UNC School of the Arts announces four inaugural Choreographic Development residents for summer institute

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C., April 26, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --Four emerging choreographers, including two alumni, are the inaugural participants in the Choreographic Development Residency at UNC School of the Arts this summer, Dean Susan Jaffe has announced.

The alumni residents are Kyle Davis, a 2008 high school graduate and a soloist with Pacific Northwest Ballet, and Mari Meade, a 2006 high school graduate and 2009 B.F.A. recipient who is founder and artistic director of Mari Meade Dance Collective in Brooklyn. The other residents are Charlotte Griffin, who studied at Juilliard and is assistant professor of dance at the University of California at Irvine, and Marielis Garcia, who studied with Alvin Ailey and Twyla Tharpe and leads her own dance production company in New York. 

"These four up-and-coming artists have strong choreographic voices," said Jaffe. "We are proud to offer them a groundbreaking career opportunity to develop new works as we launch our UNCSA Choreographic Institute."

Announced in February 2017, the two-track Choreographic Institute includes both the Development Residency and the Professional Residency. Jaffe and former Dean of Dance Ethan Stiefel, both former principal dancers with American Ballet Theatre, are the first professional residents, who will work with invited professional dancers for two weeks to research choreographic ideas or build toward new works.  

The institute's second track, the Development Residency, includes individual mentorship by Visiting Distinguished Artist Helen Pickett, who is resident choreographer for Atlanta Ballet. 

In addition to mentoring by Pickett, the choreographers will participate in daily technique classes, workshops and lectures led by esteemed UNCSA Summer Dance faculty and guests, and will hold afternoon rehearsals with their cast of dancers selected from the Summer Dance Intensives. In the evenings, residents will have access to UNCSA's studios for further choreographic research. The residencies will culminate in a fully produced performance of the new works.

Kyle Davis trained at Makaroff School of Ballet and at Rock School for Dance Education and UNCSA. He joined PNB as an apprentice in 2008 and was promoted to corps de ballet in 2009 and soloist in 2016.

In 2008, he won the Prix de Lausanne competition in Switzerland. He also won various awards in the Youth American Grand Prix Regional and Finals in 2005 and 2006.

Marielis Garcia is a member of the Brian Brooks Moving Company and Peter Kyle Dance. In 2016, she premiered MG DanceArts.  

Garcia earned her B.F.A. in Dance from Marymount Manhattan College. She has danced with ODC of San Francisco, City Dance Ensemble, Douglas Dunn, Stefanie Battan Bland and Steps Repertory Ensemble, and toured South Africa teaching and performing with Ikapa Dance Theater.

She teaches at Rutgers University, The Washington Heights Community Conservatory of Fine Arts and in New York City public schools.

Charlotte Griffin's repertory has been commissioned by Juilliard Dance Ensemble,  Hartt School Dance Division, BJM Danse in Montreal, Danza UDLAP, Barcelona Institut del Teatre, Juilliard Summer Intensive, Peridance Professional Trainees, Princeton University and Rutgers University.

She has created ballets at the New York Choreographic Institute, at the American Ballet Theatre Summer Intensive in Austin, and for Eliot Feld's Ballet Tech Kids Dance. Current projects include Bum Phillips All-American Opera for La MaMa's Ellen Stewart Theater in New York and The Cambrians' Empress Archer remix project, which premiered in Chicago in January 2017.

Griffin studied with the American Dance Festival from 1994-1996. She has been a guest artist at ArcDanz in Mexico, Springboard Danse Montreal, The Yard, Cayman Island Arts Festival, and the Bates Dance Festival. Her award-winning dance films, BAREFOOT NEGOTIATIONS (2009) and RAVEN STUDY (2007), have screened internationally.

Griffin received her B.F.A. in Dance from The Juilliard School and her M.F.A. in Dance from the University of Texas at Austin. She has taught at Marymount Manhattan College and Bowdoin College, and has offered master classes in Mexico, Spain, the Czech Republic, and South Korea.  Griffin is assistant professor of dance at the University of California, Irvine.

Mari Meade graduated from the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts and UNCSA. In 2009, she started Mari Meade Dance Collective (MMDC). Since that time, she has been an Artist-in-Residence at Chez Bushwick and Lake Studios Berlin (Germany).

Meade's work has been shown at Lincoln Center, Danspace St. Mark's Church, STUFFED at Judson Memorial Church, FLICfest, Battery Dance Festival, New Orleans Fringe Festival, and Katlehong Arts Center (South Africa). In New York, she has danced for Dana Salisbury and the no-see-ums, Amanda Hinchey & Dancers, Celia Rowlson-Hall, CJ Holm, touche pas, and Barbie Diewald. She is currently a teaching artist for New York City Ballet and Dancing Classrooms.

Helen Pickett has created more than 30 ballets in the United States and Europe. She  has twice been named the best choreographer in Atlanta.  In 2007, she was named to Dance Magazine's list of "25 to Watch."  She received a Choreographic Residency from Jacob's Pillow in 2008, and was one of the first recipients of the Jerome Robbins Foundation's New Essential Works Grant. She was nominated for an Isadora Duncan Dance award in 2013. She earned a Master of Fine Arts from Hollins University in 2011.

Since 2005, she has guest starred in William Forsythe's award-winning postmodern ballet Impressing the Czar for the Royal Ballet of Flanders and Dresden Ballet in Germany. She has also performed the work in France, England, Scotland and China, and at the Lincoln Center Festival in New York.

The University of North Carolina School of the Arts is America's first state-supported arts school, a unique stand-alone public university of arts conservatories. With a high school component, UNCSA is a degree-granting institution that trains young people of talent in dance, design and production, drama, filmmaking, and music. Established by the N.C. General Assembly in 1963, the School of the Arts opened in Winston-Salem ("The City of Arts and Innovation") in 1965 and became part of the University of North Carolina system when it was formed in 1972. For more information, visit www.uncsa.edu.

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SOURCE University of North Carolina School of the Arts