2017-2018 TRDP Choreographers
Johanna Berliner
Johanna Berliner is a dancer and choreographer from Chapel Hill and a recent graduate of Mount Holyoke College, where she performed in student and faculty work and choreographed several works for the dance department from 2012 to 2016. After receiving her B.A. in American Studies, she returned to the Triangle area, continuing her training at American Dance Festival’s Samuel Scripps Studios and performing locally. In April 2017 she performed in “I am deliberate,” choreographed by Jade Poteat for Tobacco Road Dance Productions, and choreographed and performed an alumni piece for Chapel Hill High School’s Spring Dance Concert in May 2017. Artistic interests include queer themes, witchcraft and fantasy motifs, theatrical comedy, dream worlds, and deep feelings. She enjoys printmaking, painting, and fantasy RPGs, but loves dancing most of all.
Kristin Clotfelter
Kristin Clotfelter is a freelance artist who spent 14 years developing a movement practice in New York, New York. She danced for nine seasons at The Metropolitan Opera and has collaborated and toured with Susan Marshall & Company, Johannes Wieland, Mark DeChiazza and Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre. Kristin also spent summers performing at The Santa Fe Opera, a year dancing with the State Theater of Kassel in Germany, and performed as Lady MacDuff in Punchdrunk’s off-Broadway show, Sleep No More. She has pursued her own performance language through residencies at Dance Omi International Dance Collective and Fleet Moves Dance Festival and shown work in Brooklyn, Wellfleet, Ghent, Washington D.C. and Charlottesville. She has taught master classes at Columbia College Chicago, The National Museum of Dance, Princeton University, American University and the University of Virginia as well as Parsons The New School for Design as a member of the Movement Party. Kristin is interested in exploring the congruences of improvisation, experimentation and classical technique and maintains a keen somatic curiosity. She enjoys teaching and practicing yoga and holds a BFA with honors in dance and a minor in Visual Arts from the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater/Fordham University program.
Raina Lucas
Founded in late 2016 by choreographer, Raina Lucas, the Raina Lucas//Dance Co. & Lab is an emerging project-based contemporary dance company based in Durham, North Carolina. The company’s emphasis on embodied investigation, physical intelligence, and movement experimentation in the rehearsal space facilitates the making and performance of provocative works exhibiting the choreographer and dancers’ rich personal histories, cultures, and psychological/sociological inquiries and themes. Made up of a rotating community of talented dancers from across the state of North Carolina, the company takes a keen interest in process focused dance-making and works to strike a unique balance between crafted and spontaneous movements.
The Raina Lucas//Dance Co. & Lab places great value in the process of making a dance. The company views rehearsals as a laboratory for exploring, playing, questioning, embodying, and making decisions both spontaneously and consciously within the structure of a work. Dancers are encouraged to engage in these same processes whilst performing for an audience. The hope is that these processes aid the dancers in discovering more possibilities in movement and locate a greater meaning to the dances. The vision is that these in-performance processes produce a more visceral, thought-provoking, and emotionally stimulating experience for the viewers. Raina is always excited to see how the dancers’ choices inform and transform the work(s) and enjoys hearing the interpretations of all involved, whether dancer or witness.
Allie Pfeffer and Alyssa Noble
Alyssa Noble is a modern dancer and dance writer from Chicago, Illinois. While earning degrees in Dance and Journalism from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Alyssa worked as a freelance writer for Dance Teacher magazine and Dance Studio Life magazine. In 2011, Alyssa joined the Triangle dance community, and has since performed with VECTOR, RAD, Stephanie Woodbeck, and The Bipeds Dance Company, in addition to serving as a panelist/commissioned choreographer for Tobacco Road Dance Productions. This year, Alyssa deepened her involvement with local community organizing as a member of the DIDA team, and premiered an evening of collaborative choreography with Allie Pfeffer as part of the 2016-2017 DIDA season. Follow Alyssa on Instagram @Acho3 and on her website, www.alyssanobledance.com.
Allie Pfeffer is a North Carolina native who relocated to Durham in 2014 from New York City. She holds a BFA with Honors from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Allie was a founding member of RedCurrant Collective in NY, and her work has been presented at LaMaMa Moves Festival and at Gibney Dance Center, both in New York. She currently teaches at Ninth Street Dance and ADF’s Samuel Scripps Studios in Durham. Recently she’s been performing with Gerri Houlihan, Stephanie Woodbeck, and Renay Aumiller Dances (RAD). She recently premiered an evening of collaborative choreography with Alyssa Noble as part of the 2016-2017 DIDA season. Follow Allie on Instagram @jeanclaudevanbambamme.
Jess Shell
Jess Shell is a choreographer, performer, and teacher.. She discovered her love of modern dance in high school at The Carolina Friends School under the watchful eye of Annie Dwyer. Her training continued in college, where she graduated with a BA in Dance from Sarah Lawrence in 2001. She recently received her MFA in Choreography from UNCG. She has spent the last decade choreographing, performing, taking classes, practicing yoga, and expanding her knowledge of anatomy and physiology. In complement to her movement practice she became a licensed Massage and Bodywork Therapist in 2004, further strengthening her understanding of somatics and the experiential body.
Caitlin Swett
Originally from Black Mountain, NC, Caitlyn Swett has traveled around the state as a dance maker and arts administrator. She graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BA in Dance from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in December 2013. While in Charlotte she co-founded Triptych Collective, a grassroots arts collective, danced for several independent choreographers, co-produced multi-media events, and worked in arts administration and marketing. In recent years, Swett has worked in administrative capacities for Helen Simoneau Danse and was the Program Coordinator and a co-founder of On Site/In Sight: a downtown Winston-Salem dance festival. Presently, she works independently as well as creates interdisciplinary work with collaborators across North Carolina.
Ashley Walls White
Ashley founded AWW Performance Company in 2012 after 6 years of dancing for the North Carolina State University Dance Co. under the direction of Robin Harris. She created 6 original works at N.C. State, two of which were presented at American College Dance Festival MidAtlantic Conferences and selected for Regional Galas. Since then her works have been performed on local arts festivals and in independently produced concerts. Ashley has performed in choreographic works by Robin Harris, Claire Porter, Doug Varone, Renay Aumiller, and Jack Arnold, and has performed with Code f.a.d. Company. Ashley holds a B.S. and M.S in Mathematics and a B.S. in Philosophy from N.C. State, and is currently pursuing a PhD in Mathematics from N.C. State.