meet the 2024 adjudicators
Marisa Bianan
Marisa Bianan obtained her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Western Michigan University in April 2018. Through her studies, Marisa had the privilege to work with choreographers including Jeremy Blair, Monique Haley, Carolyn Pavlik, and Brendan Duggan. Since graduating, Marisa has presented various choreographic works in the Midwest including at the 2019 Midwest RADFest and Inaside’s Summer 2022 in-person/virtual hybrid concert. Recent accolades include becoming a finalist for the 2021 Maggie Allesee Choreography Competition, being commissioned to create a new work for Western Michigan University’s First Year Performance class, which premiered in February 2022, and being accepted into the 2023 Detroit Dance City Festival Choreographer’s Showcase. Marisa stepped into the role of Associate Artistic Director with Wellspring/Cori Terry & Dancers in 2021. 2023-2024 will be Marisa’s sixth season with WSCTD.
LI CHIAO-PING
Li Chiao-Ping, Artistic Director of Li Chiao-Ping Dance, was named by Dance Magazine as one of the “25 to watch”. Ms. Li was on faculty at Mills College, the Director of the Hollins College Dance Program, and the former Chair of the UW-Madison Dance Dept. She formed Li Chiao-Ping Dance in 1990 and co-directed the SF-based Dziga Vertov Performance Group with Douglas Rosenberg from 1992-94. She has had the pleasure of dancing original solos created for her by Cynthia Adams, Mark Dendy, David Dorfman, Molissa Fenley, Joe Goode, Heidi Latsky, Victoria Marks, Bebe Miller, Daniel Nagrin, Sally Silvers, Gus Solomons jr., Elizabeth Streb, June Watanabe, and Mel Wong. Collaborations with visual artist/director Douglas Rosenberg include several dance films which have aired on public television and screened around the world. She is the subject of two documentaries, including “Seven Solos: A Documentary”, directed by Douglas Rosenberg, which was made about her “Women Dancing” solo project and was selected for the Dance On Camera Festival held at Lincoln Center on January 29, 2012 in New York; it was also screened in the 2012 Wisconsin Film Festival. A recipient of numerous awards, grants and honors, including several grants from the NEA and awards from the Asian Pacific Women’s Network, National Arts Association, and the Los Angeles Arts Council first prize awards for performance and choreography, Li has also received choreographic distinctions from the Wisconsin Arts Board, Wisconsin Dance Council, Scripps/ADF Humphrey-Weidman-Limon, and honored to be the American representative in ADF’s International Choreographer’s Program. She recently received the Bartell Award in the Arts, recognizing her dedication to reaching beyond the campus and into the greater community with her work, as well as a 2015 School of Education Faculty Distinguished Achievement Award, for her contributions to the UW-Madison School of Education. She was recently awarded a Vilas Research Professorship, one of the highest honors bestowed by the university and one of the first artists to ever receive one.
Socials:
Website: https://www.lcpdance.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lcpdance
Instagram: @lcpdance
rachel miller
Rachel Miller recently retired from performing with Wellspring/Cori Terry & Dancers, a professional modern/contemporary company in Kalamazoo, MI, after a 17-year performance career in the company. She has curated the internationally recognized Midwest Regional Alternative Dance Festival (RAD Fest) for 13 years. Miller is the C.E.O. of Happendance in Lansing, MI, is on faculty at Grand Valley State University, and is the Co-Chair of the Dance Department at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp. Miller attended The Ohio State University as a Dance Major, holds a BA in Creative Writing through Western Michigan University, and an MFA in Dance through Hollins University in partnership with the former Forsythe Company of Frankfurt, Germany. She has performed all over the country, and her choreographic and screendance works have been presented in the Midwest RAD Fest in Kalamazoo, Detroit Dance City Festival in Detroit, Big River Dance Festival in Huntington, South Bend, Las Vegas, New Orleans, New York, Fringe Festival Praha (Prague), Indianapolis, and she has had a piece of choreography commissioned as a work of study for the Lincoln Center Institute for Aesthetic Education Kalamazoo Chapter. Miller is a 2005 recipient of the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation Emerging Artist Grant and a 2010 recipient of the Kalamazoo Artist Development Initiative Grant. She has also sat on the adjudication panels for the Motor City Dance on Film Festival, Screen. Dance. Now., Screendance International, the Maggie Allesee New Choreography Award, and JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Festival in South Africa.
ALICE SVETIC
Alice Svetic (they/she), dancer+choreographer+educator, is an adjunct professor at Hollins University where they teach ballet and contemporary dance practices. Originally from Milwaukee, WI, Alice graduated with distinction from the University of Wisconsin- Madison with a BFA in Dance and from Hollins University with a Master of Fine Arts in Dance. Their current interests lie in contemporary dance performance, dance making, and radical dance pedagogy. Their research centers around critical feminist and queer dance teaching perspectives, viewership politics, and the performative body. Alice has spent meaningful time at the B12 Festival in Berlin, San Francisco Conservatory of Dance, with Andrea Miller’s GALLIM, and under the mentorship of Alex Ketley and David Maurice in The HAVEN’s 2021 choreographic mentorship program. They have danced in the works of Alex Ketley, Banning Bouldin, Anton Lachky, Sean Curran, The Seldoms, and Katy Pyle, among many others. Alice’s choreographic works have been featured at Midwest RAD Fest 2021 and 2023, DanceWorks Chicago’s DanceChance 2021, and SALT Contemporary Dance’s 2020 SHAPE choreography festival, where their solo Lullaby was awarded first place. Alice premiered their first evening length solo performance, Departure Dances, in May of 2021 at the Backspace Gallery in Madison, WI.
nekeshia Wall
Nekeshia Wall, of Greensboro, NC, graduated from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro with a Bachelor of Arts in Dance and African American Studies. In 2016, Wall completed her Masters of Fine Arts in Choreography at Hollins University in collaboration with Kunstlerhavs Mousontvrm and The Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts, with support from The Dresden Frankfort Dance Company. She recently joined the UNC Greensboro, NC Central University, and Winston Salem State University’s dance departments as an adjunct teaching traditional West African dance, Movement Training for actors, and Introduction to Dance. Wall is also the founder of Matriarch Dance Co. which exists to empower women of all ages to discover their strength and purpose through dance training, performance, and positive mentorship (www.matriarchdanceco.com)