Southwest Regional Festival 2004
March 13-16, 2004, Scottsdale, Arizona
Adjudicators
Doug Elkins
Doug Elkins started his dance career in the hip-hop scene as b-boy (break dancer) in NYC dancing with several different groups such as Magnificent Force, The Royal Rockers, and New York Express. He also danced in New York's contemporary post-modern scene. Doug's choreography is also highly influenced by his work in contact improvisation and his studies of the martial arts (capoeira, aikido, and kung fu). He has been the artistic director of the Doug Elkins Dance Company for the past 16 years. He maintains a busy teaching and touring schedule with recent travels to London, Amsterdam, and Minnesota. Doug is a 1997 recipient of a New York Dance and Performance Award-- a "Bessie" -- recognized "For walking the walk as well as talking the talk, not to mention utterly tanking what's left of post-modernist pretension, all the while fashioning a singular provocative poetic of dancing." Doug is a 2001 recipient of the Choo-San Goh and Richard H. McGee Foundation Award for Choreography.
Past collaborations have been with JoAnne Akalaitis and Philip Glass for the Guthrie's acclaimed production of The Screens; with Molly Smith of Perseverance Theater on Coyote Builds North America; Robert Woodriff, Brecht's Boal; and Brian Jucha, The River Runs Deep. He has also collaborated with film director Mark Obenhaus on It Doesn't Wait, a film project for public television's Alive From Off Center and with En Garde Arts for its site specific musical J.P. Morgan Saves the Nation. Most recently Doug has collaborated with composers Rinde Ekhart's Highwway Ulysses and Philip Glass's opera Sound of A Voice. Doug has set work on the Batsheva Dance Company, Pennsylvania Ballet, New Dance Ensemble, Pittsburgh's Dance Alloy, The Flying Karamazovs, the City Opera Ballet in Graz, FLY Dance of Houston, CandoCO, and London's Union Dance Company, as well as a number of university dance troupes.
Doug is a recipient of significant choreographic commissions and awards from the NEA, National Performance Network, Jerome Foundation, Dance Magazine Foundation, Metropolitan Life/American Dance Festival, Hartford Foundation, Arts International, NYSCA, and The Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts. In 1994, Doug received the Brandeis University Award in Dance, Creative Arts Awards Commission. For this honor, he shared the stage with other award recipients Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk (architecture); Nan Goldin (photography); Philip Roth (The Jack I and Lillian L Poses Medal for Fiction); 2002 Atlantic Center for the Arts Master in Residence Fellowship; and 2003 Cowles Award Artist in Residence.
Stephen Koester
Associate Professor. B.A. University of Minnesota.
Professor Koester was formerly co-Artistic Director of Creach/Koester, a dance company based in New York City which toured throughout the US, Canada and Europe. With partner Terry Creach, Professor Koester received five consecutive choreographic fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts, plus a choreographic fellowship from the New York State Foundation for the Arts.
In addition to his activities with Creach/Koester, Professor Koester has been a guest artist at numerous colleges and universities throughout the country; he continues to choreograph and teach both nationally and internationally. In the department he regularly choreographs, and teaches improvisation, composition, technique, and graduate seminars. Professor Koester also serves as the Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Modern Dance.
Kevin Wynn
Kevin Wynn (Artistic Director) received his early training in Washington, D.C. at the Duke Ellington School of the Arts and continued his studies at Cal Arts and S.U.N.Y. Purchase. He was a soloist with the Jose Limon Dance Company and has worked with Jowale Willa Jo Zollar, Laurie Carlos, Vernon Reid and Living Colour, Dianne McIntyre, Sounds in Motion Dance Company, Mel Wong, Kazuko Hirabayashi, Daniel Nagrin and Jacques D'Amboise. Wynn's choreography has been performed at Holland Music and Dance Festival, International Dance Festival in Hong Kong, International Dance Festival in Taipei, Clark Center's New Choreographers Series, UCLA, George Washington University, S.U.N.Y. Purchase, Dance in Education Fund, Inc., The lma Hill Performing Arts Center and the Harlem Cultural Council's Symphony Space Series.
Wynn has received four NYSCA- supported grants in choreography for commissioned works for EBA Dance Company, Pick-Of-The-Crop Dance Company in Buffalo, and the Alvin Ailey Repertory Ensemble. He has also received commissions from the Kristina de Chatel Dance Company of Holland, The Navarro Dance Theater in Milan, Italy, the Open End Dance Company in Rome, the Bat-Dor Dance School Ensemble in Tel Aviv, Israel, New York University, UCLA, Labco Dance Company, Edgeworks Dance Theater, 2nd Ave Dance Company (Tisch School of the Arts), and Houston Met. New York City venues who have produced Wynn's work include Movement Research, Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors, Thelma Hill Performing Arts Series, Harlem Cultural Council, Downtown Cultural Arts Council, 14th Street ÒYÓ, Educational Alliance Center, London Contemporary Dance Center, Joyce Theater's Altogether Different Series, Danspace Project at St. Marks Church, Symphony Space, and the 92nd Street Y Harkness Series at the Duke Theater.
Wynn has completed residencies in Belgium, Italy, Germany, Holland, Israel, London, Asia, Trinidad, France, Scandinavia, and throughout the United States.
Wynn is an Associate Professor of dance in the Conservatory of Dance at Purchase College, and is also on the faculty of the Alvin Ailey /Fordham University B.F.A. Program.
Wynn has received numerous grants and awards for his work, including a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships.
Recent work has been produced by St. Marks Danspace Project, Ailey/Fordham B.F.A. program, Taos Dance Festival, Symphony Space Sampler Series, the 92nd Street Y Harkness Series at the Duke Theater, DRA's Dancing for Life Dance Festival at Bryant Park, and Lincoln Center Out of Doors.
