE!”  After 15 years of professional ballet training and performing, she discovered modern with dance pioneer, Hanya Holm, while completing a BA in Literature at Colorado College. In 1981, she received her Masters in Education with a Dance Specialization from Stanford University and served on the faculty of Cabrillo College for 17 years where she taught all levels of dance, fitness, yoga and creative movement. Beth was a performing, teaching and administering member of Tandy Beal & Co., an internationally recognized modern dance company for over 10 years. Since retiring from Cabrillo in 2000, Beth maintains a private practice leading classes and workshops in Continuum Movement, a therapeutic and spiritual practice using movement as the vehicle for transformation. 

Sharon Took-Zozaya’s choreography has been performed across Scotland, in the USA and in Mexico. She received several grants from the Scottish Arts Council, and support from other organizations. Her work has recently been selected for the West Wave Festival, So What Now? Festival and Monterey Dance Festival. It has also been shown in And Still Dancing at ODC, The Fantastiks for Cabrillo Stage, the rock opera Tommy and the Hindu epic Ramayana. Since moving to California in 2003, Sharon has performed with Crash Burn and Die Dance Company, Nita Little, Atelier 5 and Sarah Wilbourne. She currently teaches at Cabrillo College and has recently taught at UCSC, Mount Madonna School and Dancenter and has previously taught in a variety of professional, university, college, and community contexts.

Marissa Valera is a dance educator and performing artist, working extensively in the Bay Area, especially in Santa Cruz and San Francisco. She has performed with activist/professor, Angela Davis and choreographer Robert Henry Johnson, and has collaborated with many world class performers including modern dancer Tandy Beal, and tap dancer Kristy Hernandez. Valera studied with world-renowned pioneers of Hip Hop dance, including: Poppin’Pete, Brian Green, Skeeter Rabbit, Mr. Wiggles, Denis Denehy (son of Don Campbell of the Lockers), and members of Style Elements. She is currently teaching and choreographing for Motion Pacific Dance Studio, UCSC Parks and Recreation and Cabrillo College dance repertory.