GroundWorks Dancetheater

DAVID SHIMOTAKAHARA (Artistic Director) has been a member of the Atlanta Ballet, Boston Repertory Ballet, Kathryn Posin Dance Company, and the Pittsburgh Ballet Theater. He performed with Ohio Ballet under the direction of Heinz Poll from 1983-1999. He also served as Rehearsal Assistant for Ohio Ballet from 1989-1999. From 1989-1997 Mr. Shimotakahara founded and was Director of New Steps, that offered a variety of programs that stimulated the creation and growth of new choreography in Northeast Ohio. Mr. Shimotakahara has choreographed for opera and theater with The Cleveland Opera, Great Lakes Theater Festival and The Dallas Theater Center. He has received 6 consecutive Individual Artist Fellowships for Choreography from the Ohio Arts Council from 1996 to 2007. In 1998 he received a McKnight Foundation Fellowship from the Minnesota Dance Alliance to create new work in the Minneapolis, St Paul communities. Mr. Shimotakahara was awarded the 2000 Cleveland Arts Prize for Dance. In 2002 his work with GroundWorks Dancetheater was recently voted "One of 25" to Watch by Dance Magazine. In 2007 he received the OhioDance award for Outstanding Contributions to the Advancement of the Dance Artform. Mr Shimotakahara was a 2008 recipient of the first COSE Arts and Business Innovation awards as the founder of GroundWorks Dancetheater.

AMY MILLER (Artistic Associate) has danced with GroundWorks Dancetheater since its inception in 1998. She received her training at The Dance Institute of The University of Akron and at the Joffrey Ballet School. Ms. Miller performed with the dance project New Steps from1991-1997 and was a member of Ohio Ballet from 1991-2001 where she performed works by Paul Taylor, Jose Limon and Anthony Tudor among others. In addition to her role in assisting with re-creations of GroundWorks’ repertory, Ms. Miller represents the company through an ICARE funded educational partnership within the Cleveland Public Schools. She is on the teaching faculty of several area ballet schools including The Dance Institute.

GUSTAVO AGUILAR (Director of Music) percussionist, composer, and improviser, has been honing his craft as a music artisan for almost two decades. His commitment to combining pre-composed (notated) and present-composed (improvised) musical elements has earned him the reputation as an "intuitive, methodical mystic." A champion of Contemporary New Music, Gustavo has performed at major festivals throughout the Americas, Europe, Asia, and the Pacific. He has worked closely with some of the most innovative composers of our time, including Ana-Maria Avram, Chaya Czernowin, Anthony Davis, Iancu Dumitrescu, Julio Estrada, Art Jarvinen, Anne LeBaron, Annea Lockwood, and Roger Reynolds. A Brownsville, Texas native, Gustavo has been on faculty at the University of California (San Diego), Del Mar College/Texas A&M Corpus Christi, Korea National University of the Arts, and The University of Akron, and has given lectures and master classes at universities and symposia across the United States and abroad. Currently residing in New York City, Gustavo continues to hold the position of Composer-in-Residence with Groundworks DanceTheater of Cleveland, Ohio—a position he has held since 1997.

FELISE BAGLEY (Dancer) a native New Yorker, she had the opportunity to perform with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre at New York’s City Center. After dancing professionally with The Joyce Trisler Dance Company, Philadanco and Elisa Monte Dance Company, Felise became a scholarship recipient to The Joffrey Ballet School where she became a member of Joffrey II and a guest artist with The Joffrey Ballet of Chicago during their season of "The Joffrey Nutcracker" at The Kennedy Center. Felise then joined Ohio Ballet under the direction of Heinz Poll where she danced principal roles in Ruthanna Boris’ "Cakewalk," Poll’s "Shubert Waltzes," "Scenes from Childhood," "Planes and Configurations," "Duet," and the title role in Poll’s only full-length story ballet, "Match Girl." Felise debuted with GroundWorks in 2001 in the ballet, "Major to Minor."

JANET BOLICK (Costume Design) studied fashion design at Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC and discovered a passion for the theatrical world rather than fashion. She moved back to Cleveland 10 years ago and began working extensively with many of the local dance companies. Her costume designs have been seen at Ohio Ballet, Dancing Wheels, Verb Ballets and Cleveland Contemporary Dance Theatre. She has also done some theatre and opera costumes but enjoys the challenge of creating for dance the best.

KELLY BRUNK (Dancer) hails from Kansas City, Missouri and graduated with honors from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts with a BFA in Dance and a minor in Pre-Business. In 2007, he studied at the Salzburg, Austria Experimental Academy of Dance where he performed many Forsythe works, including Enemy; and in January 2008, he performed in Vietnam’s two largest cities: Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). He has worked with Cherylyn Lavagnino Dance, the Second Avenue Dance Company, the Dance Company of San Francisco, and has performed in industrials in Las Vegas. As well, he has choreographed for many venues including pageants, professional cheerleaders, and concert and commercial dance pieces. He thanks his parents and family for all of their incredible support. Kelly joined GroundWorks DanceTheatre in 2008.

DENNIS DUGAN (Technical/Lighting Designer) first met David in New York City. They reconnected in Akron and he has been working with GroundWorks Dance Theater since its inception. Currently, he also works with Ohio Ballet, Cuyahoga Valley Youth Ballet, Rhythm in Shoes, Inlet Dance Theater, Dancing Wheels and the University of Akron. His fascination with light began in the seventies at Ohio University. It has led him to work in all the forms of live performance in theater and dance venues from New York to Los Angeles and all the states in between. Although dance is his favorite performance art, Dennis also enjoys exploring sculpture, photography and lighting public art. Dennis is a Board Member of Ohio Dance, a membership and service organization serving the dance community of Ohio. He was a recipient of the Ohio Dance Award for outstanding contributions to dance in Ohio in 1997.

