Presenting Original & World Dance in wild and tame places
JUDY BEJARANO Artistic Director IMPACT Dance Company
BIO
Artistic Director, JUDY BEJARANO, is an award-winning choreographer who founded IMPACT Dance, an innovative, contemporary dance/theatre company. Her choreography has been commissioned and performed throughout Colorado and the region and has been described as “...existing in the poignant space where comedy and tragedy intersect.”
She believes that the arts are an essential means of sharing stories, building community, and provide a platform for us to be agents of change. She creates work that can be rending, quirky, and oddly humorous.
Her work has been presented in Aspen, Vail, Boulder, Denver, Fort Collins, as well as in Alaska, New York, Texas, and Wyoming and she is a recent recipient of the "Legends of Dance Colorado" award.
ADC is inspired by Colorado choreographer Judy Bejarano and her dancers who are true to their own authentic talents and expression. She has collaborated with her dancers, exceptional musicians, film makers, photographers, lighting, and costume designers to create this exceptional dance event.
John MR TAP Williams a Day of TAP April 9, 2022
BIO
John “Mr. Tap” Williams grew up in Harlem, New York where he created the “Original Tap Barre” Harlem Mix Tap Dance Style.
You may have seen him performed as Master of Ceremonies, storyteller and tap dancer extraordinaire in the Aspen Dance Connection’s SHOES July 2021.
He Judges dance completions for SHOWSTOPPERS and APPLAUSE TALENT, appeared in films, television, commercials, and theatre productions.
He holds a BFA Degree in Education/Musical Theater. Singer, Dancer, Actor, Musical Theater performer. He has appeared in dance, film, television, commercials, and theatre productions. He performed The Wiz, “In the House of Blues” at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. and in a Denver PBS Special with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra & Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble. John has also danced with, Colorado Ballet, Movement Free Dance Company, Eulipions Theater Company, Morton Gould Tap Dance Concerto, and the Denver Brass & Hot Tomatoes Dance Orchestra. He has appeared on the Animal Planet Television Series and performed with the Carnival Cruise Magic Legends Show.
John was featured in the magazine In the Black as Denver’s own Mr. Tap Dance. He is a member of the International Association of Blacks In Dance and taught a Tap Master Class Series for them. Mr. Tap received his Lifetime Achievement Award from the DU Dance Archive in 2020.
He currently teaches Tap Dance at Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Studio and Colorado Ballet Academy, Denver, CO.
EXPRESSIVE JOURNEY CHOREOGRAPHERS
APRIL 24, 2022
CHOREOGRAPHERS BIOS FOR EXPRESSIVE JOURNEYS
Amy Anderson, choreographer, director of ENGAGE MOVEMENT ARTS, Denver, and choreographed on dancers from Colorado Ballet and Wonderbound for ORDINARY LIFE taken from SHOES. She and her husband Gregory Gonzales have performed for the Aspen Dance Connections’ School Assemblies, Libraries, NU-TOPIA at the Wheeler Opera House, and for Dance Initiative. She has a bachelor’s degree, trained at San Francisco Ballet, the Joffrey Ballet and performed with Pacific Northwest Ballet, as a soloist with Colorado Ballet, a principal dancer with David Taylor Dance Theatre, Colorado Repertory Dance Company, the Jan Justis Dance Company, directed the David Taylor Ballet School, and teaches and performs Argentine Tango. Alya Howe born in the UK, has danced with the Jose Limon Dance Company, Kei Takei, Danceteller and Zakir Hussein. She taught at the State Ballet School in Athens Greece, the Laban Institute, and the Lincoln Center Institute, both in NYC. She moved to the RFV and founded Under Alya’s Umbrella, which produced The Poetry Market and The Salon Series. Alya’s work has been featured with the Aspen Dance Connection, Dance Initiative, RESPONSE, 5 Point Film Festival, Thunder River Theatre, Wilderness Workshop, CORE, Carbondale Arts, Lead with Love and ACES. Alya was a featured artist in the Women’s Voices Project.
Kim Olson /SWEETEDGE BFA cum laude from the Ohio State University. In New York City she trained in release techniques and performed with Randy Warshaw Dance Company, Pam Tanowitz Open 24 Hours, Donna Uchizono Company and toured internationally with the Stephen Petronio Company. Now living in Colorado, she performed for ADC, collabo-rates with many disciplines and her works have been created for theatre, film, dance for camera, festivals, and site-specific installations. She has been honored with CATV’s Best Ex-perimental Video Media Award in collaboration with Ana Baer Carrillo, and has been awarded Best Choreographer at the Monaco Dance Forum Nijinsky Awards. The company has performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and twice at international tanzmesse nrw Dusseldorf, Germany.
Fran Page, MFA from NYU-TISCH, Artistic/Executive Director of the Aspen Dance Connection (ADC), performed in New York City with Marilyn Wood and the Celebrations Group and the Central Notion Company, and was an Environmental Choreographer at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Fran choreographed for the stage, outdoor site-specific performances, and taught Special Needs students who perform for the Special Olympics. She teaches INTEGRATIVE MOTION synthesizing somatic body work: Alexander and Feldenkrais techniques, Kinetic Awareness, Edu-K, with traditional Yoga; gently realigns the body and balances the emotions through conscious movement and breathing. She received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Colorado Dance Alliance and the Colorado Legends of Dance, DU Dance Archives.
VIDEOGRAPHER BIOS
Yasukuni Christopher Tribble, BA from California State University and freelanced for ABC, CBS, NBC, including filming the X-Games in Aspen. His company Versatile Productions has filmed many ADC showcases, compiled all the videos for EXPRESSIVE JOURNEYS and is creating a digital archive for ADC from video tapes from 1981 to present. Chris created True Media Foundation to educate and mentor youth and supports young filmmakers’ efforts to produce Media with Positive Social Impact. He produced 2 new TV series for Rocky Mountain PBS (RMPBS). The six-part series of BE HEARD! America’s Youth Forum was broadcast on thirty PBS stations nation-wide. Tribble has received over twenty TELLY Awards and Glenwood Springs Chamber’s Volunteer of the Year.
Ana Baer Carrillo, works with Kim Olson, is a Mexican video-choreographer living in the US. She holds an MFA from CU Boulder and is a Professor of Dance at Texas State University. She taught and had her work commissioned in Mexico, Germany, UK, and France and received many awards. She is a founding member of Avant Media and Merge Dance Company and is the Artistic Director of Sans Souci Festival of Dance Cinema. Ana co-founded the Intercontinental cross-disciplinary group WECreate Productions with Artist Heike Salzer to expand her explorations in the site-specific screendance genre.
Krysia Carter-Giez, works with choreographer Alya Howe, is an Emmy award winning filmmaker from the UK, has worked as a documentary editor for BBC and independent film companies in England, and worked for Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, PBS, and National Geographic. She works for Huts For Vets and English In Action, and her work has been shown at Cannes and numerous film festivals worldwide. She was awarded Best Editing of a Documentary Short at the 2021 Barcelona International Film Festival.
FRAGILITY choreographed by Kim Olson and dancing with Patrick Mueller