ARTISTIC CONSULTANTS
Our Team
Our Artistic Consultants are Springboard artists who have contributed to our programming through the many iterations of their flourishing careers as movers, makers, and facilitators.
ARTISTIC CONSULTANTS
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2018 Princess Grace Statue Award Recipient, 2017-18 Joyce Creative Residency Artist, 2016 Doris Duke Award Recipient and 2015 City Center Choreographer in Residence, KYLE ABRAHAM (he/him) is a 2013 MacArthur Fellow who began his dance training at the Civic Light Opera Academy and the Creative and Performing Arts High School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He continued his dance studies in New York, receiving a BFA from SUNY Purchase, an MFA from NYU Tisch School of the Arts, and an honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts from Washington Jefferson College. He has served as a visiting professor in residence at UCLA’s World Arts Cultures in Dance program from 2016 to 2021. And in 2021, he was named the Claude and Alfred Mann Endowed Professorship in Dance at The University of Southern California Glorya Kaufman School of Dance. Abraham currently sits on the advisory board for Dance Magazine and the artist advisory board for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. In 2020, he was selected to be Dance Magazine’s first-ever Guest Editor.
For more information visit, aimbykyleabraham.org/
Photo by Tatiana Wills
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Brooklyn-born dancer-choreographer, educator, and artist organizer, Alanna Morris began their dance career as a company member with TU Dance (St Paul, Minnesota) under artistic directors Toni Pierce-Sands and Uri Sands. From 2007-2017 they were featured in works by Kyle Abraham, Gioconda Barbuto, Camille A. Brown, Ronald K. Brown, Greggory Dolbashian, Katrin Hall, Francesca Harper, Dwight Rhoden, and Uri Sands. In 2020 they served as the company's Artistic Associate, offering administrative and artistic guidance to the company. For over 10 years Alanna spearheaded youth dance education at TU Dance, developing the current curriculum for the youth dance program for ages 5-9 years old.
In 2017 Alanna left TU Dance to further develop her creative voice. In 2018 they were named one of Dance Magazine's "25 to Watch!" In 2019, Minneapolis City Pages’ Artist of the Year and Best Choreographer for their solo, “Yam, Potatoe an Fish!” The project also made Minneapolis’ Star Tribune’s Best of Dance in 2018. Alanna is the recipient of fellowships from The McKnight Foundation in Dance (2015), Choreography (2021) and Springboard Danse Montréal (2022). In 2022, Alanna Morris’ Black Light a re:Search performance was named Best of 2022 by the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
For more information visit, https://iamartss.com/bio
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PETER CHU (he/him) is an award-winning multi-faceted movement artist, embodying roles from director, choreographer, stager, mentor, educator, and performer. His ongoing curiosity informs his voracious appetite for learning across contexts, and his compassion leads him to generously share his wide range of experiences and knowledge with others. Chu’s passion for the arts and entertainment drives his vivid imagination and creativity throughout his work.
As a biracial Asian American born in the Bronx and raised in Cocoa Beach, Peter often craved a deeper understanding of his Chinese identity. From a young age, his interest in Traditional Chinese Medicine was a gateway to that. Since then, his mere interest evolved into a deep fascination that influenced and continues to inform his values as a human and creator. In addition, being raised by his mother, a music therapist, profoundly influenced his rhythmic and musical approach to making. All these interests and experiences are central to Chu's healing approach to the creative process and how he guides and creates movement experiences and spaces.
Chu’s career spans over three decades across both concert and commercial dance industries, nationally and internationally, pre-professional to professional, and beyond. Some notable credits include performing with Ballet Jazz de Montreal, Crystal Pite’s Kidd Pivot, and Celine Dion’s A New Day, and choreographing for Ballet Augsburg, Cirque du Soleil, DART Dance Company, Gibney Dance Company, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Paul Taylor Dance Company, and more. Additionally, Chu finds great pride and belonging in his project-based company chuthis., where he feels free to explore the deepest parts of his identity and artistry as a director, choreographer, and educator, with his team.
Currently, Chu is based in Cocoa Beach, Florida, and travels frequently pursuing various freelance choreographic commissions and teaching experiences.
