2006 ARCHIVE
THANKS PERFORMANCES BIOS CONTACTS AWARDS VIDEO
Patricia Astorga
Sabor Mexico
Ms. Astorga began
her intense folklorico dance training at the Escuela de Ballet Folklorico
in Bellas Artes under the direction of
Amalia Hernandez
at the age of 7. She studied under Folklorico masters Rafael Zamarripa
Castaneda and La Escuela de Danza Mizoc for five consecutive summers. An
accomplished dancer in her own right, Ms. Astorga has performed with a
variety of dance companies throughout Los Angeles. She has studied
classical ballet, tap, modern dance as well as theatrical Mexican
Folklorico and Flamenco. She is continuing her dance training in Flamenco
by traveling to Spain to study with masters such as Antonio Granjero,
Juana Amaya
and
Alicia Marquez.
One of the founding members of
Pacifico Dance Company,
Ms. Astorga recently performed at the Grand Opening of the Disney Concert
Hall
Cerritos Performing
Arts Center (Cerritos, Ca.). Ms. Astorga
brings to Houston her passion for dance in the formation of her new
company, Sabor
Mexico,
and teaches at The Brazilian Arts Foundation.
Robin
Rettig Carlson
Dance Force Productions
Robin
has been in the entertainment industry for over 20 years. She has danced
with the University of Houston Cougar Dolls, the Glen Hunsucker Dance
Company, Houston City Dancers, Yo Breaux Productions, and was a lead
Dancer and Director of Operations for Planet Funk. She has appeared in
numerous television specials, and has been seen in commercials for Miller
Outdoor Theatre, Garden Ridge Pottery, and the WB Network.
Gary
Connor & Philip Le
WyldStyL
Gary Connor and Philip Le love what they
do. Their shared dream of starting their own company was born in 2002
with the creation of WyldStyL. Gary, 31, got his start in theater, but
soon found his niche as one of Houston's most sought after, talented, and
respected dancer/choreographers. Over the past few years, Gary's
choreography has been brought to the world stage as 3 of his teams
represented Texas
in the Hip Hop International competition in L.A. Phillip Le, 24, began
his dance education in elementary school, but never accepted it as his
passion until college. In the following years, Phillip studied classical
ballet, modern, and street jazz; however, his first love will always be
hip hop. Recently, Phillip took that love to the next level with the
opening of Revolutions Performing Arts Center, founded in the spring of
2006, where he serves as Executive Director-in-Chief.
Randall
Flinn
Ad Deum Dance Company
RANDALL
FLINN is the founder/artistic director of Ad Deum Dance Company, a
professional Christian based contemporary dance company in Houston, which
includes an apprentice and trainee program that has drawn dancers to
Houston from all across the world. Mr. Flinn began his own dance training
in Houston over twenty five years ago with Glen Hunsucker, Camille Long
Hill, Dina Vail and Patsy Swayze. His most recent modern dance influences
have come from studies with The Limon Company and Steve Rooks, former
principal dancer with Martha Graham. He has taught and choreographed
locally as a guest artist for Houston Ballet Academy, HSPVA, Episcopal
High School, Houston Met Dance Company, Joan Karff Dance Company, and
North Harris Performing Arts-Revolve Dance Company, and was selected as a
guest choreographer for Dance Salad 1999 and Texas Weekend of Contemporary
Dance 2004. Nationally he has served as guest faculty and choreographer
for Cirque Du Soleil’s Alegria,
Ballet Magnificat, Belhaven College, Friends University-adjunct professor
of dance, Project Dance NYC and Los Angeles, and Dance Revolution
Conventions. Having lived throughout Europe and Asia for ten years, Mr.
Flinn has also been a guest artist for Hong Kong Ballet, City
Contemporary-Hong Kong, Guanzhou Modern Dance Company–China, Xaris Danz
Europe; Dance Connection Singapore, and Youth With a Mission International
Schools of the Arts.
Harrison
Guy
Urban Souls Dance Company
Harrison Guy, a native of La
Marque, began his dance training at Ruth Elgin Studios in La Marque, Texas
and continued his studies at Prairie View A&M University under the
artistic direction of Kenneth Epting and Paula Williams. He received full
scholarships to study at Energy Source Dance in Murfreesboro, TN and
Houston Metropolitan Dance Center. He later studied at various
institutions including The Alvin Ailey School in New York and The Dallas
Black Dance Theatre. He has had the privilege of working with a host of
teachers and choreographers; among them are Troy Powell, Kirby Reed,
Milton Myers, Earl Mosley, Tracy Inman, Toni Pierce, Chuck Davis, and
Cornelius Carter. Harry has performed with Classic Dance Ensemble in a
variety of lead roles. He has also performed with Dorrell Martin's Dance
Fusion, The Ailey School's summer sizzler, and is a former member of
Exclamation Dance Company.