DAMIEN HIGHFIELD (Dancer) came to Ohio from Atlanta Ballet. He began dancing at the age of six in his hometown of Columbus, where he trained at Balletmet for ten years, then became a member of Balletmet/Jazzmet. Mr. Highfield then went to Butler Univerisity in Indianapolis. He has performed as a guest artist with Indianapolis Opera, Columbus Opera, Alexandra Ballet, Fort Wayne Ballet and the Academy of Ballet Arts, and has danced the title role in Hamlet, Dracula, Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty, Coppelia, Cinderella, the pas de deux in Alonzo King’s Heaven and Earth, as well as many works by David Shimotakahara and Jeffrey Graham Hughes. He was a featured choreographer for Ohio Ballet’s Roots of Choreography and has also created a full length ballet, The Toymaker.

SARAH PERRETT (Dancer) began formal dance training in classical ballet at Budzynski Studios in Doylestown, PA before moving to North Carolina to attend high school at North Carolina School of the Arts. There she studied ballet under Melissa Hayden and Warren Conover, performing works by George Balanchine and Lynn Taylor Corbett. Sarah also attended summer dance programs at Boston Ballet and The Rock School of Pennsylvania Ballet in Philadelphia. Sarah furthered her studies and training as a college student receiving her diploma in Contemporary Dance from North Carolina School of the Arts. She performed with many guest choreographers including Camille Brown, Niki Juralewicz and Monica Bill Barnes. Most recently, Sarah performed at Merce Cunningham Studios and at Dixon Place in New York City.

MARK OTLOSKI (Outreach Coordinator/Dancer) is a former principal dancer of 22 years from the Cleveland/San Jose Ballet. During his tenure with the company he also served as rehearsal assistant and as Ballet Master of Ballet San Jose of Silicon Valley. Mr. Otloski teaches throughout Ohio and Michigan with extensive training in the Cecchetti (Italian) syllabus and recently completed a comprehensive teachers’ study course of Years 1-3 of the Vaganova (Russian) syllabus. He has taught Master Classes, and regularly conducts annual summer seminars for the Young Peoples Ballet Theatre of Michigan, the Flint School of Performing Arts and workshops for the Livonia Civic Ballet Company. Mr. Otloski is currently in charge of the Ballet division at the Jordan Center for the Arts, is a faculty member at the Cleveland School of Dance and guest teacher at Cleveland City Dance and GroundWorks Dancetheater.

NATHAN DOUDS (Musician/ Light Up) Nathan Douds is a graduate of Youngstown State University where he earned a Bachelor's Degree in Percussion Performance and of Bowling Green State University where he earned a Master's Degree in Jazz Studies in applied piano. Nathan has been playing professionally since the age of fourteen and has performed jazz, pop, R&B, Brazillian, Afro-Cuban, 50s, progressive rock, orchestral, chamber music, musical theater, elctronic, electro-acoustic, and many others. He has worked with many diverse artists and groups including Joe Lovano, John Hollenbeck, the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra, the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, the Diamonds, the Coasters, The Warren Philharmonic Orchestra, and several touring musical productions.

DAVID PARKER (Guest Choreographer/Annie Redux) grew up in Lynnfield, Massachusetts and began studying tap and ballet in Boston while he was a teenager. He later discovered modern dance while attending Bard College. After performing in several tap, folk and contemporary dance companies in New York City, Parker began to make his own dances. One of his first, "Bang and Suck," was awarded a finalist prize at the Fourth International Competition for Choreographers of Contemporary Dance in Groningen, The Netherlands in 1994 and was a special citation of the Kurt Jooss Award jury in Essen, Germany in 2001. He recently choreographed the evening-length production of "Dylan Dog" for the Verona Ballet in Italy with Jeffrey Kazin in the title role. Parker choreographed an industrial for Stolichnaya vodka. He has the pleasure of an ongoing collaboration with Sara Hook with whom he has made three pieces and taught workshops on dance career development. He currently serves on the faculty of The Alvin Ailey School in New York where he teaches dance composition and improvisation and is a guest professor throughout the U.S. and Europe. Parker is a founding member of The Pink Ribbons Project/Dancers in Motion Against Breast Cancer and serves on the board of directors of The Field.

KT NIEHOFF (Guest Choreographer/Proximal) is a 2006 choreographic fellow at the Maggie Allessee National Center for Choreography at Florida State University. She holds a BFA in theater from New York University and began her dance career in New York City where she performed with Joy Kellman.  In 1992 she relocated to Seattle where she performed with the Pat Graney Company.  Niehoff began choreographing in the Northwest in 1995, and founded her company, Lingo dancetheater, in 1997.  For Lingo, she has created four full-length works and numerous short works. Niehoff’s work has been presented internationally in Canada, Japan, Ecuador and Cuba. Nationally, the company has been presented by venues including On the Boards in Seattle, The Joyce SoHo in NYC, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival Inside/Out in Massachusetts, The Southern Theater in Minneapolis, Vanderbilt University in Nashville and Evergreen State College in Olympia. The company was one of four chosen to represent the U.S. at the 2004 Tanzmesse in Dussëldorf, Germany. In 1996, Niehoff co-founded Velocity Dance Center, which has since grown to be the epicenter for contemporary dance in Seattle.