For more information visit, peterchuthis.net
Photo by Levi Walker
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2020 Guggenheim Fellow Shamel Pitts is a performance artist, choreographer, conceptual artist, dancer, spoken word artist, and teacher. Born in Brooklyn New York, Shamel began his dance training at LaGuardia High School for Music & Art and the Performing Arts and, simultaneously, at The Ailey School. He is 2003 YoungArts Finalist and a first prize (level 1) winner of the YoungArts competition. Shamel then went on to receive his BFA in Dance from The Juilliard School and was awarded the Martha Hill Award for excellence in dance. He began his dance career in Mikhail Baryshnikov’s Hell’s Kitchen Dance and BJM_Danse Montreal. Shamel danced with Batsheva Dance Company for 7 years, under the artistic direction of Ohad Naharin and is a certified teacher of Gaga movement language. Shamel has created a triptych of award winning multidisciplinary performance art works known as his “BLACK series” which has been performed and toured extensively to many festivals around the world since 2016. He is an adjunct at The Juilliard School and has been an artist in residence at Harvard University. Shamel is the choreographer of the play “Help” by acclaimed poet and playwright Claudia Rankine, directed by Taibi Magar, and commissioned at The Shed in New York. He is the recipient of a 2018 Princess Grace Award in Choreography, a 2019 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship Award winner in Choreography, and a 2020 Jacob’s Pillow artist in residence. Shamel is the artistic director/founder of TRIBE, a New York based multidisciplinary arts collective. TRIBE is a 92Y Harkness Dance Center’s Artist In Residence for the 2020-2021 season.
For more information, visit www.shamelpitts.com or www.itsatribe.org.
Photo by Scott Shaw
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Kate Hilliard creates through movement, digital media, written, and spoken word. Her performances look closely at narratives of loss and transformation. In an effort to understand her own relationship to the moment, she embodies states of being that are slow and attuned to an inevitable process of change. Hilliard’s desire to code in many areas of expression has led to a practice that is deeply collaborative and rooted in immersive discovery. Her work has been presented in The United State, Germany, Mexico, Australia, and Canada.
For more information, katehilliard.net/about.html
Photo by Sean Rees
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Ami Shulman is a movement artist - a rehearsal director, an artistic advisor, somatic practitioner, and an educator who likes to straddle the worlds between art and science.
Ami has choreographed for the National Theatre of London, UK; the Shakespeare Theatre Company, and has co-created works with the Cirque Du Soleil, assisting creations with the National Ballet of Canada; Ballet BC, and Grand Theatre Junction. Ami has been Artistic Director-on-tour for Compagnie Marie Chouinard, an Associate Choreographer to Maxine Doyle, and has staged works for Johannes Wieland. Ami has been a rehearsal director for several companies including the GöteborgsOperans Danskompani.
Ami has taught throughout Europe, Canada, and the USA including for Nederlands Dans Theater; Venice Biennale; the Juilliard School; Jacob’s Pillow; National Theatre School of Canada; BANFF Centre for the Arts; Staatstheater Kassel; Cedar Lake; Sleep No More; B12; CODARTS; Alvin Ailey School; Hollins University; Boston Conservatory; School of Toronto Dance Theatre; Munich DANCEPAT; Tanzfabrik; EDCMTL; Circuit-est; Concordia University; UCSD; Brown University and UQAM amongst others and she is an Artistic Associate of the Springboard Project Montreal/New York.
Ami has an invested interest in the healing arts, she is a Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner, trained in Hypnotherapy, and has studied Cranio Sacral therapy. She has presented her work at conferences internationally including Brain, Body, Cognition at Oxford University; the International Society for Gesture Studies at the Nouvelle Sorbonne University; Embodied Design in Interaction at the Utrecht University; Neurofrontiers 2021; FutureLife 2021; MACAS 2022; RITMO 2022 and Embodied Design Research Lab at UC Berkeley. Ami has co-written articles on embodied cognition and co-authored the anthology Back to the Dance Itself.
For more information visit, amishulman.com
Photo by Mats Backer
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Stephan Laks is a Canadian dance artist who works as a director, curator, and consultant for a wide range of dance organizations. He works as the Dance Manager of the Opera Ballet Vlaanderen (OBV), in collaboration with Jan Vandenhouwe (Artistic Director of OBV) and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui (Artistic Leader of Dance of OBV). Since 2020, Stephan has been part of the curating council for Dansens Hus (Sweden’s International Scene for Contemporary Dance) in Stockholm. He is a frequent collaborator with the choreographer and director Alan Lucien Øyen, working in a variety of roles with Øyen’s company Winter Guests and related projects.
Stephan worked as rehearsal director with the GoteborgsOperans Danskompani from 2010 – 2018, assisting and collaborating with many of the dance and theatre world’s leading contemporary artists, makers, and directors. He has also worked in a similar capacity with the Royal Swedish Ballet, Sasha Waltz & Guests, and the Staatsballett Berlin. He worked in collaboration with Emily Molnar at the Banff Centre as the program head of the Creative Gesture dance program from 2016 to 2018, developing professional development programs with invited artists including Fernando Melo, Alan Lucien Øyen, Michael Schumacher, Jermaine Spivey, and Ruth Little.
During his time as a student at the Juilliard School, Stephan was a participant in Springboard’s first two years of existence and was contracted as a dancer with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens from exposure through the program. Since 2011, he has participated as a Principal Company repetiteur and choreographer. He strongly believes in the mission, culture, and energy of Springboard, as well as its’ relevance to the dance world.
He lives with his family between Berlin and Belgium.
For more information visit, www.stephanlaks.com
Photo by Jubal Battisti