Richard
Hubscher
Easy Credit Theater
Richard Hubscher
danced with Houston Ballet for 19 years under the direction of Ben
Stevenson. Richard has worked with world renowned choreographers and
dancers, such as George Balanchine, Kenneth Macmillan, Glen Tetley, Margot
Sappington, Margot Fonteyn, Christopher Bruce, Eric Brun, David Howard,
Stanton Welch, Marie Hale, Trey Mcintyre, and Paul Taylor. Since leaving
Houston Ballet a decade ago, Richard has been the primary spearholder for
movement that is Easy Credit Theater. Richard has enjoyed, used, and taken
advantage of local artists to share, cheat and steal from in order to
fulfill a higher calling he likes to call post-nuclear, revolutionary
exploration. For Richard, the theater is all about mystery, romance,
seduction, repulsion, tragedy, and moments of ecstasy, illumination, and
death (but, of course, only through the living theater). Richard considers
himself an artist, first and foremost, dance being merely one of the media
of expression at his disposal. He has created video work, visual art,
musical soundscapes, sculpture, and if he was literate, he would probably
create the great American Novel. Richard’s varied interests in artistic
expression enable him to cross-pollinate in different media so that no one
medium is independent of another. Many of Richard’s works act as hybrids
between a happening and a preconceived and rehearsed set piece. Richard
has enjoyed the past two projects with Dance Houston, and finds Dance
Houston to be uniquely qualified to sponsor the high brow, artistic
expression that is Richard Hubscher.
Walter
Hull
Urban Souls Dance Company
Walter Hull
began his arts training with The Children’s Theatre Company located in
Lake Charles, La. He later attended Northwestern State University where
his concentration was Shakespeare acting. Walter furthered his dance and
theatre training at UL- Lafayette where a number of his choreographic
works have been highlighted at the University. Through his arts
administration experience with the Performing Arts Society of Acadiana (PASA)
Walter created a partnership with the City of Lafayette and PASA entitled
The Performing Arts Conservatory of Lafayette, a training facility for
at-risk youth. Some of his performance credits includes Othello, Macbeth,
West Side Story, Lysistrata, Laughing Wild, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone,
and Beyond Therapy.
Barbara
King
Barbara King’s Dance Company
Barbara is the proud
owner and artistic director of King's Dancing Centre, Houston's new,
state-of-the-art studio with some of the hottest dance and movement
classes in town. For the last 20 years, Barbara has dedicated her work to
ballet, tap, jazz, International Latin, International Standard, and
American-style ballroom dancing. Her extensive background, expertise in
the ballroom area, and thorough knowledge in the performing arts have
provided a firm foundation for a multitude of business ventures and
successes.
Ms. King is noted as
an outstanding personality in the ballroom dancing industry for her
superior work ethic-namely, her drive in developing motor skills,
self-esteem, and social skills in children through both social and
competitive dancing. Her primary focus is to instill core values in
today's youth.
Having traveled throughout the world, Ms.
King has coached and mentored her two sons and their partners in their
competitive careers. She has also had the privilege of judging
competitions in England
during her travels. Ms. King, her two sons and daughter hold numerous
championship titles in the International Latin and Standard Divisions as
well as American Rhythm and Smooth.
Ms. King's most recent
endeavor is working with the music and entertainment industry grooming
young vocal and dance performance groups. She is currently very active
with training and promoting King's Dancing Centre's amateur couples to
compete and to participate in the Barbara King Dance Company, enabling
them not only to do shows but also to travel to Europe to compete in World
Competition.
Amy Llanes
Rednerrus Feil Dance Company
Amy E. Llanes,
Artistic Director of Rednerrus Feil Dance Company, began her modern dance
career in 2002 at Sam Houston State University, where she is working
toward her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance. She has studied with Dana
Nicolay, Dr. Cindy Gratz, and Kista Tucker. Amy was a member of the SHSU
Dance Company where she trained with Melissa Wynn. In 2003, she received
the Chi Tau Epsilon Dance Honor Society’s Scholarship for outstanding
choreography. She made her directorial debut in 2004 with her production
of Story of Wings. The same year she was named Sam Houston State
University’s Outstanding Choreographer of the Year. Since then, she has
been teaching at Cypress Academy of Performing Arts and continuing her
choreographic studies, including Collision, a collaborative project to
raise funds for arts education.
