Stephens Summer Dance Intensive 2010

Stephens College campus, Columbia, Mo.

College Session: May 19–July 3, 2010
(college credit available)
High School Session: June 14-July 3, 2010
(junior year or older)

Stephens Summer Dance Intensive (SSD) is an exciting opportunity for aspiring young dancers to study with international guest faculty in the Stephens College studios. Students will receive professional, individually focused training that prepares them for success in today’s diverse dance world.

The Program
SSD prepares aspiring young dancers to meet the challenges of today’s diverse dance world. Students will study with international guest faculty, taking daily technique classes in ballet, modern, jazz, and musical theatre in an intensive conservatory environment. The training students receive will stretch their talents and broaden their understanding of what it means to be a dancer. Each three-week session will emphasize technical growth and artistic performance. Entrance is by audition only. Students may earn up to eight college credits with a combination of dance, lighting and/or music classes.

Guest and resident faculty will share their professional expertise through technique classes, individualized attention and rehearsals — providing students with an opportunity to experience the real world of dance in an educational setting. The culmination of the experience is the Summer Dance Concert, which will be Friday, July 2 and Saturday, July 3 in the College’s Macklanburg Playhouse.

Auditions
Entrance into SSD is by audition only, either in person or electronically. Students may audition in person if they are able to come to Stephens College in Columbia, Mo., for a class with our majors; or electronically by submitting an audition DVD or video (consisting of ballet barre-work, modern or jazz center-work and/or a short video of a performance. No more than seven minutes total). If the performance video is a group piece, clearly indicate where you appear on the tape.

Please make arrangements by April 1 to take a dance class at Stephens by contacting Kathy Vogt at (573) 876-7194. High school students must be entering their junior year in order to qualify. Send your video by April 1 to SSD, Campus Box 2077, 1200 E. Broadway, Columbia, MO 65215.

Accommodations
Classes and rehearsals are held on the Stephens College campus in Historic Senior Hall, which houses the Harriette Ann Gray Dance Studios, and the East Studios. Facilities include student lounge and dressing rooms. Performances are held in the College’s 314-seat Macklanburg Playhouse. While on campus, Stephens Summer Dance students will live in Tower Hall, an air-conditioned residence hall with laundry facilities, a weight room and recreation lounges with cable. There is a separate wing for high school participants and second-floor accommodations for college students. Living on the Stephens campus is a requirement for participation in Stephens College Summer Dance Intensive.

Meals
Stephens Summer Dance students eat in the Stamper Commons dining hall, which is located in the center of campus. Included in the program are three meals per day (Monday–Friday) and two meals per day on weekend.

Enrollment Fee

$4,500 (6 1/2-week college session), May 19–July 3, 2010
$2,000 (3-week high school session), June 14-July 3, 2010
Fee includes tuition, room, board, and college credit if applicable. A $25 non-refundable application fee also is required.

Faculty
Mari Jo Irbe - Contemporary Jazz
Session One
Mari Jo Irbe is an accomplished performer, choreographer and teacher originally from La Grange, Ill., who has called Chicago “home” during much of her career. She has been a featured performer with River North Chicago Dance Company under the direction of both Sherry Zunker and Frank Chaves for 15 years and has toured extensively, performing works by internationally acclaimed choreographers. Mari Jo also danced with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and toured nationally and internationally with Joseph Holmes Chicago Dance Theatre, under the direction of Randy Duncan. In 2001, Mari Jo received the “Ruth Page Chicago and Music Alliance Dance Achievement Award.” From August 2001 to April 2002, Mari Jo danced for Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines’ “Adventure of the Seas” production cast, under the direction of Harrison McEldowney and Sherry Zunker. In 2002, Mari Jo came home to dance with her family, River North Chicago, once again to become the company’s rehearsal director. Aside from her current role, Mari Jo also serves as an auditioner and rehearsal choreographer for installments of new production casts of Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines. She also serves the Chicago dance community as a volunteer, dancer and committee chairperson for “Dance for Life,” a benefit to raise awareness and funds for HIV/AIDS care, prevention and education, while promoting the art of dance in Chicago. While continuing to teach and perform throughout the metropolitan area and the United States, she currently serves on faculty at Loyola University of Chicago’s dance department.

Robyn Lee - Acting
Session One
Australian born, for Robyn Lee, life was ballet. Over time that led to Broadway and then to playwriting and painting … eventually opening up to the creation of In the Moment: The Art of Being which she has been teaching internationally over the last 15 years at such places as the European Film College, Ebeltoft, Denmark, Ophelia professional school in Copenhagen, Bergen, Norway, The Actors Centre Australia, Sydney, Vienna, Los Angeles, Stephens College-Missouri, the Burr and Burton Academy Vermont, the Stella Adler and the Michael Howard Studios NY. Robyn lives in New York City and is co-founder of Third Eye Media.

Tony Parise - Musical Theater
Session One
Tony Parise began his theatrical career as a performer. He appeared in the national tour of A CHORUS LINE, and was on Broadway in 42ND STREET, ME AND MY GIRL and CITY OF ANGELS. Tony has directed and/or choreographed HELLO, DOLLY !,   starring Madeline Kahn; WHERE'S CHARLEY?, starring Jo Sullivan and Emily Loesser; MAME;   SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS; OLIVER, starring Ellen Greene; CINDERELLA; LA CAGE AUX FOLLES; THE MUSIC MAN; CRAZY FOR YOU; FUNNY GIRL; SOUTH PACIFIC; THE SOUND OF MUSIC; ON THE 20TH CENTURY; YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU; DAMES AT SEA; and national companies of GREASE!, starring Cindy Williams and Eddie Mecca; ANYTHING GOES ; 42ND STREET   and ME AND MY GIRL, starring Tim Curry.

