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.
Garrett studied at the Houston Ballet Academy where he created five works for Houston Ballet II’s repertoire, which were taken on tours through the United States, China, Toronto, and Hungary. Garrett joined Houston Ballet and danced works by Stanton Welch, Jorma Elo, Nicolo Fonte, and Christopher Bruce. Garrett choreographed his first work on the company as an apprentice, through an award presented to him by Peter Martins from the New York Choreographic Institute Fellowship. Garrett was later commissioned by Houston Ballet to create a new work in the 2013 season’s mixed bill. Garrett was accepted as a member of the Norwegian National Ballet, where he had the great pleasure to work personally with choreographers Jiři Kylían, Nacho Duato, Alexander Ekman, and danced in other works by William Forsythe. Garrett has since been commissioned by Norwegian National Ballet, Ballet West, and Milwaukee Ballet to create new works. Garrett was a selected choreographer to choreograph a new work for the National Choreographers Initiative 2014. Garrett was recently accepted as a finalist for the Milwaukee Ballet’s Genesis International Choreographic Competition, where his new creation Mortal Form took 1st place. New York City Ballet has selected Garrett to create on the company for the 2015 New York Choreographic Institute Fellowship.
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.
After graduating with a MFA in dance from NYU’s Tisch School of The Arts in 2008, Yin Yue quickly started to gain attention as a highly original choreographer and performer among her peers. Yin created an innovative contemporary dance technique- FoCo (FolkContemporary) Technique that soon gained the attention of the dance world. The movement style of YYDC FoCo consists of five elements: earth, wood, water, metal and fire. Each element contributes to the quality of moving and its designated body parts. The technique trains dancers to create a grounded, circular, fluid and dynamic performance that is rhythmic and powerful, yet sensual and graceful. The main themes of Yin’s work are emotional experience, contrasted movement dynamic and strong physicality in all their complexity.
In 2016, Yin Yue received first place in Choreography in Shanghai Professional Dance Competition. She is also winner of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago International Commissioning Project 2015 and winner of 2015 BalletX Choreographic Fellowship and winner of Northwest Dance Project 5th Annual Pretty Creatives International Choreographic Comeptition 2013 and received commissions from all three companies. She was slected as Emerging Choreographer of 2015 Springboard Danse Montreal, finalist at The A.W.A.R.D Show 2010! presented by New York The Joyce Theater Foundation.
In March, 2016, the company took 90 min dance program toured to Aachen, Germany as part of schrit_tmacher Just Dance Festival.
Her work has been recognized by organizations and festivals such as Jacob’s Pillow Dance Inside Out Festival, New York International Fringe Festival, DanceNOW[NYC] at Joe’s Pub, Peridance Capezio Theater, New York Live Arts, Dixon Place, La MaMa Moves International Festival and many more.
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.
His debut solo album, Terminal (2010), was commissioned by Bowers & Wilkins and led to his first ballet commission, Hubert Essakow’s FLOW at The Print Room, London. Other albums include an EP of solo cello works written for him by Max Richter and Jóhann Jóhannsson, Lights in the Sky (2014), composed for cello, piano, and analogue synthesisers, TOUCH (2015), and Quartets: One and Quartets: Two (both 2017). He also appears on Ed Sheeran’s record breaking album Divide as both solo cellist and conductor of the orchestra.
The soundtrack to his first feature film, A Little Chaos, directed by Alan Rickman was nominated for the Public Choice award at the World Soundtrack Awards 2015, and his score to Roger Michell’s recent Blackbird, starring Susan Sarandon and Kate Winslet, premiered at TIFF 2019.
Gregson is currently completing a new commission from Theatrehaus Stuttgart and Gauthier Dance Company which premieres June 2020.
Photo: © York Christoph Riccius
Italian composer, conductor, pianist and double bass player Ezio Bosso made his Royal Ballet debut in 2016 with the Company’s performances of Christopher Wheeldon’s Within the Golden Hour, created for San Francisco Ballet with an original score by Bosso.
Bosso was born in Turin and began studying music aged four. He made his professional debut aged 16 and performed as a soloist and conductor with such orchestras as the Vienna Chamber Orchestra and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. He went on to study composition and conducting at the Vienna Academy, and later conducted at venues including Carnegie Hall, Palacio de las Bellas Artes, Mexico City, BOZAR, Brussels, Teatro Regio di Torino, Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra and the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. He composed his first music for film in 1989 and has since worked extensively in cinema, credits including Un amore and Io non ho paura, and in theatre with directors including James Thiérrée. In dance, he regularly composes for Rafael Bonachela and for companies including BalletBoyz, Scottish Dance Theatre, Sydney Dance Company, San Francisco Ballet, Harlem Ballet and Bonachela Dance Company.
Bosso’s other compositions include four operas, four symphonies, concertos and various quartets, piano trios and sonatas, working as both composer and conductor with such soloists as Mario Brunello and Sergei Krylov. His recordings include ‘The 12th Room’, a collection of solo piano works performed by Bosso, including his First Piano Sonata.
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.
