Valerie Preston-Dunlop
Internationally renowned author, teacher, lecturer, a dance scholar, and a mentor to many dancers and choreographers. A practical scholar, she received her initial training from Rudolf Laban, Lisa Ullman, Kurt Jooss and Albrecht Knust, later receiving a Laban Diploma, an MA in Movement Studies and a PhD in Choreography. After performing with the British Dance Theatre, she began to focus mainly on dance education, working in the UK and internationally at Keio and Kinki Universities, in Japan, and at the Bologna University, in Italy. Preston-Dunlop was also a senior lecturer at Dartford College and at the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance (currently Trinity Laban), a director of Beechmont Movement Study Centre, a member of the dance faculty at the Art of Movement Studio, a founding member of the Society for Dance Research, and currently, she is a consultant and Honorary Fellow at Trinity Laban where she pioneered the development of Choreological Studies.
Preston-Dunlop’s recent work has focused on Laban's dance theatre works where, with collaboration from dance and music artists at Trinity Laban London, she has directed several dance works from 1920s Laban's repertoire. Both through her writing, lectures and performances, she has established Choreological Studies as a key discipline for the integrated practical / theoretical study of dance as a theater art.
Her books on dance practice and on Rudolf Laban are key texts in Performing Arts departments in the UK and abroad. They include, Rudolf Laban: An Extraordinary Life (winner of the Dance Perspectives book of the year 1999), Looking at Dances: A Choreological Perspective on Choreography and Dance and The Performative: a Choreological Perspective written with Ana Sanchez-Colberg (2002).
Frederick Curry
Associate Professor of Professional Practice in the Dance Department at Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University. At Mason Gross, he has served as Interim Chair of Dance, Director of the EdM Program in Dance Education, and is Director of the Polestar Pilates Teacher Training Program. An expert in dance pedagogy, Laban/Bartenieff studies and somatics, Frederick has led workshops and presented at conferences internationally including in Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, South Korea, Switzerland, Uganda, the United Kingdom, and throughout the United States. He is on faculty at the Dance Education Laboratory at the 92nd Street Y and is Assistant Editor for Dance Education in Practice journal, published by Taylor & Francis. Frederick served on the Board of Directors of the National Dance Education Organization (NDEO) and was a founding member of the NDEO Inclusion, Diversity, Equity & Access Committee. He coordinated the Modular certification program at the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies, is a Polestar Pilates Educator, and National Pilates Certification Program Commissioner.
Emily Berry
Founding Director of B3W Performance Group. Founded in 2006, B3W Performance Group (B3W) is a social impact arts organization committed to collaboration, reflecting and revealing the world we live in through community-building workshops and multi-disciplinary performances. The company co-creates devised intermediate performances. The recipient of multiple grants and commissions, some highlights include, the Mondo Cane Commission at Dixon Place for Confined (2010) and The Forgiveness Project, influenced by a world tour of Community Forgiveness Workshops, Part I: Forgiving the Personal, premiered at Tribeca Performing Arts Center May 2016. The company premiered Forgiveness Part II: Reframing Forgiveness: For Practical Use in Dismantling Systemic Racism, in February 2020. B3W is currently working on a new work, Forgiveness: Letting Joy Reside, which will premiere at Green Space in Long Island City in June 2022. Emily is currently performing with danceTactics Performance Group/Keith A. Thompson. Emily is the dance coordinator for the dance program at Queensborough Community College where she is also an associate professor.
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Ciane Fernandes
Tenured professor at School of Theater at Federal University of Bahia (UFBA), Salvador-BA Brazil; she is one of the founders of UFBA’s Performing Arts Graduate Program; also professor at UFBA’s Graduate Program in Dance. She holds a M.A. and a Ph.D. in art and humanities for performing artists from New York University (1995), a post-doctorate degree in contemporary culture and communications from Federal University of Bahia (2010) and a Certificate of Movement Analysis from the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies (1994), where she is an associate researcher. She is the author of several publications, performative lectures and immersions in Brazil and abroad, also with members of the A-FETO Dance Theater Collective, which she founded and directs since 1997. Since 2008, she has focused on Somatics and Laban/Bartenieff Movement Studies applied to Artistic Practice as Research, in the context of performance in the expanded field, especially ecoperformances in aquatic environments, in dialogue with diversity and disability. In this thematic field, she developed the Somatic-Performative Approach and the Merger as Research.
Marcus Vinícius Machado
Professor of the Department Art’s of the Body, School of Physical Education and Sports (dance degrees) at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). He graduated in Philosophy at UFRJ (2010), in Dance at the Centro Universitário da Cidade (2004), in Composition - Brazilian Conservatory of Music (2009), and in Occupational Therapy at the Program of Rehabilitation of Asce (1991). Master in Visual Arts - UFRJ (1997), PhD in Physical Education - Unicamp (2006) and post-doctoral internship in Psychology from UFF. Specialist in Laban/Bartenieff System from Angel Vianna Dance College. Certified Movement Analyst (CMA) by the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies (LIMS) and certificated in Labanotation by the Dance Notation Bureau. He participated in the processes for the Creation of Degree programs in Dance, Dance Theory, Occupational Therapy, and Music Therapy of UFRJ.
Marisa Naspolini
Actress, journalist, researcher and cultural producer. She has a BA in Social Communication, is a Certified Movement Analyst (Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies in New York), has a master and a doctorate degree in theater (UDESC) with a sandwich internship at Università di Roma 3. She did postdoctoral studies in Social Anthropology (UFSC) with research in Education, Gender and Performance. She studied theater in France and Italy and as an actress, director and/or body trainer, she has performed in more than 30 shows in Brazil and abroad. She was a professor of Body Techniques at the Department of Performing Arts at CEART/UDESC for eight years and was a collaborating researcher-teacher at Prof Artes Master's Program in Arts, at CEART/UDESC, teaching and supervising dissertations regarding somatic education, Labananaysis and creation in performance. She also worked as an artist-researcher at Baobah, an institution dedicated to the development of new forms of intelligence, integrating knowledge from psychology, art and neurosciences Founded and coordinated in Florianópolis, together with a group of artists, Vértice Brasil – an international meeting and festival of women in the contemporary scene, connected to the Magdalena Project. She has an intense presence in the network, participating at events in several countries. She is the author of the books “Confessions of the body: scenic composition and poetic dialogue with the literature of Ana Cristina Cesar”, which proposes a practical-theoretical reflection on the Laban System and Theater Anthropology (Editora UDESC), “We are all part of the same cabbage”, compilation of articles published over three years in the Contexto column in the newspaper Diário Catarinense (Editora Letras Contemporâneas) and “Moving borders: modes of creation and organization in the Magdalena Project” (Editora Dialetica). She was awarded the ACLA (Academia Catarinense de Letras e Artes) Award Personality in the Performing Arts 2015. She has several articles and translations published in national and international magazines. .She currently directs Experimento Intercâmbio Cultural, specialized in international education, and is an analyst at Human Code, an organization dedicated to the study of human development, with focus in selfknowledge.
