David Dorfman Dance

For almost 40 years, David Dorfman Dance has created movement that seeks to de-stigmatize the notion of accessibility and interaction in post-modern dance by embracing audiences with visceral, meaningful dance, music and text. By sustaining a vision to create innovative, inclusive, movement-based performance that is radically humanistic, DDD maintains a core commitment to examine and unearth issues and ideas that enliven, incite, and excite audiences in dialogue and debate about social change and a myriad of other topics. In advocating his mission “to get the whole world dancing,” Dorfman’s work has enjoyed broad and diverse audiences nationally and internationally.

DDD has performed extensively throughout North and South America, the UK, Europe, and Central Asia and regularly performs in NYC at major venues including BAM’s Next Wave Festival, The Joyce, The Kitchen, Danspace Project, Harkness Center at 92NY, and The Met Breuer. Highlights from the past summer include performances at Jacob’s Pillow and Bryant Park and a choreographic residency at American Dance Festival. David, the company’s dancers, and artistic collaborators have also been honored with eight NY Dance and Performance (Bessie) Awards. DDD celebrates its 17th year as Company-in-Residence at Connecticut College.

DDD’s works include truce songs (World Premiere 2025); (A)Way Out of My Body (2022) examining out of body experiences; and Aroundtown (2017), which paints the varied, unique and sometimes divided notions of love. truce songs and (A)Way Out of My Body feature lighting and visual designs by artist Andrew Schneider. All three of these most recent works have original scores composed and performed by Lizzy de Lise and Sam Crawford. Prior to that, the company created Come, and Back Again (2013); Prophets of Funk (2011), set to the music of Sly and the Family Stone; Disavowal (2009), inspired by radical abolitionist John Brown; underground (2006), inspired by The Weather Underground; Older Testaments (2005), set to music by composer/trumpeter Frank London of The Klezmatics; Lightbulb Theory (2004); Impending Joy (2004); See Level (2003), and more.

Since 1987, DDD has engaged audiences worldwide, with community-based projects playing an important role, starting in the 1990s. In Out of Season (The Athletes Project) and Familiar Movements (The Family Project), the members of the company rehearsed and performed with groups of volunteer athletes or family members selected in the communities to which the company toured. In No Roles Barred, DDD examined the personal roles assumed, formed, and interwoven in our modern social construct, engaging groups ranging from corporate executives and underserved youths to college administrators, doctors, carpenters, and social dance enthusiasts. These three community projects and additional collaborations with Glasswing International and the United States Agency for International Development, have been presented over 30 times in 18 states and numerous international countries. These efforts help DDD promote its mission of Kinetic Diplomacy: the idea that if you’re dancing, you’re not harming another human being.

Artist Bios

David Dorfman (Artistic Director and Founder of David Dorfman Dance, 1987) earned his MFA in dance at Connecticut College in 1981 and then returned as Professor of Dance in 2004. Dorfman received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2005 to continue his research and choreography in the topics of power and powerlessness, including activism, dissidence, and underground movements. DD has been honored with four fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, three New York Foundation for the Arts fellowships, an American Choreographer’s Award, the first Paul Taylor Fellowship from The Yard, and a New York Dance & Performance “Bessie” Award. David was a 2019 United States Artists Fellow in Dance. His work has been commissioned widely in the U.S. and in Europe, by Dancing Wheels (Cleveland), AXIS Dance Company (Oakland), and Bedlam Dance Company (London).

His forays into theater include choreography for the Tony Award-winning play, Indecent, by Paula Vogel and Rebecca Taichman, for which DD received a Lucille Lortel Award and Chita Rivera Nomination for best choreography for the play’s Off-Broadway run. David traveled to London in March 2020 to set choreography for Indecent’s UK premiere at the Menier Chocolate Factory. In addition, David has contributed his choreography for Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People at Yale Rep; Our Town, a co-production of Deaf West and Pasadena Playhouse; Assassins at Yale Rep; and the original musical Green Violin at the Prince Music Theater in Philadelphia, for which he won a 2003 Barrymore Award for best choreography.

Dorfman toured an evening of solos and duets, Live Sax Acts, with dear friend and collaborator Dan Froot, most recently in New York City and at the Harare International Festival of the Arts in Zimbabwe. As a performer, he toured internationally with Kei Takei’s Moving Earth and Susan Marshall & Co. DD hails from Chicago and holds a BS in Business Administration from Washington University in St. Louis (1977). He appeared on several episodes of A Chance to Dance, a reality show on OvationTV starring Dorfman’s pals, the BalletBoyz who invited David Dorfman Dance to make a three minute video for RandomAct/Channel 4UK. We Don’t Own a Dog came out of that invitation.

