SANTA BARBARA DANCE THEATER
PROFESSIONAL COMPANY IN RESIDENCE AT UCSB
CHOREOGRAPHERS
DAVID MAURICE (They /Them | Ze/Zir) is a freelance choreographer. They began their dance training with César Degollado and attended the University of Arizona David's performing career started as an apprentice with Luna Negra Dance Theatre and continued in companies: The Foundry, Madboots Dance, Ate9 Dance Company, Gallim, with choreographers Roderick George and Loni Landon, and in the film Saturday Church. David worked closely alongside Alex Ketley within an eight-week, tri-term, choreographic mentorship titled, Choreography in a Time of Global Cataclysm. David served as the Artistic Director of the Chicago-based cocodaco Dance Project for two years. As a choreographer, they have created new dance works on Condanza, Ate9 Dance Company, Santa Barbara Dance Theater, and Convergence Ballet. When commissioned for new creations David has assisted Barak Marshall, Roderick George, Kevin Jenkins, and Loni Landon.
HELEN SIMONEAU is a choreographer, teacher and Guggenheim Fellow (2021). She has been commissioned by the Ailey School, BalletX, The Juilliard School, Oregon Ballet Theatre, the American Dance Festival, and colleges, dance companies and festivals throughout the US and Canada. She was a resident artist at Baryshnikov Arts Center, NYU/Tisch, Bates Dance Festival, The University of Buffalo, and a fellow of The NYU Center for Ballet and the Arts, Ailey’s New Directions Choreography Lab, and the Bogliasco Foundation. She was awarded first place for Choreography at the 13th Internationales Solo-Tanz-Theater Festival in Stuttgart, Germany, and is currently the Choreography Fellow at New York City Center. Simoneau is originally from Luceville, a small village in Eastern Québec.
photo by: Whitney Browne
DESIGN / COLLABORATORS
MICHAEL KLAERS, lighting designer. Mr. Klaers has designed lighting for SBDT productions since 2012, including A Leap of Faith (2012-13), Time in Motion (2013-14), Common Ground (2015), the 40th Anniversary Season (2015-16) and Santa Barbara Dance Theater and Friends (2016). His regional theatre credits include Idaho Shakespeare Festival, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, Great Lakes Theater Festival, Shakespeare Festival of St. Louis, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts, Indiana Repertory Theatre.
RECENT
CHOREOGRAPHERS
Weslie Ching has been working as a modern dance choreographer since 2014. Her work has been shown in venues such as the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara, Ruth Page Center for the Arts (Chicago), Dixon Place (NY), and ODC Theater (SF). She received a Santa Barbara Independent "Indy" award for choreography in 2016 and 2019. Weslie holds a BFA from UC Santa Barbara where she was a Regents Scholar and recipient of the Undergraduate Research Award for Dance.
Born in Los Angeles, Nancy Colahan received her early classical training from Dimitri and Francesca Romanoff in San Jose, CA. After high school graduation, she moved to NYC, training initially at ABT, eventually moving on to train with Finis Jung, Marjorie Mussman, David Howard and Nadine Revene. As her professional career developed, her greatest influence and constant inspiration was the great ballet teacher Maggie Black with whom she studied until Maggie’s retirement in the early ‘90’s. Performing and touring extensively, Nancy performed with the Alvin Ailey American Repertory Ensemble (1 year), the Joyce Trisler Danscompany (4 years) and the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company (9 years), dancing in the works of Alvin Ailey, Lucas Hoving, Milton Myers, Joyce Trisler, Charles Moulton, Donald McKayle, Doris Humphrey and Ruth St. Denis. Nancy was involved in the creation of many of the dances that Lar choreographed in the years between 1979 and 1989. (Cavalcade, A Brahms Symphony, Big Shoulders, Tabernacle, Adagio and Rondo for Glass Harmonica, Rhapsody in Blue, From Paris to Jupiter.)