Moon
Marvelous Motion
Moon started to dance
in 1997. In 1999 and 2001, Moon won 1st place in both Shanghai and
Beijing’s hip-hop competitions. When Beijing started the biggest hip-hop
company in all of China; Moon was its manager. He moved to America in 2004
and, 2 years later, he started his own hip-hop company, Marvelous Motion.
Sonia
Noriega
Psophonia Dance
Company
Sonia Noriega is the Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Psophonia Dance
Company.
Ms. Noriega has received honors and recognition for her work including an
Emerging Artist Fellowship Award in 2004 from the Cultural Arts Council of
Houston, L.A. DANCEFORCE Choreography Award, and two fellowships from the
American Dance Festival at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. Her
choreography has been presented with the JCC's Choreographer's X 6, Dallas
Black Dance Theatre, Houston Metropolitan Dance Company and she has
performed with the Houston Grand Opera, Travesty Dance Group, Hope Stone,
Houston Metropolitan Dance Company, and Bessie Award winning New York
choreographer Stephan Koplowitz.
This fall, her company will present ‘Unplugged’ at Talento Bilingüe de
Houston.
Amber
Thornton
Shawn Welling’s Planet
Funk
Amber was featured in the 1988 Sammy
Awards with Jaime Rogers and Ben Vereen and has appeared as a guest artist
for various companies throughout the nation. She has appeared in local
commercials and has done promotional work for Macy’s, Capezio, and
Matuszewski fashion productions, starred in the promotional film, Bonhomme,
with Zircon pictures and is happy to have been a part of Shawn Welling’s
Award Winning Film, ELCX.
Ms. Thornton has been
teaching with Royal Academy of Fine Arts and served as The Bay Area
Houston Ballet and Theater's Contemporary Director for almost a decade.
She is currently on staff at L/A Dance Productions and Shawn Welling’s
Planet Funk, where she teaches, choreographs and performs throughout the
Houston Area. In addition, she conducts classes, workshops, company and
individual choreography projects as well as concert works throughout the
Southwest and surrounding areas. In 1998, Amber was the recipient of the
Monticello Scholarship for her choreographed work, “Unzipped Entropy”, at
the Regional Dance America Festival where her works have been performed
many times, including the 2001 National Gala. Amber has been honored for
her choreography, as her RDA/SW 2002 piece, Portraying Picasso, as well as
her 2004 piece, Twenty-Nine was selected for the National Choreography
Plan, which is a National Endowment of the Arts program to recognize and
support artistic and choreographic excellence. Her choreography has also
been seen at many benefits, fund-raising events, and festivals, both
locally and nationally including George Bush’s Governor's Ball.
Erika
“Chucke” Peña
Chucke’s Choreography
Erika
“Chucke” Peña has been dancing since she was six years old. Chucke
trained in ballet, modern dance, jazz and tap and started her own dance
company when she was just 14. Since then she has studied dance at the
University of Sam Houston and in NYC at the Broadway Dance Center and
S.T.E.P.S. Chucke later trained with Gilbert Rome, Planet Funk Dance
Company in Dallas (under the instruction of Geno), Perri Dance Company,
Dance Sport, NYC Dance Company, Limone Dance Company, and the Sara Carey
Modern Dance Company on Broadway. When Chucke returned to Houston she
worked with Destiny’s Child, Sygnature and Junior World Ballroom Champion
Corky Ballas.
While
choreographing quinceañeras, Chucke found that once the event was over,
the young participants often had no outlet to express their desire to
dance. Inspired by her father, Chucke opened her dance studio in August
2003. She took the exceptionally talented people she trained for
quinceañeras and gave them further training and the opportunity to foster
their love of dance. Starting with five boys in March 2004, Chucke founded
her competitive dance troupe. The group grew to include girls and now
numbers more than thirty dancers
Michelle Smith
Houston Metropolitan Dance Company
Executive Director Michelle Smith has a background of over 24 years of
ballet training including the New York City Ballet and San Francisco
Ballet. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Texas Christian
University where she also performed at Summer Stock/Casa Manana Musical
Playhouse earning roles in "Grease," "Oklahoma," and "Chicago." After
college she joined the Delia Stewart Dance Company working first as
principal dancer and then as Manager of the Company and Director of the
School. She established a children’s program and diversified the adult’s
program that became the base for the Houston Metropolitan Dance Center.
She taught children and adults for over 25 years believing that dance
creates self-esteem and discipline that overflow into everyday life.