DD continually thanks the spirits of Martha Myers and Daniel Nagrin, for being his dance mom and dad; his parents, Oscar and Jeanette, for inspiring him to dance to heal and instilling the importance of a good joke; and his in-house “family project”, Lisa and Samson, for sharing with him the practice of unconditional love.

Lily Gelfand (Company Member) Originally from Youngstown, Ohio, Lily Gelfand is a Brooklyn based dancer, cellist, and teaching artist. Lily received a BFA in Dance Performance and Choreography from Ohio University in Athens, Ohio in 2018. In addition to DDD, Lily has danced with Baye & Asa and Saxyn Dance Works. As a cellist, she has accompanied for dance at The Juilliard School and NYU Tisch as well as performing with Parsons Dance at The Joyce. She has collaborated and composed for/with Jasmine Hearn, Michael Wall, Christina Robson, and the Gibney Company, and has had the pleasure of live scoring for NPR Radio Diaries. Her favorite color is green.

Kashia Kancey (Company Member) is a Miami-born performer and choreographer, who earned her BFA in Dance from New World School of the Arts. She has been commissioned by Peter London Global Dance Company and has had work presented in The Carnival Studio Theater at the Adrienne Arsht Center, Movement Research at Judson Church, Dixon Place and CreateART Performance. Kashia has performed in spaces like Perez Art Museum Miami, South-Miami Dade Cultural Arts Center, Dance Place DC, the American Dance Festival, The Yard, and New York Live Arts. She has danced with Rosie Herrera Dance Theatre, Adele Myers and Dancers, and Abby Z and the New Utility. Kashia was most recently an apprentice with Urban Bush Women and is a company member with David Dorfman Dance. She is based in Brooklyn, NY, and continues to pursue her career as a performer and choreographer.

Paul Matteson (Company Member 2000-2005) was a member of David Dorfman Dance for five years, also dancing for Lisa Race. He received a BESSIE award for his work with these two amazing choreographers. He was faculty at Amherst College and Mount Holyoke College, and an Associate Professor at the School of Dance at the former University of the Arts. He is now visiting faculty at Bennington College. He earned a BA from Middlebury College and an MFA in Dance from Bennington College. He is currently pursuing an MDiv degree at Naropa University with a focus on hospital chaplaincy.

Nik Owens (Company Member) is from Los Angeles, CA and began his movement experience as a competitive gymnast for 15 years. He began his dance training in his senior year of high school and continued at Wesleyan University, where he received a B.A. in Dance and a certificate in Environmental Studies. He has had the pleasure of studying under Nicholas Leichter, Tania Isaac, Kyle Abraham/Abraham.In.Motion, The Dance Exchange, and others. He lived in New York City for 11 years where he was a company member/collaborator with and performed works by Raja Kelly/The Feath3r Theory, Bryn Cohn and Artists, Hélène Simoneau Danse, The Bang Group, Kayla Farrish-Decent Structures Arts, Dual Rivet, 10 Hairy Legs, Tiffany Mills Company, Kyle Marshall Choreography, and others. Currently, he collaborates, performs, and teaches with David Dorfman Dance. He has been afforded the opportunity to teach at institutions such as Wesleyan University, Gibney Dance Center, Rivertown Dance Academy, Dancewave, and many others. Between 2021 – 2023, Nik was commissioned to choreograph and perform his 25-minute solo work, The Right Kind, at Rivertown Dance Academy, Wesleyan University, and Arts on Site. He has choreographed other works for Rivertown Dance Academy and The Wooden Floor in California in 2018 (under David Dorfman Dance alongside Kendra Portier). Currently, he is pursuing his MFA at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Joseph Poulson (Company Member 2001-2019) originally from Philadelphia, PA, received undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Iowa and Bennington College respectively. In 2009, Joe received a “Bessie”, New York Dance and Performance award for his performance in Yamira Castro’s “Dark Horse/Black Forest”. He has also had the pleasure to perform with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, Susan Marshall & Company, Bill Young/Colleen Thomas and Dancers, Creach/Co., Lisa Race, Jeanine Durning, Melinda Ring, Peter Schmitz, Susan Scorbati, Will Swanson, Max Stone, Ann Moradian, Keith Thompson, The Mark Morris Dance Group, Gail Gilbert, Alexandra Beller, Rani Welch, Paul Matteson, Elena Demyanenko, Paradox, Charlotte Adams, Theo and Olympia Wolfe a.k.a. “The Wolfe Pack.”