Tony has had the honor of choreographing Bernadette Peters in both her Carnegie Hall and Radio City debuts. He was nominated for a Lucille Lortel Award for his choreography of PIRATES OF PENZANCE. Other off-Broadway credits include co-choreography for PAGEANT, movement for RAFT OF THE MEDUSA, and co-direction and staging for BALANCING ACT. Internationally, Tony has mounted companies of 42ND STREET   in London, Australia, New Zealand and Korea, ME AND MY GIRL in Mexico City, ANYTHING GOES at the Theater Des Westens in Berlin, and has choreographed for Italian TV in Milan. From 1996 Tony has directed the Hasty Pudding Theatricals at Harvard University. Teaching credits include master classes throughout this country and abroad with such organizations as AMDA, Boston Ballet, New Zealand School of Dance, and the Philadelphia College of Performing Arts. He is the artistic director of Camp Broadway.

Pedro Ruiz - Ballet
Last week of Session One and first two weeks of Session Two
Trained in his native Cuba and in Venezuela, Pedro Ruiz choreographed three celebrated ballets while a principal dancer with Ballet Hispanico for 21 years. Choreography credits include: The Joffrey Ballet, Luna Negra, New Jersey Ballet, The Tribeca Performing Arts Center, The Jacob's Pillow Festival, The Marymount College, the Ailey/Fordham B.F.A. Program, Ailey’s Spring Celebration and Summer Sizzler concerts.

Pedro is on the dance faculty of Marymount College, the staff of The Ailey School and Scarsdale Ballet. He has also taught master classes throughout the United States, Europe, and Central and South America.

Awards include: the Bessie Award, the Choo-San Goh Award, The Cuban Artist’s Fund and The Joyce Foundation Award to create a new work for The Joffrey. Pedro has performed at the White House and was profiled nationally on PBS’s “In The Life.”

Amy Smith - Modern/ Making Dances
Session Two
Amy Smith is a co-director of Headlong Dance Theater, a Philadelphia-based contemporary dance company.  She grew up in Ann Arbor, Mic., where she studied ballet, jazz and tap. At Wesleyan University she studied modern dance, composition, improvisation, ballet, Bharata Natyam and Ghanaian dance, and double majored in dance and religion. After college, Amy spent a year at the Center for New Dance Development in Holland, where she soaked up European New Dance and studied with Stephanie Skura, Ishmael Houston Jones and Steve Paxton.

Important teachers/mentors include Cynthia Novack and Richard Bull, Susan Foster, Deborah Hay and Ann Trenka. She has performed in theater and cabaret as well as dancing, and has won both a Barrymore (for 1812's "Suburban Love Songs") and a Bessie (for Headlong's "ST*R W*RS"). She serves on the Dance/USA board of Trustees, and helped to create the service organization Dance/USA Philadelphia.

Nancy Stoy - Ballet
First two weeks of Session One and last week of Session Two
Nancy Stoy is a graduate of Canadian College of Dance in Toronto. She is a member of Royal Academy of Dance and Imperial Society of Teachers of Dance. Her emphasis is in Cecchetti Method and Pedagogy. Nancy has performed in Omaha-Dancescape and has taught in the United States, London and Canada. She teaches in Halcyone Perlman School of Dance in Columbia and at Stephens College.

Elizabeth Hartwell - Conditioning for Dancers
Session Two
Elizabeth Hartwell danced professionally with the Louisville Ballet, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, Cincinnati Ballet and Chicago Ballet, as well as the Pittsburgh and Cincinnati Opera Ballets, and the Children’s Theater of Cincinnati. After graduating from the School for the Creative and Performing Arts High School, in Cincinnati, Ohio, she was a finalist in the 1980 National Society for Arts and Letters Competition in Dance, in New York City. In addition to her dancing career, Elizabeth was a faculty member of the Louisville Ballet School and the Governor’s School for the Arts. In 2002, her choreography was selected for the South Eastern Regional Ballet Association and she choreographed a ballet for the Muhammad Ali Center’s Gala Opening performance, in 2005. During this year, she was awarded the Kentucky Governor’s Artist of the Year Award, for lifetime achievement. After her retirement from dancing, Elizabeth became director of the Louisville Ballet School and artistic director of the Louisville Ballet Youth Ensemble, from 2004 to 2008. Elizabeth is the ballet instructor for the Stephens College Dance department.

Also in Session One:
Music for Dance (Rusty Elder)
Lighting and Production (Jennifer Kilgore)

SSD Director
Carol Estey – Chair of Stephens College Department of Dance
Carol Estey was a Broadway dancer and actor over a long career that included eight Broadway shows such as THE ACT, starring Liza Minelli, and JESUS CHRIST, SUPERSTAR. She has worked on Broadway with such directors and choreographers as Bob Fosse, Tom O’Horgan, Gower Champion, Joe Layton, Onna White, Thommie Walsh and Gracielle Danielle. Estey directed and choreographed musicals in and out of NYC (including guest artist stints at Stephens), taught dance at Pace University, and earned her B.A. from SUNY, and her M.A. in Performance Studies from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. She was a founder and co-artistic director of Opera House Arts at the Stonington Opera House in Stonington, Maine, where she directed, choreographed and produced for 10 years.