Tesia
Truitt
Shawn Welling’s Planet Funk
Tesia has
been making waves in the entertainment world as director for Shawn
Welling’s Planet Funk since the summer of 1998. Tesia choreographs large
corporate shows for Planet Funk and teach local performance companies the
latest genre in the pop culture. Appearing on film, commercials, and at
the least, over 500 live performances, her expertise in all forms of dance
have enabled her to guest teach and choreograph nationwide. Her classes
and workshops attract many students from beginner to professional levels.
Tesia has had the pleasure to dance for artists such as Frankie J, Baby
Bash, Blu Cantrell, Neil Young and open up for hip hop leaders Lil Bow
Wow, Fabulous, Da Brat, LL Cool J, Black Eyed Peas, and Stacy Orrico. She
is a former WNBA Houston Comets Team NRG dancer and NBA Houston Rockets
Power Dancer for 6 years. Tesia just returned from a 32 city tour with
Planet Funk opening for “the Roots”.
Rhonda Valencia
FLYKids
Rhonda
Valencia has taught school for 28 years and started a dance program at
Morris Fifth Grade three years ago. She is currently the director of the
brand new FLYKids.
Marlana Walsh
Houston Metropolitan Dance Company
Company Manager Marlana Walsh, going into her 5th season with
the Met, is originally from Massachusetts and graduated from Point Park
University in 2001 with a BA in Dance. Her choreography has been
presented at ACDFA, International Summer Dance Festival, AIDS Benefit,
HMDC Met Too, Industrials including Houston’s Levi Strauss/Wal Mart
Fashion Show and most recently Sam Houston State University. Marlana has
performed at the Texas Contemporary Dance Festival, Lubbock Arts Festival,
Dallas Morning News Festival, Jazz Dance World Congress, Choreographers
X6, Texas Tanz, Big Range Dance Festival Cabaret Show, Pink! The Musical,
Midwestern Arts Conference, Ft. Worth Dance Festival and Collin County
Dance Fusion. Marlana fills her time teaching and choreographing at dance
schools throughout the Houston area.
Shawn
Welling
Shawn Welling’s
Planet Funk
Shawn
Welling is the chief director of Planet Funk, which he founded 15 years
ago. Shawn’s career as a performer & choreographer began at the NBA World
Championship games for the Houston Rockets in 1994 and continued with NFL
& NHL half-time shows, concert openings, stage productions, music videos,
over 60 TV appearances, and master dance classes throughout the US.
Performance highlights includes Cirque du Soleil “Dralion”, Good Morning
America, 2 ABC dance specials (one submitted for an Emmy) with Debra
Duncan, and an NBC TV special with radio and TV personality Sam Malone. In
2000 Welling built Planet Funk Academy, which recently aired on the Bravo
network in a 5-week series that was also highlighted on “The Oprah Winfrey
Show” to a 5 million viewing audience. Shawn has recently produced a
variety of successful master classes for the Disney Lion King dancers, the
cast for the Broadway hit Oliver, and MTV star Wade Robson.
Shawn and his talented team are regular performers in
Houston’s Downtown Theater District and for local celebrities like Roger
Clemens. Recently, Shawn and 2 of his dancers visited with President
George Bush senior in his office in regards to the acclaimed 2-hour
rendition of Planet Funk's latest show “Electric Light Circus” which aided
in the Tsunami Relief. H.P., Apple Computer, NASA, United Way, Second
Baptist Church, Girl Scouts of America, and ConocoPhillips resemble the
wide variety of clients that have hired Shawn, his company, and dedicated
directors.
Janie
Yao
Dance of Asian America
Janie Yao trained with Mitsi
Dancing School and the Houston
Ballet in Chinese Classical and Folk Dance and Ballet. Ms. Yao is a
certified teacher of the Beijing Dance Academy Chinese Dance Syllabus.
She earned a BFA in Dance Performance from the Meadows School of the Arts
at Southern Methodist University in Ballet, Modern and Jazz. During her
studies, Ms. Yao worked with numerous world renowned dancers and master
choreographers and choreographed works for the Meadow’s Brown Bag Series.
Her choreography has been invited to prestigious events such as Dallas
Morning News: Dance for the Planet, grand opening of Cirque de Soleil:
Dralion, and the grand opening of the Meadows Museum of Dallas with the
King and Queen of Spain. She is the Founding Executive/Artistic Director
of Dance of Asian America (DAA), a non-profit dance company established in
2001. DAA reaches over 35,000 people annually through two performances at
the Miller Outdoor Theatre, a performance at the Hobby Center for the
Performing Arts, and numerous community outreach programs for schools (K –
12), hospitals, senior homes, festivals, and community events.