Lisa Race (Company Member) performed, choreographed and taught in NYC for many years before moving in 2004 to Connecticut, where she is a Professor of Dance at Connecticut College. She danced with David Dorfman Dance from 1989-2000, having received a New York Dance and Performance Award (Bessie) in 1995 for her dancing with the company. She then took a pause when her and Dorfman’s son was young before rejoining the company in 2013. While in NYC she also danced with Sara Pearson/Patrik Widrig & Co. and Ronald K. Brown. Under the guise of RaceDance, her choreography was seen at the former Dance Theater Workshop, Danspace Project, Dancenow and MR at the Judson Church while in NYC. She has been fortunate to teach at Bates (ME) and ImPulsTanz (Vienna) Dance Festivals, as well as the American Dance Festival (NC) multiple times, and has given classes and workshops at many locations here in the US and around the globe. Race has collaborated with Shawn Hove on three dance films, which collectively have been screened at the Sans Souci Festival (CO), Dance For Reel, Light Moves Festival of Screendance (Ireland) and Motion State Arts (RI). She most recently collaborated with Hove and Rachel Boggia on a performance project at Connecticut College.

Jenna Riegel (Company Member 2008-2011) originally from Fairfield, Iowa, is a dance artist and movement educator. Jenna holds an M.F.A. in Dance Performance from the University of Iowa and a B.A. in Theatre Arts from Maharishi International University. During her eleven-year performing career in New York City, Jenna toured and performed nationally and internationally as a company member of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, David Dorfman Dance, Alexandra Beller/ Dances and Bill Young/ Colleen Thomas & Company. She also danced with Daara Dance (choreographer Michel Kouakou), Carolyn Dorfman Dance Company, Shaneeka Harrell, Tania Isaac Dance and johannes weiland. She has been on faculty in the dance departments of Barnard College, The Juilliard School and Virginia Commonwealth University and at the American Dance Festival and the Bates Dance Festival. Jenna is currently an Assistant Professor of Theater and Dance at Amherst College.

Claudia-Lynn Rightmire (Company Member) is a multidisciplinary artist, creating within mediums of dance, writing, theater, and visual art. Claudia-Lynn holds an Honors summa cum laude BA from Roger Williams University, is a certified health coach, and is currently teaching at Gibney Dance. Claudia is an artist with David Dorfman Dance, Rosie Herrera Dance Theatre, and INSPIRIT Dance with Christal Brown, and has worked with NYC Children’s Theater, Third Rail Projects, Kinesis Project, Sarasota Contemporary, and Moving Ethos. She has been a guest artist and educator at many institutions, nationally and internationally. In 2021, she formed cs movement projects, a performance art company, alongside her partner, Simon Thomas-Train. She is driven by storytelling, voice, shadow, and being a new parent.

Aya Wilson (Company Member 2014-2017) is a dance artist, performer, teacher, and administrator. She danced with David Dorfman Dance from 2014 to 2017, and is excited to be dancing alongside these phenomenal DDD artists and to revisit Lightbulb Theory again! Aya was a company member of Doug Varone and Dancers from 2015 to 2022, also serving as the company’s tour manager, and has staged Varone’s works at various universities. Aya has also danced with artists including Kendra Portier/BANDportier, the A.O. Movement Collective, Mariah Maloney, Nadia Tykulsker, Sarah Council, Tara Aisha Willis, Kensaku Shinohara, and Amelia Heintzelman and Leah Fournier. Her teaching practice of dance, improvisation, partnering, and contact improvisation includes SUNY Purchase, Gibney Dance Center, and Peridance. Originally from Normal, Illinois, Aya earned her BFA in Dance from the University of Iowa.

DDD BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Rudy Nickens, President
Solunis Nicole Bay
David Dorfman
Jillian Foley Cusano
Mitchell Karp
David Kyuman Kim
Kellie Ann Lynch
Celeste Myers
Matt Oldani, Treasurer
Tom Schweizer
Mark Utterback
Karen Waltuck
Chloe Carlson, Emeritus
Paul O’Neil, Emeritus

DDD STAFF & ADMINISTRATION

Artistic Director: David Dorfman
Executive Director: Erin Roy
Company Manager: Journee Hardaway
Bookkeeping: Quant Solutions
Exclusive USA Tour Representation:

PENTACLE

Sandy Garcia
sandyg@pentacle.org
www.pentacle.org

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