Choreographer Garrett Smith was born in Salt Lake City, Utah and began his formal training with the Utah Regional Ballet. In 2002, Garrett performed in the Winter Olympics Opening Ceremonies, and toured Austria in the Tanszsommer Festival. Garrett was later named a Presidential Scholar in the Arts where he was honored to meet George W. Bush at the White House and perform his choreography at The Kennedy Center.
Trained at the Brazilian Dance Conservatory in Rio de Janeiro, Juliano Nunes (b.1990) furthered his studies at the Mannheim University of Music and Performing Arts in Germany with a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts, joining Companies such as Royal Ballet of Flanders, Leipzig Opera Ballet, Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe and Stuttgart Gauthier Dance.
He has worked with choreographers such as William Forsythe, Christopher Wheeldon,Hans van Manen,Jirí Kylián,Ohad Naharin, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Yuri Grigorovich, Akram Kahn and among others.
He has gone on to receive critical acclaim for his own choreography and has created pieces for the Royal Ballet in London, Nederlands Dans Theatre 2, Acosta Danza, Atlanta Ballet, Mariinsky Theatre and a new Netflix series “ Tiny Pretty Things”.
photo credit: Nicha Rodboon
Yin Yue is a versatile performer and choreographer. Born and raised in Shanghai, China, she studied classical ballet technique, Chinese classical and folk dance at Shanghai Dance School, where she received rigorous training in all aspects of the technically demanding and highly structured Chinese dance. She continued her education at Shanghai Normal University and by the end of her university training she had appeared in many festivals and dance competitions throughout China. In 2005, she was ranked among the top ten performers in the National Dance Competition in Yunnan. Intent on further developing her artistic talents, Yin moved to New York City to pursue MFA in contemporary dance at New York University.
Peter Gregson is a composer and cellist ‘working at the forefront of the new music scene’ (The New Yorker). His latest album, Recomposed by Peter Gregson: Bach – The Cello Suites, was his first released on Deutsche Grammophon in October 2018. It is a contemporary reinterpretation of Bach’s six solo cello suites, performed by Gregson and an ensemble of five cellos and electronics. They have toured this work around the world to great acclaim, this season alone including multiple performances in the Netherlands, France, Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Lithuania, Czech Republic, China, Australia, United States of America, and the United Kingdom.
Photo: © York Christoph Riccius
Michel Banabila, born 1961, is a sound artist, composer, and producer. Banabila has produced musical scores for numerous films, documentaries, theatre plays and choreographies. Banabila’s work varies from minimal loop-based electronica, fourth world, and neo-classical pieces, to drones, experimental electronica and tribal ambient. In addition to acoustic instrumentation, Banabila uses electronics, field recordings, and snippets from radio, tv and internet. In 2003 he was the recipient of the Dutch Edison Jazz Award for his album VoizNoiz 3 with Eric Vloeimans. He performed live with media artist Geert Mul in venues like The Barbican (London) during the Logan Symposium 2014, Yukunkun (Beirut) with vocalist Anas Maghrebi during the Global Week For Syria 2015, and TENT (Rotterdam) during Sound Spectrums 2012. He performed live at the Hirshhorn Museum for an exhibition by Gerco de Ruijter (Washington DC, 2013) and in 2017 he toured with Maarten Vos 4 months The Netherlands with Home, a critically acclaimed dance performance by Conny Janssen Danst. In May 2018 the San Francisco Ballet used Banabila’s Jump Cuts (remixed) in Guernica, a ballet by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa. His work has been released internationally by labels like Bureau B (DE) and Séance Centre (CA).
Monica Guerra is a textile artist and designer with a background in Fashion Design. Her most recent work, Following premiered in September at Houston Ballet under choreographer/ dancer Oliver Halkowich. She is very excited to be collaborating with Garrett Smith once again. Their latest project, Resonance premiered in Oslo, Norway in April at Den Norske Ballet & Opera. Ms. Guerra and Mr. Smith have also been partnering on a project for Le Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montreal, to open in February 2020. Their previous works include Celestial for Mariinsky Ballet, Reveal for Houston Ballet, In Touch for the NYC Dance Alliance and Fading Figures for Tulsa Ballet. She has also collaborated with Ballet Austin’s director Stephen Mills. Their works include Fields, Kai, Belonging and Carbon 53. At the start of Ms. Guerra’s career, Stanton Welch commissioned her to co-design A Doll’s House for Houston Ballet. She later collaborated with Den Norske dancer and choreographer Melissa Hough in designing the provocative piece The Third Kind [is] Useless, also for Houston Ballet. Ms. Guerra has created hand-painted and specialty dyed fabrics for productions including The Rite of Spring, Romeo and Juliet, Giselle, The Nutcracker, and Marie. She has also created textiles for Houston Grand Opera’s The Ring Cycle’s: Die Walküre, Carmen, Peter Grimes, Zandra Rhodes’ Aida, and La Boheme.
