CHOREOGRAPHERS
Ramya Harishankar
Named ‘legacy artist’/Individual Artist Fellowship by the California Arts Council in 2023, Ramya Harishankar dons many hats. A ‘Distinguished citizen’/Wall of recognition honoree (city of Irvine 2022), she is also the recipient of Kala Seva Bharathi (India 2012), Helene Modjeska Cultural Legacy award (Arts OC 2007) and a 2-time Choreographic Fellow (NEA 1994-97). Recipient of grants from the NEA, CAC and Alliance for California Traditional Arts, her career has taken her all over the world, performing and teaching in India, Asia, Europe, Australia, Africa and N. America. As an artist on Segerstrom Performing Arts Center’s Arts Teach roster, Harishankar has been sharing her art with school children across S. California since 1989. Her company, Arpana has been recognized as a ‘LA Treasure’ and has performed nationally and internationally. Her contributions have been recognized locally, nationally, and internationally and added color and depth to the cultural landscape of SoCal.
Jeff Slayton
Jeff Slayton performed with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, the Viola Farber Dance Company, and Jeff Slayton & Dancers. He has choreographed for several dance companies throughout the world, numerous dance festivals, and for university and college dance departments throughout the United States, Europe, South America and Korea. He was on the faculty of the American Dance Festival in Durham, NC from 1988 to 1996 and the Dance Department at CSULB from 1978 to 1999. He is the author of The Prickly Rose: A Biography of Viola Farber (2006, AuthorHouse, Bloomington, IN.) and Dancing Toward Sanity (2014, Dorrance Publishing Company, Pittsburgh, PA). Jeff is the Co-founder of and writer at LA Dance Chronicle, an online dance magazine. His dance reviews have also been published at Seedance.com and the London based BachTrack.com In 2013 he was the recipient of the Los Angeles Dance Festival's Life Time Achievement Award.
oguri
A native of Japan and a resident of Venice, California, Oguri formed Body Weather Laboratory Los Angeles with Roxanne Steinberg. Since 1990, Oguri has been teaching, creating, and producing dance and multimedia works that incorporate his large-scale set/sculpture installations in both formal theater settings and site-specific venues worldwide. He continues to investigate the relationship between dance and the environment, as well as the boundaries between performer and audience. Oguri has developed collaborative projects with dancers, musicians, sculptors, painters, and poets, using literature, daily life imagery, and simple materials to transform space and time through dance. He actively brings dance to the wider community.
Donna Sternberg
Donna Sternberg, Artistic Director for Donna Sternberg & Dancers, and founder of AWE & WONDER, has professionally premiered over 100 works since 1975 throughout the United States, Europe, Canada and Mexico; frequently collaborating with artists of other disciplines as well as scientists. Her work has been commissioned by institutions such as the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, California Science Center, festivals, schools and dance companies. She participated in the 2016 Venice Biennale, was chosen for the first artist/science residency at Djerassi, received the Artist-in-Community award from the Santa Monica Arts Foundation, is featured in the documentary LA Woman, published in the journal Leonardo (MIT Press), featured on KCET’s Life and Times program and is the recipient of numerous grants. She has been a guest artist for many years at Rancho La Puerta in Tecate, Mexico and served on the Santa Monica Arts Commission.