Hogan McLaughlin is a Chicago-based fashion designer, illustrator, and former ballet dancer. He began his professional career with Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, where he performed works by choreographers including Ohad Naharin, Johan Inger, and Nacho Duato. He went on to dance several seasons for the Lyric Opera Ballet in Chicago before moving to New York City. There, he met and collaborated with artist Daphne Guinness, who saw his illustrations and had them made into garments for a fashion film. The pieces were later featured in the Guinness-curated windows at Barneys Madison Avenue, as well as in her wardrobe exhibition at the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology. McLaughlin launched his first fashion collection in 2011 and was met with profiles by The New York Times, Vogue.com, and WWD. Notable musicians and actors soon became patrons of his work, with Lady Gaga later commissioning custom pieces of his for her Born This Way tour. He currently shows his collections as a part of the lineup of New York Fashion Week. As an illustrator, McLaughlin has created promotional images for HBO’s Game of Thrones, Showtime’s Penny Dreadful, and History Channel’s Vikings.
Christine Darch designs and builds costumes and sets for choreographers Julia Adam, Jennifer Archibald,Val Caniparoli, Robert Dekkers, Jorma Elo, Nicolo Fonte, Jae Man Joo, Wubkje Kuindersma, James Kudelka, Gabrielle Lamb, Edwaard Liang, Stephen McMahon, Matthew Neenan, David Palmer, Gina Patterson, Brian Reeder, Amy Seiwert, Merián Soto and Septime Webre. Ms. Darch has been commissioned by Alvin Ailey, Arizona, Astana, Ballet West, Atlanta, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Colorado, Complexions, Hawaii, Houston, Imagery, Israel, Kansas City, Madco, Marin, Memphis, Milwaukee, Nice Méditerranée, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Post, Sacramento, San Francisco, Singapore, Smuin, Tulsa and Washington Ballets. She is the resident costume designer for Complexions Contemporary Ballet in New York City and lives in East Northport, NY with acclaimed classical American ballet composer Matthew Pierce. New projects include Matthew Neenan’s upcoming premiere for BalletX, Neenan’s new work for Parsons Dance, and Dwight Rhoden’s new work for Atlanta Ballet. This is her first collaboration with Ms. Yue.
Michael Mazzola’s critically acclaimed lighting and scenery has been seen in venues all over the U.S., Europe and Asia, ranging from opera houses to amphitheaters to circus tents to hay barns. The three time New York Dance and Performance Award winner has designed lighting and scenery for Oregon Ballet Theatre; Pacific Northwest Ballet; San Francisco Ballet, Whim W’Him of Seattle, Queensland Ballet, AU; National Ballet of Finland; Stuttgart Ballet; Grand Rapids Ballet; Ballet West; Ballet Nacional de Cuba; Ballet Hispanico; Trey McIntyre Project; The Washington Ballet; Royal Winnipeg Ballet; Houston Ballet; Rachel Tess Dance at the Wanås Foundation in Sweden, Baryshnikov Arts Center, NYC and LMCC’s River to River Festival; 3rd Rail Theater; Bebe Miller Company and the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange. For the National Young Arts Foundation Michael has designed scenery and lighting for their Miami Galas since 2015. For the 2015 through 2019 Presidential Scholars | Young Arts Awards at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall he has designed lighting, scenic and video content. Recently Mr Mazzola designed the world premiere of a full length ballet with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet by James Kudelka, then down south to Chicago for a new Giselle by the Joffery Ballet among many others. Upcoming works include designing the lighting for Annabelle Lopez-Ochoa’s evening length ballet Frida, two world premiere ballets for Garrett Smith – one with Philadelphia Ballet, the other with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal. Michael has been Senior Scenic Designer on Comedy Central Celebrity Roasts as well as the 2015 Lincoln Awards at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall for Uplight, Inc., based in NYC. His performance photography has been published in Liz Lerman’s book “Hiking the Horizontal”, as well on the websites and marketing materials for Bebe Miller Company; The Pew Center for The Arts & Heritage Online Text and Image Glossary; and Rachel Tess Dance.
